March Madness Daily: Last Minute Bracket Tips
Which double-digit seed should you pick to make a Cinderella run? But also, No. 1 seeds usually win.
Welcome back to Club Sportico, where we break down the intersection of sports and money—with an extra bit of humor and opinion. Here’s a last-minute cheat sheet for your bracket:
But first! 🚨 There’s just a few hours left to join our men’s pool! (And 24 hours for the women’s.) Prizes will be given to the top-finishing paid Club Sportico member, but everyone is welcome to enter via ESPN! Join here 👇
Men’s Bracket Challenge: Click here
Women’s Bracket Challenge: Click here
Lev: I won my first ever men’s March Madness pool back in 2009, but I’ve only won once since, in 2019 (maybe it’s an every 10 years thing?), so I’m not sure you should listen to what I have to say about college basketball predictions. Nonetheless, I have a few interesting data trends to share as you frantically fill out your bracket.
There’s something about No. 11 seeds in March. 2024 NC State 🐺, led by DJ Burns (who went from first option on a Final Four team to fifth option on the Goyang Sono Skygunners 🌌🔫), was just the latest in a long line of over-performing No. 11s: 2021 UCLA 🐻, 2018 Loyola Chicago 🚶, and the OG 2006 George Mason 🇺🇸.
It’s not just the deep Cinderella runs, either. Nearly one No. 11 seed has reached the Sweet 16 per tournament since 2005, which is more than every other seed below No. 5.
The round of 64 numbers are pretty staggering too. No. 11 seeds are 37-39 (49%) in the first round in the past 20 years, better than No. 12 seeds (38%… not too bad either) and No. 10 seeds (37%), and even with No. 9 seeds (49%).
There are several reasons why No. 11 seeds have a leg up. Although they face a slightly tougher first round opponent than seeds No. 10 through 7, they get a significantly easier second round opponent in a No. 3 seed. They also delay a potential showdown with a dominant No. 1 seed (hold that thought) until the fourth round.
Additionally, these are the bubble teams, meaning they’re often power conference teams that underperformed in the regular season but have too much talent for the selection committee to ignore. Turns out talent usually wins in the end!
Furthermore, the addition of the First Four in 2011 has given two No. 11 seeds the advantage of getting momentum and a tournament win under their belts before the madness even starts.
All that being said, the idiotic way that most bracket scoring systems work (by awarding exponentially more points as the rounds go on, like 1-2-4-8-16-32, for example) makes all of this early round talk largely meaningless. Even though the first round is by far the most fun to pick and watch, basically the only thing that matters for winning your pool is getting the finals right. (I prefer a Fibonacci system, such as 2-3-5-8-13-21, or even better, awarding extra points for picking lower seeds.)
So at the end of the day, pick No. 1 seeds. In the past two decades, we’ve had 22 finalists that were No. 1 seeds, compared to just four No. 2 seeds, four No. 3 seeds and two No. 4 seeds. Top seeds have won 13 of the past 17 titles.
Feel free to get cute in the early rounds. Take a heat check and pick a No. 11 to ride to the Elite Eight. But don’t mess around with your championship pick.
Programming note: We’ll be sending daily business nuggets throughout the NCAA tournaments. If that’s not your thing, you can opt out of daily March Madness posts by updating your settings here or with the button below. We’ll return to normal programming in April.
Club Sportico is a community organized by Sportico, a digital media company launched in 2020 to cover the business side of sports. You can read breaking news, smart analysis, and in-depth features from Eben, Jacob and their colleagues at Sportico.com, and listen to the Sporticast podcast wherever you get your audio. Contact us at club@sportico.com.