Interesting perception how a 7 seed vs 2 seed sounds a lot more David and Goliath than 29th ranked vs 7th ranked but it's effectively the same thing.
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NCAA Bracket Facts...
- Thread starter dahliaclone
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Interesting perception how a 7 seed vs 2 seed sounds a lot more David and Goliath than 29th ranked vs 7th ranked but it's effectively the same thing.
Does the Purdue train run over the Tenn volunteer...or is the volunteer crafty enough to highjack the train?
My thing is looking for teams with weaknesses, and not trusting them.
Can't score points? Can't play defense?
Didn't make the tourney last year?
Small average margin of victory?
etc etc
Teams with flaws get beat. I look for teams with no flaws and those are my deep run picks. It's no guarantee, because most teams have multiple flaws. But it really helps with the later rounds, E8 and FF, helps tell the difference between a Gonzaga and a Kentucky.
Can't score points? Can't play defense?
Didn't make the tourney last year?
Small average margin of victory?
etc etc
Teams with flaws get beat. I look for teams with no flaws and those are my deep run picks. It's no guarantee, because most teams have multiple flaws. But it really helps with the later rounds, E8 and FF, helps tell the difference between a Gonzaga and a Kentucky.
The crazy thing is an MSU, FSU, Virginia, Iowa State Final Four isn't that implausible, especially compared to their other brackets.
Outside of Farleigh Dickinson, you could probably convince me that the mascot one is legit.
yep, that's the only problem I see
There's always geography. Closer teams to the venue bring more fans. Especially if the team more distant is a high seed; fans decide to wait to attend a later game closer to campus in the next round or two.
Probably nothing too revealing about this thinking but it has come true enough for me to always consider it fairly early.
Probably nothing too revealing about this thinking but it has come true enough for me to always consider it fairly early.
The early matchup of a grizzly bear vs an alligator may have been my favorite, they said grizzly wins but I'm not so sure.
Is grizzly bear apex predator (non human) animal mascot?
Also "sun devils" and "blue devils"...I mean that could be a lot of power if it's an actual devil. You could argue the devil could somehow beat a cyclone or just about anything else, I mean it's biblical power.
Well, if the cyclone had sucked up some holy water right before running into one of them there devils...
Poor Maryland. Unless they are facing someone with a plant-based mascot, they don't stand a chance.
Yeah Cyclone can be act of god as well, some of these other teams they have "devil" losing to though I'm not so sure. Would probably be easier to have a pure method without Duke and ASU.
I came across some actual banana slugs camping this year and I'm pretty sure UC Santa Cruz is last place among animal mascot physical power.
I found the Cavaliers vs Volunteers match-up particularly interesting. Volunteers can be a scrappy bunch.
I guess maybe they gave it to cavaliers because it implies horses as a built in thing where the volunteer could be with or without horses?
Virginia is 0-2 against dog mascots (UMBC Retrievers last year and Gonzaga Bulldogs 2001) They play the Gardner Webb Runnin' Bulldogs in the first round.
The 10-to-Sweet 16 I tend to use once per tournament. The risk of course, is losing that 7/10 and also won't have the 2 seed available, danger if it goes chalky to Elite 8.
I almost always pick at least two 10's over 7's, though.
I choose at least one 11 over 3 and one 11 to Sweet 16.
And the popular 5-12.
The trick is figuring out which of those low seeds to choose, of course
I feel that since the tournament moved from 64 to 68, the higher seeds are slightly more vulnerable as we witnessed with Virginia last year. Two of the worst 16's get knocked out in the first four making two teams that would normally be 15's seeded as 16's, and so on. It also allows an 11 seed to get a game under their belt and earn some momentum. Don't ignore the play-in teams because they usually win a game or two.
The year Iowa and Tennessee played in the PIG Tennessee was a hot pick because they were possibly the most overrated KenPom team of all time due to almost all of their losses being close. The cult of using KenPom to select the tournament would have had Tennessee at almost a 2 seed yet they were in the pig.
I'm not sure how I feel about picking a pig winner in brackets. Seems like cheating if you're allowed to pick that 11 seed pig winner without specifying who it's going to be. Maybe not cheating, but definitely not entirely accurate.
now is that based off of our name Cyclones (pretty much unstoppable (unless it runs out of steam)- is that the team this year? since they can restrengthen even stronger!
) or is that based off of Cy? either way its true though.
Picking upsets - particularly a bunch of them - seems problematic to me. If you pick an upset and miss it, that costs.....and if you pick the wrong upset you probably also miss picking the upset that actually occurs. So it's a double whammy. People make fun of those who chalk their bracket, but in the long run it's likely safer than guessing who's going to upset whom.
If you’re looking to cash in a pool I think you have to take a lot of chalk. With a few upsets here or there maybe take a sleeper 3 or 4 seed to the final four to separate from the others if your lucky. Taking big upsets early isn’t worth it with the way most brackets are scored. I realize a few top seeds might get knocked off but picking when this happens is difficult and likely you’ll miss out on easy points.
