Are you tired of the colleague who did not watch a university basketball match all year round or your 9-year-old nephew or President Hoa who does not know the difference between St. John’s and Saint Mary, winning the swimming pool of the March Madness office every year? You are tired of spending hours and hours of training in January and February watching Mountain West or Horizon League Basketball on a dark channel so that your support is erased by Happy Hour Friday afternoon?
I’m not sure of you, but I have never won a Support competition. Never really get closer. It’s the same story every year. I am talking too much about upheavals that do not take place and do not go completely on two -digit seeds that I have never considered, mainly because I watched them at some point and I thought there was no way to win a NCAA tournament game.
It made a practical excuse: I know too much!
But let’s face it, it’s just COPE.
Here is the truth: I stink about it. But you, however.
And I think I understood why.
Each year, when the support comes out, the first thing we do is watch the matches that interest us. This is where the problem begins.
People who watch university basketball all year round have all these data in our heads that we have accumulated in the last 4½ months, and we form opinions in the abstract on what will happen in March. Then, when the support comes out and we have real games to choose, some of these ideas inevitably come into conflict. To understand this, we become too analytical. We are thinking about everything, leading to a spiral of bad predictions and burst.
This year, it is time for a new approach. And if we fill the support Before Is there a support?
In other words, rather than going online once the NCAA male basketball selection committee shows us their Work, let’s do OUR Work in advance, then apply it as strictly as possible before individual matches start to twist our brain in Bretzel.
Obviously, you cannot take into account each possibility before seeing the support. But if you have principles you are ready to stick to it, you can fill them right away, then let everything else be put in place.
After watching hundreds of games this season, here are the five principles of university basketball that I will use this year to build my support and finally win this office pool (yes, right). So let’s work.
1 and 1 Duke will win the national championship
It is just to question the quality of Duke ACC competition because the league was simply not very good this year. But the use to acquire Duke by association would be a big mistake. This team has shown its quality by crossing the ACC tournament Even without future n ° 1. Cooper FlaggWho injured himself at the ankle at the start of the quarter -final and sat the rest of the matches. If Flagg is considerably limited, it obviously changes things. But assuming that he is ready to leave, Duke is the best team in the country.
2. The dry will obtain at least five teams in Sweet 16, but just one in the Final Four
The SEC Record regular season has resulted in more NCAA tournament offers than any story in history, and it is difficult to compete in a league which won 88.9% of its non -conference matches, almost all in November and December. This remarkable race has done dry teams to really stimulate the support measures of the other once they started playing and fighting.
There are undoubtedly very good teams in this league. But there are also some things to wonder.
AuburnWho sort of dominated the regular season, lost three of the four. His defense, in particular, has undergone a significant shift in recent weeks. Have tigers culminated too early? I will choose the tigers to lose in the elite eight.
Alabama The best basketball is as good as anyone in the country. But it is also a team that plays far too often basketball, and I do not trust them to go to a shooting dam as they did during last year’s race in the Final Four. They will be an upset victim in the second round.
Tennessee The story under Rick Barnes for hitting an offensive wall in Sweet 16 or Elite Eight will continue.
Texas A & M is a classic Sweet 16 team but just too limited offensively to go further.
Kentucky The mountain of injuries will make cats eliminate in the first or second round.
One of the over -performance of the League – Missouri, Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt – will be the second weekend.
Who leaves FloridaWho plays his best ball at the right time, to transport the dry banner to San Antonio.
3. Big ten flop
It’s been 25 years since the last male basketball title in the League, and this will not change this time. Between the state of Michigan, Michigan and Maryland – the three best teams in the regular season – there was not a single victory without a conference that is worth talking. This is a sufficient reason to be deeply skeptical about how this league has shaken.
But do you know who had good victories without a conference? UCLA (Arizona, Gonzaga) and Oregon (Texas A & M, Alabama). These teams, however, had to face a brutal travel calendar which undoubtedly had an impact on their ability to win on the road.
So, what I am going to do with this information is to choose these schools to earn a round more than their seed suggests and put a ceiling on Michigan State (Sweet 16), Michigan (32 -year -old Tour), Maryland (32 -year -old Tour), Wisconsin (32 -year -old Tour) and Purdue (first round). Big Ten will be excluded from the Final Four and will prove to be a mediocre conference at the end of this tournament.
4. The beaten blue straps will not get miracles
See schools like Uconn and Kansas with very worse seeds that normal will try to choose them as upset possibilities. Don’t do it. The figures are quite clear. Uconn simply does not have the defense juice with this team to really disturb elite opponents, while Kansas was simply not a very good team far from home. They won their seeds. Don’t be fooled by the brand.
5. The mid-minds are not those who are worried
Each year, there is a team that no one wants to see in their tranche, according to the experts. This year is Duck,, Colorado State And Tall canyon. Many people in your pool will choose them simply because university basketball analysts will bring them like upset possibilities. We don’t fall for that. Instead, the Utah State and High Point – two teams with major offensive measures – will have the trouble to shoot upheavals in the first round.
This article originally appeared on USA Today: Marche Madness support advice: Duke Men will win the NCAA tournament
