It’s March, that means it’s time to make your brackets without embarrassing yourself.
Here are 3 steps to help you make the ultimate March Bracket:
- Matchups- Matchups make upsets. Don’t forget this piece of advice as it will help you when making all of your tournament decisions. If a team can’t shoot and facing a team that is a great shooting team, look to see if the teams are evenly experienced. If so, take the team that can shoot and is experienced. In college basketball, any team can get hot or go cold for any individual games. Teams that have trouble shooting can make a run in the tournament, but these teams are more likely to get upset. The biggest example of this is UMBC over Virginia. A lower seeded team, that has couple good shooter that get hot, beat the higher seeded defensive team, which had trouble scoring consistently. If you like a certain matchup, don’t be afraid to go out on a limb. Mathcups are one of the few
- Underdogs – It’s fun to pick the underdog, but picking them takes two criteria. Those criteria are upperclassmen and shooting. When looking for any upset special in March, look for teams with experienced players and shooters. Reliable shooting can keep any team in any basketball game, especially with erratic play that comes with the college game. Feel confident about the underdogs you take, but don’t pick every game to be an upset. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the lower seeded teams and pick the teams have a very good or great attribute.
- Coaching doesn’t matter in the 1st two rounds – The majority of mistakes made in brackets are made when picks are made because of a coach. Coaching is more important later in the tournament as the players get acclimated to tournament environment and talent level evens out. Every year in the tournament, there are teams that can’t adjust to the tournament atmosphere or overlook their opponent. You can never predict how players will react in tournament, especially with large amount of one-and-dones. Every great coach has lost a first or second round game, which is why coaches shouldn’t influence your early round choices. Matchups make upsets, especially in early in the tournament. Coaching is something you should start to worry about as we get later into the tournament. Then and only then, is it time to use coaches and their history, as a criteria in your pick.
Follow these 3 steps and you can make yourself a winner in March