The March Madness Guide to How To Pick the Cinderella Team

Contributing Editor – Matthew Fabian

As spring approaches, so does arguably one of the most exciting couple of weeks in sports, March Madness.  While Superbowl Sunday gets the most hype, nothing equals the thrill of last second heroics and nail biting action of the annual NCAA college basketball tournament.  As selection Sunday approaches on March 14th, office pools begin to heat up and everyone has an opinion on who will win, who will be this year’s Cinderella team and what system works best to pick the winners.  There are many websites, guides and experts that all endeavor to pick the winners, most of the time these don’t fare much better than just picking with your heart.  So, if you want to impress family and friends and, maybe, best your husband in his office pool (and especially if your television will be perpetually tuned to the games over the two week period anyway), we offer a quick primer on how to pick a winning bracket.  It won’t guarantee you success, but these tips will help you be more competitive.

1. Experts know just a little bit more than you do.  Yes they are experts, and they pour over hundreds of statistics and odds, but historically they don’t do much better than the national average so don’t just copy an expert’s picks.  Plus, half the fun is picking through the brackets using whatever system you want (I’ve known pool winners that picked based on colors, team names or cities they like better).
2. Pick your Alma Mater if they are in the tournament – just do it, you’ll avoid the ridicule from your alumni friends and, if they do well, the guilt of abandoning school pride.
3. You can’t fight history, here are some rules that have held true over the course of time;
* A #1 seed has NEVER lost to a #16 seed in the history of the tournament so don’t pick against them (unless your alma mater IS the #16 seed and the guilt from #2 above is too much to bear)
* #2 seeds have lost only 4 times in the first round – they’re a safe bet
* #9 seeds have historically had a better winning average than their #8 seed opponent in the first round, so look for a couple of upsets each year in these match-ups
* Looking for upsets?  For some reason, the most upsets have occurred with #12 and #13 seeds beating #5 and #4 seeds respectively.  Pick 1 or 2 upsets within these match-ups and cross your fingers.
4. Respect the historical powerhouses.  There are just some programs that do well in this tournament no matter where they are seeded.  You can rarely go wrong picking Duke, Kansas, Kentucky or North Carolina to advance at least through the first two rounds.
5. Upsets happen (see #3), but once you get past the 2nd round the tournament tends to favor the higher ranked teams.  So pick your upsets early, but stick with the top seeds to go far – they were ranked that highly for a reason.
6. Pick your Cinderella team.  Almost every year there’s a program not expected to do well that exceeds tournament expectations and become the darlings of the tournament (no one heard of Gonzaga until their magical run in 1999).  Try and pick your Cinderella – it’s usually a long shot, but you’ll be grinning ear to ear if they manage to pull off some victories.
7. Have fun!  At the end of the day it’s a sport and maybe you win some or lose some, the bottom line is that you may have fun and perhaps start an annual household tradition.  At minimum it gives you a rooting interest while the rest of the family is gathered around the television.

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March Madness General Information, Ticket, Travel & Party Planning Guide

National College Atheltic Association – NCAA

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The guys who put this whole thing together.  They have EVERYTHING you need to know about the games.

free bracket match up here

Ticket and Accommodation Packages

Travel Hint:  If you are going to Indianapolis just for the fun of it, go only up until Saturday unless you have your team playing in the finals.  The atmsophere, however great, is like a zoo and you might just have more fun have a blowout HOOP la party somewhere else.

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Looking for some party ideas?  This by Comedian, Bill Lobley, but he has some cool basic party ideas.