Everything you need to know about this March Madness tournament + Bets
Last year as a fun idea I put together a March Madness guide of sorts on Stealing Lines more as a passion project. My expertise obviously isn’t in this field but it’s something I’ve followed closely for as long as I remember and have had some success with in the past.
For those that read the guide last year, there isn’t going to be a ton of new information per se. It’s more going to be reinforcing the ideas of what we are looking for and then tailoring that to this specific year.
2023 March Madness Recap
Last year went about as awesome as we could’ve imagined. Just by simply placing bets in the futures market we were able to be up 13.85 units on the tournament alone.
For those who used this guide for their march madness brackets likely did very well. I only had three brackets all of which finished in the 89th percentile or higher with my top one finishing as high as 99.6th percentile.
We hit on our only championship bet with UConn +1800 and also had an insane hit of Florida Atlantic at +4000 to make the Final Four out of the region.
We mentioned as a whole last year that the tournament might have been the weakest we have seen in some time and that naturally lead to a lot more upsets and a bit more unconventional things happening.
Connecticut was far and away the best team in the tournament and had arguably the most dominating March Madness of all-time for a team. While they certainly were a great team, the teams along their path had red flags that allowed for easier matchups than most teams get on their way to winning it all.
Now we certainly can’t expect to run as pure as we did last year, but we can use the same principals and profiles that helped guide our thinking and process towards success.
Overview of the Tournament
Contrary to last year where on paper it was a very weak tournament overall in terms of powerhouse teams, this year we’re back to a “normal” year where we have a few teams at the top that check all the boxes for a national champion.
Because last year was so chaotic that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be as much chaos this year. If we view last year simply as an outlier that brought us ZERO top three seeds into the Final Four rather than a trend we will likely be much better off.
One of the reasons that March Madness is so awesome is because of the chaos, but a lot of times when we view things from a historical perspective a lot can be explained as “controlled chaos”.
This is more of the sense that understanding not just ANYTHING can happen. Like we’re not going to see a 16 seed waltz their way into the Final Four or we’re not going to see a 10 seed win it all.
It’s chaotic in the sense that in a one game sample any team can beat anyone on any given day. We can see fun or big upsets happen in the first round because of this dynamic at play.
And sometimes things become even more chaotic in a sense where a team that had a massive upset can sometimes parlay that into another big upset and end up advancing much further than we thought.
This happens all the time as referenced by Florida Atlantic making the Final Four last year or Saint Peters making a fun run to the Elite Eight a couple years ago.
All of that is certainly chaotic but it’s chaotic within reason.
What is controlled chaos and how can we use it to our advantage?
It’s simply using data to our advantage and studying past March Madness tournaments to find similarities between teams or trends we can find to help really have a sense of controlling this chaos.
When we start to understand this idea it makes putting together a bracket or making bets on the tournament very simplistic.
We must embrace the idea that crazy and unexpected stuff will happen and carefully choose and pick spots where we think that is most likely to happen.
By having a structure of specific profiles that tend to perform well in the tournament and also realize which teams tend to falter or get upset early, it can really start to dwindle our true choices for who will likely be left standing as the winner.
The chaotic aspect is that teams that could profile perfectly could get upset early on and teams that have red flags can still advance. But simple probability and history shows that the longer these teams stay alive in the tournament the more likely that variance is no longer on their side.
For those unfamiliar with the concept of variance let’s just use a quick example of a six sided dice.
Let’s classify a “win” as rolling any number that is a 1-5 and a “loss” as rolling a 6.
If we rolled this dice 100 times it would be basically impossible that the dice would roll the number “6” more times than 1-5 combined.
But if we simply roll this dice one time and decided a winner based on it suddenly the “6” has a chance to win.
This is essentially the phenomenon and the fun part of this tournament is we get these one game samples where anything can happen.
And in order for some truly historic things to happen with under-seeded teams making deep runs a lot of times it requires rolling the number “6” multiple times over again against all odds. It’s not impossible that this would happen, but very unlikely.
And obviously as the tournament progresses things naturally tend to take shape more and it becomes more controlled in the sense that the teams remaining are generally some of the better teams in the country.
What does a National Champion look like?
National Champions tend to have a few things in common.
They’re usually one of the top offensive and defensive teams in the country with very few weaknesses. Shocker!
Let’s look a little deeper though into what exactly we are looking for and which teams this year would qualify.
Offense Matters!
Dating back to 2002 using Kenpom (the best site for college basketball info) we have seen 21 of the 22 (95%) National Champions finish in the top 21 of adjusted offensive efficiency.
I’d recommend checking out my buddy Connor Allen’s thread on what we are looking for in National Champions but I’ll reinforce some of the points here.
There are 19 teams currently in the bracket that fit this threshold of having a “good enough” offense to win it all.
What if we whittle it down even more?
14 of these 22 (64%) champions were top six in adjusted offense! It’s clear having an elite offense is a key component to winning the title.
Here are the current teams in the top six of adjusted offensive efficiency heading into the tournament:
Connecticut
Alabama
Illinois
Purdue
Kentucky
Baylor
Does this mean that these teams are now the most likely candidates to win it all?
Not necessarily.
Defense also matters!
Again dating back to 2002, all 22 national champions finished in the top 44 of adjusted defense efficiency.
Isn’t it such a wild concept that the team that wins it all is good on both offense and defense?
Being a one trick pony in the tournament can certainly win you games, but eventually you are going to go up against better teams who can play both offense and defense and you need a counterpunch to their strengths.
Weaknesses for teams get exposed especially against balanced teams who can win in multiple ways.
While the offensive side of things where we saw a 64% rate of champions being in the top six of offense, it’s much more scattered for defense.
What this means is offense is generally more predictable and having an elite or top 10 defense doesn’t matter as much.
Only 8 of the 22 winners (36%) had a top 10 defense.
It’s more “is your defense is good enough?” then that’s generally what we are looking for.
Who are our potential champions?
Based on a near perfect hit rate with a top 21 offense and top 44 defense here are teams who historically “could” win it just based off these two variables. We have 8 teams:
Connecticut (1st in off/11th in def)
Purdue (4th in off/21st in def)
Duke (7th in off/26th in def)
Arizona (8th in off/12th in def)
Auburn (10th in off/4th in def)
Creighton (12th in off/24th in def)
Houston (17th in off/2nd in def)
Marquette (21st in off/19th in def)
If you’re making a bracket or simply betting on a team to win it all, it’s extremely likely that the winner comes from this list above.
It should be noted that North Carolina is close to this list with the 24th offense and 6th defense and they wouldn’t be too crazy of an outlier if they did win it all.
Adjusted Efficiency Margin
Kenpom essentially does all the hard work for us and blends these teams offensive and defensive efficiency ratings into one metric called “Adjusted Efficiency Margin” (AEM).
19 of the past 22 (86%) winners finished with an AEM in the top 6 of all teams.
Those current teams are:
Connecticut
Houston
Purdue
Auburn
Iowa State
Arizona
Which teams check all the boxes?
Ideally when looking at champions we want them to have a top six offense and a good enough defense to win it all.
There are two teams who fit these qualifications of “perfect” candidates to hoist the trophy at the end:
Connecticut
Purdue
In terms of overall profiles were are looking for there aren’t any blemishes or holes in each of these teams and they set themselves apart in terms of “favorites” to win it all.
If you’re creating a bracket it would probably make sense to have one of these two teams to win it all.
What does a Final Four team look like?
Now that we know the type of teams in which win it all, let’s see what type of teams can make it all the way to the Final Four.
As you likely would’ve guessed all the same principals generally align, but certainly the thresholds are much more flexible.
Some quick data and stats on what we have seen from Final Four teams in advanced efficiency margin the last 22 tournaments:
72 of 84 (86%) Final Four teams were top 15 in AEM
69 of 84 (82%) Final Four teams had an AEM of 22.0 or higher
52 of 84 (62%) Final four teams had an AEM or 25.0 or higher
63 of 84 (75%) Final four teams were top 10 in AEM
46 of 84 (55%) Final four teams were top 5 in AEM
For offense and defense:
68 of 84 (81%) Final four teams were top 30 in adj off
69 of 84 (82%) Final four teams were top 30 in adj def
56 of 84 (67%) Final four teams were top 30 in both adj off/def
81 of 84 (96%) Final four teams were top 30 in either adj off or def
45 of 84 (54%) Final four teams were top 10 in adj off
42 of 84 (50%) Final four teams were top 10 in adj def
66 of 84 (79%) Final four teams were top 10 in either adj off/def
61 of 84 (73%) Final four teams were top 20 in adj def
60 of 84 (71%) Final four teams were top 20 in adj off
41 of 84 (49%) Final four teams were top 20 in both adj off/def
10 of 84 (12%) Final four teams were outside of top 50 in either adj off/def
19 of 35 (54%) Teams in both top 10 adj off and def made final four
The main things to take from this is you need to be balanced.
Only 12% of Final Four teams were outside the top 50 in either offense or defense.
And you need to be elite at one thing. The fact that 79% of Final Four teams were top 10 in either offense or defense is very important!
When going region by region we will use this data to help better understand which teams have chances at making runs to the Final Four in each specific region.
Just seeing these stats show how much of an outlier last year was for the tournament.
Miami had the 2nd lowest AEM of any Final Four team since 2003.
FAU was one of three teams to make the Final Four despite being outside the top 30 in both offensive and defensive efficiency.
San Diego State had the 4th worst adjusted offense of any team to make the Final Four.
Strength of Schedule
This year I came across some interesting stats regarding strength of schedule from Tim Holder’s “The Sheet” where he puts together an impressive tool for understanding a bunch about the teams in the tournament amongst other helpful things.
Using KenPom’s strength of schedule ranking, Tim found that dating back to 2003 81% of Final Four Teams were top 35 in strength of schedule while 91% of Final Four Teams were top 60 in strength of schedule.
This naturally makes sense because teams who play in power five conferences make up a majority of the top teams in the field each and every year. They’re constantly playing against the top competition and this reflects that.
It’s also likely that the selection committee heavily weighs strength of schedule when giving out seeding to all the teams in the process, so the better teams are given higher seeds even if their record might be worse than other teams in the field. If you’re going against better teams with a few losses here and there that will look a lot better than constantly beating up on weak competition.
Most of the top teams in terms of seeding are within the top 35 this year.
I personally wanted to dive a little deeper into this topic to see if we could find a true “red flag” in a profile if a team had a weaker strength of schedule than what the threshold indicates.
How did these teams perform on average? Did they tend to get upset earlier? Did they simply fail to make deep runs?
I broke it down by the following:
Top six seed
Outside of the top 60 in strength of schedule
Here’s how they fared:
3 of 78 made Championship Game (4%)
4 of 78 made Final Four (5%)
9 of 78 made Elite Eight (12%)
27 of 78 made Sweet Sixteen (36%)
25 of 78 got upset Round One (32%)
59 of 78 got upset by a team seeded lower than them (76%)
8 of 42 seeds one-four made the Elite Eight (19%)
7 of the 17 seeds that were a 1 or 2 seed made it to the Elite Eight (41%)
I found it surprising that there were 25 instances of a 3 or 4 seed fitting this criteria yet only ONE of them made it to the Elite Eight. And that specific instance was three seeded Arkansas when they faced 15 seeded Oral Roberts in the Sweet Sixteen (and almost lost) to advance to the Elite Eight.
The average percentage that a random one through four seed makes it to the Elite Eight is 38% but we see teams with softer strength of schedules make it half as often.
This trend follows similarly if we look at just at one or two seeds as 57% of these teams on average make it to the Elite Eight, but only have 41% here in the sample.
It should be noted that this is a small sample and there are likely other variables at play, but in general this could be the difference in some tiebreakers between teams or help us open our eyes to potential blemishes in team profiles.
The teams this year that fit the criteria are:
Kentucky
Duke
South Carolina
St Marys
Gonzaga
Duke was generally a team that checked a lot of the boxes and this certain at least raises an eyebrow about their overall profile and how they might not be as strong as first thought.
Who are the teams we should consider avoiding?
We are really only going to focus on the top six seeds in each region here as they are generally viewed as the best teams. If we can spot blemishes in these teams then it should help us dwindle the field of who we should have advancing further in the tournament.
Iowa State is 55th in adjusted offense. Even as a two seed they’re likely a team that won’t perform as well in the tournament (more on them later).
Illinois is 93rd in adjusted defense. Despite being a three seed they’re unlikely to make a deep run.
Alabama is 112th in adjusted defense. They’re a potential team that may not make it out of the first weekend.
Baylor is 64th in adjusted defense.
Kentucky is 108th in adjusted defense. As a three seed they don’t have a strong profile.
San Diego St is 62nd in adjusted offense.
Kansas is 65th in adjusted offense.
Clemson is 67th in adjusted defense.
These are generally teams that won’t make it very far and now we have eight teams in which we can shy away from making it far in our brackets.
More red flags to watch out for
One of the most important, if not the most important aspect of creating a bracket or betting on this tournament becomes knowing which teams to avoid.
By knowing which type of teams historically don’t advance far into the tournament this can help us really hone in on the chaos and lean into scenarios in which can benefit us.
Last year we used this concept to bet on Florida Atlantic at 40/1 odds to make the Final Four as there were multiple top teams in their region in which had massive red flags historically.
Paper Tigers
These next two sections are going to be terms and profiles spotted and researched by Ken Barkley. In my opinion he’s the best in the industry in terms of spotting specific profiles in all futures markets and what to look for in these areas. Simply following his work has made me a much smarter (and richer) bettor.
I’ll give a quick breakdown of what a Paper Tiger is, but I’d recommend checking out Ken’s full piece on it right here.
There are three criteria a team has to hit in order to be a “Paper Tiger”:
Top six seed in your region
Top 25 raw offense
Outside the top 150 in raw defense
There’s been 28 teams to qualify as a Paper Tiger since 2002 and here were some of the results.
Only one of these teams have made a Final Four!
Miami finally broke the curse of the Paper Tiger last year in what we already have mentioned as the least top heavy tournament maybe ever.
And only four of these teams have even made an Elite Eight.
We doubled this number last year as both Miami and Gonzaga made the Elite Eight. Gonzaga seemingly lucked their way in after barely sneaking by both TCU and UCLA in games they should’ve lost while Miami went on an absolute heater last season.
The teams that made it far had some lucky matchup breaks that allowed them to even get that far.
Some of the more memorable upsets in the first and second rounds involve teams that were Paper Tigers including two 15 seeds upsetting a 2 seed in the first round.
It’s obviously around a similar point here that I’m trying to get across that teams must be balanced and the ones that aren’t historically get upset early.
We’re lucky this year because we have four Paper Tigers this season which is tied for the most in a single season over the past 21 years (last year also had four). So we have four teams we desperately want to fade.
Those teams are:
Alabama (2nd in raw offense/254th in raw defense)
Illinois (6th in raw offense/151st in raw defense)
Kentucky (5th in raw offense/211th in raw defense)
Baylor (15th in raw offense/157th in raw defense)
We already mentioned these teams as unlikely Final Four candidates, but we have to seriously consider the prospects of these teams potentially not even making it out of the first weekend.
If you’re in a bracket, I would refuse to have any of them going past the Sweet Sixteen. A lot would have to go right in order for them to advance far.
Not only that if you’re looking for fun leverage spots in a bracket having these teams getting upset in the 2nd round makes sense. If they don’t get upset and do end up winning it becomes unlikely they make a huge run and burn you for fading them.
If we see unexpected upsets early on in the tournament it will likely come from one of these teams on this list. I’m personally going to be betting all of these teams to not make the Sweet Sixteen on sportsbooks.
Late Bloomers
Another term coined by Ken amid a new research project he came across last year. He looked at all these teams over the last six years and I got inspired to add to the sample and have it going all the way back to 2008.
Ken goes into great detail about what constitutes a “Late Bloomer”, but I’ll give a quick explanation and some data regarding them.
The main theory is that teams that get hot in the final month of the season without showing similar success for a majority of the year tend to underwhelm in the tournament due to them likely being over-seeded due to the recent performances.
How this is define is by a cut off of a teams BartTorvik rankings before and after February 15th.
If a team was ranked 10 spots higher Post February 15th than they were in the first three months and were a top six seed in their region they would be considered a “Late Bloomer”.
There’s been 62 teams to qualify for this since 2008 and only ONE has made it to the Final Four.
26 of these 62 (42%) teams lost in the first game which is a pretty shocking number considering they’re all favorites and higher seeds.
42 of these 62 teams (68%) were eliminated by round two and didn’t advance to the Sweet Sixteen.
42 of these 62 teams (68%) were eliminated by an upset to a team with a worse seeding than them.
I wanted to see if there was a bigger difference if we expanded this to teams that jumped 20 spots in the rankings in this time frame to see if we would get a better result.
Only 9 of 25 teams (36%) lost in the first round, but 19 of 25 teams were eliminated by round 2 (76%).
This number jumps to 23 of 25 (92%) eliminated by the Sweet Sixteen and didn’t advance to the Elite Eight.
It should be noted Michigan here is a massive outlier. They made it to the Finals in 2018 after being 28th pre February 15th and 1st post February 15th.
They actually faced Houston in the second round and beat them by one point. This matters because Houston was also a massive Late Bloomer that season finishing 24 spots ahead of where they were Pre February 15th. Something had to give here.
Michigan (3 seed) went on to face a 7 seed, 9 seed and 11 seed on their way to the Finals before getting dismantled by 17 in the Championship. This is probably the luckiest run in NCAA history in terms of matchups and easily could’ve lost in the second round.
Who qualifies this year?
Creighton.
Creighton was 18th in the rankings prior to February 15th but since then they’ve been ranked 3rd exposing them as a “Late Bloomer”.
They actually check a lot of boxes in terms of being a balanced team, but this is a deathknoll for Creighton as it makes them in upset territory to not make it out of the first round.
In brackets I’m going to be staying away from them having a deep run.
Preseason AP Poll
Ken Pomeroy threw up an absolute banger of a tweet last year showing that teams who ended up as a one or two seed in the tournament despite not being ranked in the preseason AP poll failed miserably.
https://x.com/kenpomeroy/status/1635714859206852608?s=20
To put into simple stat perspective:
There’s been 38 teams that have qualified for this. Exactly ZERO have made the Final Four. This is extremely shocking considering these are one and two seeds!
The average wins for these teams is less than two.
For number one seeds there have been 13 who have qualified and they average 1.69 wins per tournament.
For number two seeds there have been 25 who have qualified and they average 1.48 wins. In fact 16 of these 25 (64%) teams didn’t even make it to the Sweet Sixteen!
We can clearly see how Purdue and Marquette did last year as Purdue became the second team ever to lose to a 16 seed and Marquette got upset by Michigan State in the second round.
The team who fits this profile this season is Iowa State.
They didn’t even receive a single vote for the poll just showing how low the expectations were for them this season.
My theory behind why these teams get upset early is pretty simple. The preseason AP poll is based on the talent profiles of teams as teams with better players and/or more experience will generally be viewed in a higher light.
So teams that are able to overcome this and be one of the better teams in the regular season are likely doing this due to solid team basketball and chemistry rather than having superstars with elite talent carry them to victory.
Iowa State might have one of the biggest red flag profiles in the entire tournament. They are such a massive fade in all of my brackets and we shouldn’t be shocked in the slightest if they get upset the first weekend.
1st Half Unders
I got exposed to this phenomenon a few years back by my buddies at the Sports Gambling Podcast and it has been some of the most electric and nerve wrecking bets of my life.
Dating back to 2011 the guys have bet the first half under in every (and only) round 1 game and have seen some awesome success.
There’s been 396 games in this sample and the results are great.
These bets are 225-157-14 for a 58.9% hit rate.
There’s simply no true individual analysis behind these plays and it’s just blind betting on the theory itself. But the theory behind them actually makes a ton of sense and has proven to work.
These teams are sometimes playing for the first time in over a week, in a new environment, heightened pressure of the tournament and against unfamiliar opponents. Because of this sometimes teams come out of the gate slow.
If you blind bet these each of the past 12 years you would have been up money in 9 of these 12 tournaments.
If you’re simply looking for some action in each game of the tournament this is certainly a fun way and smart way to do so. And if you’re doing this please make sure you’re doing your best to line shop. A lot of times these totals can differ as much as 1.5 points between books.
Be careful it’s not for the faint of heart.
East Region
Connecticut is the number one overall seed and for good reason. When looking at their profile they simply check every box we are looking for in a powerhouse team that can win it all.
They almost certainly feel like the favorite to win this region and with two of the higher seeds having red flags this opens up their ability to have a rather easy path. It’s super hard to pick against them as they’re the best team in the country and wouldn’t be shocking in the slightest if they roll through this tournament.
Auburn is the other team in this bracket that checks nearly all the boxes we are looking for. It’s a bit unfortunate that Auburn drew the short stick and got matched up with a potential Sweet Sixteen game against UConn.
I think Auburn offers a fun way to bet on a really good team who if they catch their stride and somehow get past UConn really has a rather easy path to the Final Four.
If I’m in bigger brackets, Auburn is a fun leverage play against Uconn this year.
We mentioned Iowa State as a massive red flag and we want to avoid them as much as possible.
Illinois as a three seed also has a glaring red flag with them being a Paper Tiger and having a weak defense. We also want to find a way to avoid them.
The issue is the bottom half of this region is very weak and arguably the weakest half of a region in the entire tournament.
So when we know that this is weak what we want to do is embrace the chaos and variance of what could happen here.
One of two things will happen in the bottom half of this region: Either a team with a red flag will advance further than normal due to how weak this part of the bracket is OR an unexpected team will sneak through and advance to the Elite Eight.
So who could that team be?
My guess is BYU.
BYU is ranked as a 6 seed but they’re under-seeded according to Kenpom as they have the 16th best rating in the country.
BYU doesn’t have many glaring weaknesses and has some fun parts to their profile. They boast an 11th ranked offense coupled with the 48th ranked defense.
This is certainly a type of profile that historically we see make the Elite Eight each and every year.
Who knows maybe it’s the winner of the Washington State or Drake game, but I think it’s harder to have conviction in each individual team considering they’re essentially both 50/50 to make it out of the first round.
And to be fair none of these other teams really strike me as anything special and outside of surprising for a game or two it’s hard to envision them as true threats.
Ultimately what I see happening in this region is the winner of Uconn/Auburn in the Sweet Sixteen (if they both make it) as the team that advances to the Final Four.
Having BYU to the Sweet Sixteen and even the Elite Eight in brackets might be the leverage play needed especially if our plan is to go a little more "chalky” this year.
Best bets
BYU to make the Elite Eight +500 (DraftKings)
Risk .5 units to win 2.5 units
Play to +450
BYU to make the Sweet Sixteen +185 (ESPNBet)
Risk .5 units to win .925 units
Play to +175
Illinois to NOT make the Sweet Sixteen +120 (Caesars)
Risk .5 units to win .6 units
Play to +100
Iowa State to NOT make the Sweet Sixteen +250 (Caesars)
Risk 1 unit to win 2.5 units
Play to +200
Auburn to win the region/make Final Four +500 (Fanduel)
Risk .5 units to win 2.5 units
Play to +425
South Region
This is a fun and interesting bracket where we get a fun blend of good teams but also potential uncertainty in this region.
Houston is the top team here and rightfully so. In terms of profile they check every single box we are looking for in a Final Four team and they don’t have a legit challenger with another perfect profile to compete with.
Duke is the other team I was originally keen on, but after finding out more about their strength of schedule red flag it’s enough to pump the brakes just a little bit.
Similar to the East region where the two best teams in Auburn and Uconn are on a colliding course early on in that region, we get similar vibes here.
Because of the overall weakness of this region (and tournament in general) if Duke were able to slip by Houston in the Sweet Sixteen it wouldn’t be totally shocking to see them make the Final Four.
They boast an elite offense and still a really strong defense, things we know are important come tournament time.
Marquette is the other team that is fairly interesting. Marquette reminds me of Gus Edwards in the sense where nothing he does really excites you, but somehow is always lurking and is able to take advantage of opportunity if there were chaos to happen.
Marquette truly has no red flags, but we wish they were more elite in either offense or defense for the tournament. We could look back on them from this bracket and you could tell me they got upset in the second round or made the Final Four and neither of those outcomes would shock me.
Generally I like betting on teams I have more conviction on, but their path is relatively easy and could be a fun leverage spot in this region.
Kentucky has a glaring red flag and I want nothing to do with them. I don’t think it’s out of the question that they fail to win even one game. Regardless, teams with their profile just really never make it far in the tournament unless literally everything breaks right for them. They’re exactly the type of team we want other people to have going far in their brackets while we can choose a fun spot for them to potentially not make it out of the first weekend.
Wisconsin is another team that doesn’t profile terribly, but also doesn’t excite us much due to their potential schedule.
They have one of the tougher matchups in the first round against James Madison. If they were to win likely Duke would be awaiting and then again Houston is in its path.
I have reservations that Wisconsin is good enough to make a deep run given the schedule. I don’t hate them but when making brackets and bets we need to heavily weigh the possibility that it’s totally possible they don’t win their first game. I’d much rather have Duke making the Sweet Sixteen.
Whoever makes it out of the Boise St and Colorado game I think has a legit shot at making a sneaky run to the Sweet Sixteen. Both are balanced teams and we’ve seen a trend of a First Four team winning at least one game in the tournament in all but one year since 2011.
Texas Tech is one of those teams that could benefit simply from the weak part of their region. It’s possible they matchup against a red flag Kentucky team in the 2nd round and also possible that they matchup against a 7 or 10 seed in the Sweet Sixteen should they make it that far.
This is the type of environment where we could maybe see an unexpected run to the Elite Eight for them. The biggest concern with them and actually putting this in brackets is that six seeds a lot of times don’t make it out of the first round and against a hot NC State team who knows.
I still will likely have them as a fun play to the Sweet Sixteen.
Overall if I’m in brackets I’m probably being very boring and putting in Houston here to make it, but I think you could easily make a case for Marquette if you wanted to.
Best Bets
Kentucky NOT to make the Sweet Sixteen +120 (Caesars)
Risk 1 unit to win 1.2 units
Play to +100
Oakland +14 vs Kentucky -110 (Caesars)
Risk 1.1 units to win 1 unit
Play to 12.5
Marquette to make the Elite Eight +205 (DraftKings)
Risk 1 unit to win 2.05 units
Play to +175
Midwest Region
Regardless of what happens with Purdue here it’s going to be absolutely hilarious. Either they finally break over the hump and make a deep run despite plenty of early round exits in the past years OR they get upset again in the early rounds and continue the trend of underwhelming in the tournament.
As funny as I think them losing would be, it’s really hard to make a legit case against Purdue this year simply other than the fact they never perform well in the tourney.
Last year was different as we heavily faded Purdue and it worked out in our favor, but this year they check all the boxes.
I don’t generally like fading good teams because of certain narratives. What I’ve seen to work in this industry is to trust the data and plug your nose even if past trends are a certain way.
A good example would be the narrative that Ohio State QBs never panned out in the NFL. And you would have been right up until CJ Stroud completely showed that not to be the case.
Essentially what I’m saying is the “Fade Purdue because they always suck in the tournament” narrative is pretty lazy and not accounting for each season individually. The last two years they had red flags and got upset because of that. This year they have no blemishes
And also because of this narrative it might actually give some leverage in brackets to pick them going very far and some people might not trust them.
When looking at the rest of the field in this region there’s a couple interesting options.
Both Gonzaga and Tennessee fit the mold of no true weaknesses with an elite offense or defense. Creighton is also a very balanced team.
Creighton on it’s face looked fine until we notice they’re a “Late Bloomer” and those teams generally end up fading out of the tournament pretty quickly. I will say though that with their half of the region it wouldn’t be totally shocking if they were an outlier and advanced further than most Late Bloomers. The rest of their profile is actually very solid so while I’m fading them a bit, they aren’t a full fade.
Despite Gonzaga having decent metrics, this might be one of their worst teams in some time. I’m not super high on them, but someone could make the case they at least fit the bill of what we are going for. They have a brutal first round matchup against McNeese in which it’s possible they don’t make it out of the first round.
I struggle betting on teams making deep runs when there’s a legit chance they don’t make it out of the first round regardless of what potentially lies ahead.
Kansas is a fade. They’re kind of just a gross team that looks to be over-seeded a bit for a four seed. It’s hard to see many scenarios where they make a deep run.
With the idea that Kansas is a weak four seed and Gonzaga could get upset round 1, if you really want to get tricky you could maybe throw McNeese into the Sweet Sixteen. It’s not totally out of the realm of possibility that McNeese and Samford both win their first round matchups.
Tennessee now runs into a rather weak bottom half of their region. We touched on Creighton and their flaws. The six seed is rather weak. I think that Tennessee could run into a tough round two matchup potentially verses either Texas or the winner of Colorado State/Virginia.
Outside of some minor sweats in that game it’s shaping up decently well for Tennessee to slide into the Elite Eight. Having a balanced team with an elite defense puts them in a position where on paper they are simply much stronger than these other teams.
South Carolina is a very weak six seed. Having them winning more than one game is extremely hard to see.
I think that if Tennessee does lose in round two that the winner of the 7 vs 10 matchup could sneakily make their way to the Elite Eight. I’m not necessarily betting it or dare put it in my bracket, but we could 100% see that be the case.
Best Bets
McNeese to make Sweet Sixteen +700 (MGM)
Risk .5 units to win 3.5 units
Play to +550
Colorado St to make Sweet Sixteen +1200 (DraftKings)
Risk .2 units to win 2.4 units
Play to +1100
Purdue to win the Midwest Region +165 (DraftKings)
Risk 1 unit to win 1.65 units
Play to +150
West Region
At it’s face there’s really only a couple of teams that I feel like have a realistic shot here.
North Carolina checks the boxes of a number 1 seed where they have no weaknesses and have an elite defense. They’re a strong profile capable of making a Final Four run.
Arizona might be the best team in this region and really checks all the boxes for not only a team to make the Final Four, but win it all. Their eighth ranked offense is just outside the ideal threshold of a top six ranked offense for what we see from National champions and really have no glaring weaknesses in their profile.
While Arizona profiles as a national champion, North Carolina profiles more as a Final Four team. Because of this it feels Arizona has a bit of a higher ceiling than North Carolina and generally the direction I’m leaning from this bracket.
Top to bottom this is arguably the weakest region and Arizona could seemingly make it’s way out of here with not too much of a sweat.
Both the three and four seeds, Baylor and Alabama, have massive red flags as Paper Tigers and are very unlikely to make a deep run because of that.
The fifth seed St Marys actually has somewhat of a decent profile in terms of potentially an Elite Eight or Final Four team simply in a scenario where UNC gets upset early.
I hesitate a bit on St Marys a bit just because I think they’re primed to maybe get upset in the first round. But whoever wins their game in round one
I think will make it to the Sweet Sixteen.
If there’s another sneaky team that profiles well in this region it’s 11 seeded New Mexico. They’re a balanced team ranking 41st in offense and 23rd in defense and are actually favorite against six seeded Clemson in round 1. With Baylor being a team we’re fading it wouldn’t be shocking if New Mexico snuck into the Sweet Sixteen.
Michigan State has a high KenPom ranking for a nine seed as they’re the 18th best team according to the site. Even though they have the 57th ranked offense and 8th ranked defense, they could present a potential problem for North Carolina in the second round.
Because of this tougher road for North Carolina, it makes sense to be leaning heavily into Arizona to win this region (and potentially further).
Both Dayton and Nevada are your typical 7/10 seeds with not much to offer in terms of high upside profiles, but naturally these teams are good enough to win a couple games if they get hot.
On the bottom half Arizona might have the easiest road to the Elite Eight of any team in this tournament.
Best Bets
Alabama NOT to make the Sweet Sixteen -120 (Caesars)
Risk 1.2 units to win 1 unit
Play to -130
Grand Canyon to make the Sweet Sixteen +600 (DraftKings)
Risk .4 units to win 2.4 units
Play to +550
Baylor NOT to make the Sweet Sixteen +105 (Caesars)
Risk 1 unit to win 1.05 units
Play to -105
Arizona to make the Elite Eight -105 (MGM)
Risk 2.1 units to win 2 units
Play to -120
Arizona to win the National Championship +1400 (ESPNBet/Bet365)
Risk .3 units to win 4.2 units
Play to +1200
What to expect in the 2024 tournament
My overall scope of this year might be unexciting and differ from other years but it feels pretty top heavy.
If there were a year in which we are looking at the Final Four and its only one and two seeds in which make it, this would be the year.
The difference in talent from the double digit seeds seems as worse as ever from a full tournament perspective, plus there’s very good elite teams this year.
With the combination of the three seeds being rather weak and no true “sleeper” teams that I feel have legit shots to make a cinderella run, it might just be a pretty boring tournament comparitavely to years past.
If I’m making brackets I’m most certainly not going to be taking as many risks this year and playing it safe with some of the better teams advancing. I think there are a few fun leverage spots but I’ll talk about those here in my region breakdowns.
Arizona is “my team” this year. What I mean by that is I feel like compared to the market and their current value that they are the best team that fits the bill. They really check every box with no blemishes yet aren’t viewed in the same realm as teams like Houston, Uconn and Purdue.
Another team I’m really high on is Auburn and think if they can somehow get past Uconn then they could do serious damage in this tournament.
Overall I’m expecting a more boring bracket and am throwing a bunch of the favorites or high seeds deep into my tournament.
Extra Bets
Any 14 seed to beat a 3 seed +150 (DraftKings)
Risk 1 unit to win 1.5 units
Play to +130
Number 2 seed to be the lowest seed in the Final Four +1700 (Fanduel)
Risk .2 units to win 3.4 units
Play to +1500
Under 13.5 combined total number of seeds in the Final Four -110 (MGM)
Risk 2.2 units to win 2 units
Play to -130
Auburn to win the Championship +2200 (Fanduel)
Risk .2 units to win 4.4 units
Play to +1700
Arizona to win the Championship +1400 (ESPNBet)
Risk .3 units to win 4.2 units
Play to +1200
This was incredible. Never looked at march madness like this before at all. Love this!
I love your March madness passion project!