BODOG FEATURE: RESEARCH YOUR BRACKETS
Are you ready to shake off the ghosts of busted brackets past?
March Madness is on our doorstep again. And if you've ever filled out an NCAA Tournament bracket, be it for an office pool or something with more at stake, you probably know it takes a lot more to win than just picking one of the No. 13 seeds to beat one of the No. 4 seeds. You have to use your best handicapping skills to figure out who will come out victorious in each of the first-round games, then all the remaining hypothetical matchups you've created, all the way to the title game.
If you've been following this space at all, you've at least paid some attention to college basketball's lesser-known conferences. That means you instantly have a sizeable advantage over the general public when it comes to filling out your bracket. But it's not too late to start. There are dozens of sports websites out there that use "bracketology" to come up with projected Tournament fields well before the big dance gets underway. This exercise becomes more serious every year, with more people logging on in search of the tiniest shred of information that they can use to stick it to their fellow poolies.
Don't be discouraged; instead, be thankful that conventional sports media providers are getting sharper - at least online. There remains a reliable population of squares who will fill out their brackets irrationally, based on a handful of highlights they saw on television, or just picking the teams they happen to be fans of. Some of these people might get lucky, but this isn't a lottery. Your job is to maximize your chances of cashing in while they minimize theirs.
Get your NCAA bracket at Bodog Sportsbook!
Back to bracketology. If you don't already have a collection of bookmarks for sports websites you consider credible, visit as many as you have time for and see which teams are commonly picked for the lowest seeds. These are the ones you'll want to focus on before the Tournament field is actually set. Of course, it's also important to know about the big guns, but that's not where you have a real opportunity to outsmart the public. Some of them will already know a thing or two about teams like Duke and North Carolina. Some will go online and do a little extra research on the Tar Heels. But how many of them even know that the Long Beach State 49ers exist? Or the Big West Conference, for that matter?
Once the field is set, you'll know which teams are actually meeting in the first round. Now things get more comfortable, at least on an individual game basis. You have the rare luxury (assuming you don't habitually play the moneyline) of picking a straight-up winner instead of figuring out who's going to beat the spread. The only trick is, you have to pick 32 of them. And that's just the first round.
March Madness bracket at Bodog Sportsbook!
Again, this is where your handicapping skill trumps the general public. Use the same tools you would to pick an ATS winner in each matchup. In the case of the games pitting more familiar teams against potential Cinderellas, you may have already gained some wisdom by wagering on, or at least paying attention to, the non-conference portion of the schedule. Now you can add to that by looking at the way teams and conferences have performed during the year. The same RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) figures that the selection committee uses to fill out its Tournament field are available for you to fill out your brackets. All the teams, and the conferences they play in, are ranked in some semblance of relative merit. The formula isn't perfect, of course, but it gives you something to work with. More advanced attempts at evaluation, like the Pomeroy Ratings, are also available on the Web for free and without subscription.
Don't just follow the numbers blindly, though. Superman had several shades of kryptonite, Achilles had a really bad case of plantar fasciitis, and last year, North Carolina had the George Mason Patriots. Take at least a moment to see how the two teams in each matchup actually match up on the court. There's a reason why we often see a No. 13 beat a No. 4, after all.
NCAA Tournament odds at Bodog Sportsbook!