How to Win Your NCAA Office PoolGet yourself a
real set of brackets. For some reason, most places (including CBS Sportsline) post brackets that show only the regional finals locations. For example, you see that North Carolina and Duke play in the Syracuse and Austin regionals; what you don't see is that they both get to play in Charlotte the first two rounds. Those are gimmes.
The team that looks to have gotten sandbagged in the first round with a tough opponent due to the location is Arizona. They face Utah State in Boise. Definitely one to consider as an upset in the first round, especially since they come up against Oklahoma State in the third round.
One of my keys is not to try to catch the Cinderella. I tend to pick the chalk, but not by seeding or won/lost record. I look at the team's
predictor rating at Sagarin and make adjustments for road/home equivalents. Note particularly that the teams show at Sagarin's USA today site are not arranged by Predictor, but rather his "Rating" which combines two different methods. But note what Sagarin himself says:
In ELO CHESS, only winning and losing matters; the score margin is of no consequence, which makes it very "politically correct". However it is less accurate in its predictions for upcoming games than is the PURE POINTS, in which the score margin is the only thing that matters. PURE POINTS is also known as PREDICTOR, BALLANTINE, RHEINGOLD, WHITE OWL and is the best single PREDICTOR of future games.I'm a heck of a lot more interested in the best single predictor of future games than being politically correct. Here are the top 10 teams in Predictor:
NC 98.90
Duke 94.56
Illinois 93.07
OKS 92.74
Louisville92.54
Wake 91.39
Fla 91.33
Wash 90.95
OK 90.50
Ky 90.41
And the next 10
Michigan State 90.14
Kansas 90.05
UConn 88.73
GT
ech 88.60
Bama 88.12
Villanova 87.78
AZ 87.57
Syracuse 86.74
Texas Tech 86.72
Cincy 86.71
As you can see, North Carolina is a strong favorite by the Sagarin predictor. They're more than four points better than Duke and almost six points ahead of the nominal tourney favorite, Illinois. I don't see a good reason not to pick the Tar Heels to go all the way this year, unless it's the semifinal matchup against Duke.
On the other side of the bracket is where the upset looks likely to happen. Illinois looks great, but they have Oklahoma State, the toughest two seed in the country at the end of the road, and the Cowboys get a free ride through to the third round, playing at Oklahoma City to start the tournament.
And Washington is obviously vulnerable. They have a very tough road. Boise should be safe for the first two rounds, but then they travel to Albuquerque which is a long way from home. Louisville gets two games at Nashville to start, although the second one is a test against Georgia Tech. And if Washington can get past the higher-ranked Cardinals, they'd face Wake Forest, which is ranked higher than the Huskies in Predictor.
K, so final four is North Carolina, Duke, Wake & Illinois. Take North Carolina over Wake in the finals. Best potential to surprise: Louisville.
