Tips for picking your March Madness brackets

If you sit down to fill out a bracket and have a moment where you say to yourself “What am I doing?”, you’re not alone. There are a lot of games to pick, and you don’t want to simply pick the higher seed every game. How do you pick your spots for upsets while keeping the teams that will make it deep into the tournament?

Here are a few tips you can keep in mind while filling out your men’s and women’s March Madness brackets.

Advertisement

1. Pick a 1-seed to be your champion

On the men’s side, 26 of the 40 national champions have been 1-seeds. That’s not a massive percentage, but consider that the next most is the 2-seed with five, and you’ll see that picking one of the favorites is the way to go.

Top seeds are an even better bet in the women’s bracket, making up 23 of the 31 champions since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1994.

2. But, don’t have every 1-seed make the Final Four

Last year was a rarity that saw all four 1-seeds make the men’s Final Four. It was only the second time that has happened since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985. The top teams are very strong this season, but at least one is likely to fall short of Indianapolis.

Advertisement

All four women’s 1-seeds making it to the Final Four is also rare. It has only happened four times since 1982, although three have come in the last 14 years (2012, 2015 and 2018).

3. Consider when to have a 2-seed fall early

All four No. 2 seeds have made the Sweet 16 in only three of the last 28 men’s tournaments. Last year was the first time since 2007 that three 2-seeds made the Elite Eight.

Only 65 of the possible 124 2-seeds have made the Elite Eight since 1994 on the women’s side, so picking two to go out before the Elite Eight is smart.

4. Trying to pick that one Cinderella is a risky move

Since 2001, 25 teams from non-power conferences have made the men’s Sweet 16 as a double-digit seed per FOX Sports. That works out to about one per year, which sounds like a solid proposition until you remember that there are 28…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/tips-picking-march-madness-brackets-170426725.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-03-17 17:04:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.