The Ultimate Guide To Your NCAA Tournament Brackets
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Grab your pens and brackets. We're about to tell you how to fill them out.
As they say in the stock market, past performance is not an indicator of future results. But in the NCAA Tournament, it does give us a pretty good idea.
David McCoy looks back on recent history to offer up some advice – a little formula he followed himself last year with some pretty good success.
First, go ahead and start your bracket by moving all those No. 1 seeds into the next round without even looking who they're playing. A No. 16 seed has never beaten a No. 1.
No. 15 and No. 14 seeds have combined to win six first-round games in the last five years, so pick one to win a game in your bracket.
Pick a No. 13 seed to win once too. They've had seven first-round winners the last seven years.
Pick two 12s to beat 5s and two 11s to beat 6s. Those games have gone exactly 50-50 the last five years. Then slide one of each right into your Sweet 16. A No. 12 has made it six times in the last seven years; an 11 six times in the last five.
Pick only one No. 10 to beat a No. 7. In those matchups, 7s have won three out of four in that matchup three of the last four years. But buyer beware beyond that – only two No. 7 seeds have made the Sweet 16 the last six years.
No. 8 seeds beat No. 9 seeds 65 percent of the time the last five years – a slight edge to the higher seed. But pick two of each, and slide one into your Sweet 16, where there's been an 8 or a 9 four of the last five years.
And one more thing as you round out your Sweet 16: Put in one of the winners from the Tuesday/Wednesday night play-in games. Since those "First Four" matchups were introduced four years ago, at least one of the Tuesday/Wednesday night winners won another game as well. Three have made the Sweet 16. One even made the Final Four.
As for picking your Final Four, put in only one No. 1 seed. In the last five years, there have been only four No. 1 seeds in the Final Four total. But whichever one you put in, have them win it. Six of the last eight champions have been 1 seeds.
As for which teams to choose on each of those seed lines, well, that's the $9.2 quintillion question. There's no clear predictor of tournament success. So pick some young teams, pick some experienced teams, some hot teams, slumping teams, good rebounding teams, etc. Point being, don't put all your eggs in one kind of basket. It's never worked that way.
The only truism that seems to hold up? Teams that make at least the semifinals of their conference tournament make the Final Four with much greater frequency than those that don't.
Ready? Click here to fill out your brackets. See if you can beat WCCO's experts!
