NCAA Bracket Theory

I've got a theory for my bracket this year that I'm going to try out. This only works for those bracket pools that reward people who pick upsets. Usually, in those pools you get the difference between the seeds in points. So if a 5 beats the 12 you get one point, but if the 12 beats the 5 you get seven points plus the one point for the win.

So here is my theory: I'm going to pick the top two seeds in each region to go all the way to the elite 8. From there I'll just pick who I think will win. In each of the first round games outside the top two seeds I will pick the upset. This way I am guaranteed to correctly pick the upset. Sure, I will get more than half of them wrong, but you can have six points for picking the correct team, I'll take the 10 points I'm getting from one game when a 13 beats a 4...which I'm guaranteed to get. So I've got to figure this will pay off, and if there aren't many upsets this year then hopefully it will break even.

For the second round I'm not going to pick upsets in every game. The reason is, if the 14 seed beats the 3, what are the chances they will win again in the second round...slim. So I will pick the 11 seed there. Chances are the 14 seed will not win, but if the 11 seed does and then they beat the 3 in the second round...I got the points. A 3 seed seems like a great choice for the Sweet 16, but since you only get 3 points from them in the first and second rounds combined I have to say it is worth the risk to punch them out in the first round.

I am expecting to get around 14 games right in the first round (1 and 2 seeds and 6 upsets)...hopefully there will be some 4 and 5 seeds go down which will lend major points. Then in the second round I'm expecting to get 9 or 10 right (1 and 2 seeds and 1 or 2 upsets)...not much but at least I should get some middle of the road points in the second round...the first round is where I hope to make up the most points. Then it's all high seeds the rest of the way out. We'll see how it goes.

JB