March Madness Bracket Strategy Part 2

We are just one day away from March Madness! If you haven't yet, make sure to read part one of this series where I broke down the basic strategy for filling out a bracket as well as how to choose a winner. In part two, I primarily focus on not just the best plays to win the tournament, but also how to find the best value in each round based on real-time pick data from TeamRankings. How does that work and what does it mean?

You need to differentiate your bracket from that of your opponents in order to win your pool. The goal of utilizing this data is to find the smartest ways to be different. The way I’ll do this is by looking at how often the public is picking teams to advance or win, and comparing that to TeamRankings’ win probability models. TeamRankings does a great job outlining this here. They list each team’s probability to win, public pick rate, the difference between the two (leverage), as well as the “impact” of picking this team. It’s sortable by round, team, seed, etc. This type of analysis can be applied not only in the first round but also to the rest of the tournament and can help us determine the best values. Let’s start with the most-picked teams to win the tournament, according to TeamRankings’ data.

Public Pick Percentage to Win the Tournament

1. Gonzaga: 35%
2. Illinois: 16.6%
3. Baylor: 9.8%
4. Michigan: 8.8%
5. Ohio State: 3.7%

Not too many surprises here, as all four No. 1 seeds are at the top. TeamRankings believes Gonzaga’s win probability is 29%, but other models such as The Power Rank have it at 51.2%. As I mentioned in Part 1, a team of Gonzaga’s caliber and dominance would normally garner a 50%+ pick rate and is the best team in KenPom’s database. Getting them with only a 35% pick rate to be the champion seems light.

TeamRankings' Highest Odds to Win the Tournament

1. Gonzaga: 29.8%
2. Illinois: 14.9%
3. Baylor: 6.8%
4. Iowa: 6.0%
5. Ohio State: 4.7%

TeamRankings is a lot higher on Iowa and Ohio State than I am, and a bit lower on Michigan. I outlined my concerns about both Iowa and Ohio State’s defenses in Part 1. With skilled forward Isaiah Livers out indefinitely, TeamRankings might be rightfully low on Michigan.

Highest Tournament Champion Leverage

1. Iowa: 3%
2. Houston: 2.3%
3. Alabama: 1.4%
4. Creighton: 1.2%
5. Colorado: 1.2%

There isn’t truly a huge edge here as the biggest margin is just 3%. I do think it’s worth noting that Houston is only being picked as the winner in 2.3% of tournaments and picked 6.7% of the time to make the Final Four. They meet all the statistical guidelines of past champions considering they are well balanced on both offense and defense and rank top-six in overall adjusted efficiency margin.

Highest Leverage for the Entire Tournament

1. Utah State to Make the Round of 32
   • TR Odds: 41.8%
   • Public Pick Rate: 21.6%
   • Leverage: 20.2%
2. Abilene Christian to Make the Round of 32
   • TR Odds: 21.8%
   • Public Pick Rate: 4%
   • Leverage: 17.8%
3. LSU to Make Sweet 16
   • TR Odds: 28.8%
   • Public Pick Rate: 11.1%
   • Leverage: 16.9%
4. UConn to make Sweet 16
   • TR Odds: 29.8%
   • Public Pick Rate: 14%
   • Leverage: 15.8%
5. Colorado to Make Sweet 16
   • TR Odds: 35.4%
   • Public Pick Rate: 20.9%
   • Leverage: 14.5%

Anything over 10% should be considered legitimate leverage over the field, especially when your pool has 50-100 people. Let's take a deeper look at each of these leverage plays.

Utah State (No. 11 Seed, South)

Utah State is one of my favorite early bets—Matt Gajewski also has them as one of his top Cinderella teams in this year’s tournament. This data only confirms that, as TeamRankings' odds give them a 41% chance to advance, while only 20.2% of bracket-enthusiasts have chosen them to upset Texas Tech. Maybe a 41% chance is a bit aggressive but KenPom puts it at 39%, betting markets have them at 37% and The Power Rank has it at 35%. Even at the lowest, this is still roughly a 15% difference between projected win probability and pick rate.

Abilene Christian (No. 14 Seed, East)

I was surprised to see Abilene Christian so high in this metric. A 21.8% chance to advance felt high considering the differences between these two teams. When diving in deeper, betting markets actually give Abilene Christian a 22.9% chance to advance as +336 underdogs. A lot of this also has to do with the public only selecting them 4% of the time. I wouldn’t advocate taking them in small or even medium-sized bracket pools, but in pools with more than 100 people they might be worth a look as a chance to differentiate in the early rounds.

LSU (No. 8 Seed, East)

Things get a little tricky with LSU advancing to the Sweet 16. Barring a miracle 16-1 upset, the Tigers would have to beat an under-seeded No. 9 St. Bonaventure in the Round of 64 and then beat No. 1 seed Michigan. LSU is a good team, but I’m not sure I like this pick too much. LSU is just -125 (55.6%) to beat the Bonnies and they would then also be underdogs versus the Wolverines. The futures market has them at +340 to make the Sweet 16, which converts to a 22.8% chance of making it. Even with Livers out for Michigan, I’m not really considering this as a viable pivot outside of bigger pools.

UConn (No. 7 Seed, East)

UConn is an interesting pick to make a deep run as a No. 7 seed. They rank 16th overall in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency margin, 24th in adjusted offense, 25th in adjusted defense, and have a likely top-10 pick in James Bouknight at guard. TeamRankings gives them a 29.8% chance to advance to the Sweet 16, which would require wins over No. 10 seed Maryland and (most likely) No. 2 seed Alabama. They are installed as three-point favorites over the Terrapins but their matchup against the Tide will be tough. While I believed LSU and Abilene Christian weren’t strong leverage plays, UConn makes a lot of sense in medium-or-larger sized pools.

Colorado (No. 5 Seed, East)

Colorado is a strong squad being underrated by the public due to their first-round matchup against Georgetown. The Hoyas are coming off a dominant Big East tournament run where they allowed opponents to score only 49, 71, 58 and 48 points against them. Their season-long metrics are extremely average (85th in adjusted offense and 41st in adjusted defense) but they are hot—and people like that. The betting markets are actually more bullish on the Buffaloes making the Sweet 16 than TeamRankings is, listing them at +170 to make the Sweet 16 (37.4%).

Thanks for reading and be sure to check out our other March Madness content including the first part of this series and Matt Gajewski’s Cinderella Teams article!