Bracketology 101

Ahhh March Madness, the time of the year when the American workplace decides to stop doing work and focus on their brackets. It is estimated that "office pools will create $1.8 billion in lost productivity this year, due to the average worker wasting 100 minutes in the first week alone of the tournament". We know filling out your bracket can be nerve racking so Ugg Boots For Men is here to help. Below we will list some tips and themes among tournament teams and later will post our official bracket.

1. Advance all 1-3 seeds in the 1st round (no #16 has beat a #1 in the past 25 years & only 4 #15s have beat a #2)
2. Check betting odds to see which games are likely to be upsets in the 1st round. Vegas knows which teams have injuries or shouldn't be ranked as high as they are. Last year Vegas picked #12 Arizona to win their first game and they did just that.
3. Pick a #12 over #5 upset because it has happened 19 of the past 21 years.
   
4. Don't put all 4 #1 seeds in the final four. It has only happened once (2008).
   
5. Advance only #1-#3 seeds to the final four as those seeds have made up 78% of the final four teams since 2000. (#1 - 42%; #2 - 22%; #3 - 14%)
   
6. If you add up the sums of the seeds in your final four you want it to be an average of 10.7. In the past 9 years it has been between 6-15 95% of the time.
7. 2nd round - If you pick a #10 to beat a #7 in the first round you are looking at a potential #10 over #2 in the 2nd round. In recent years the #10 seed has beaten the #2 seed more often than not. The key is the #10 seed first beating the #7 seed because if they don't, the #2 seed is likely to beat the #7 seed. Yeah I know, it doesn't make sense but that's how it has happened.
8. The larger your bracket pool, the more risks you want to take. The more people in the pool means that there will be more people picking the favorites so you want to pick a few more upsets in the 1st round to try and distance yourself from the field.
9. There are an average of 16 upsets per tournament (13 of them are in the first 2 rounds) - feel free to pick some upsets but make sure they are in the first weekend of the tournament
10. When looking for your national champion be sure they possess these 6 characteristics:-
    
    • They are seeded No. 1 through No. 4
      
      • 16 teams seeded 1-4 (Kansas, Kentucky, Duke, Syracuse, Ohio State, Kansas State, West Virginia, Villanova, Georgetown, Pittsburgh, New Mexico, Baylor, Maryland, Vanderbilt, Wisconsin, Purdue)
        
    • They come from a Power conference
      
      • 15 teams left (New Mexico gets the boot as they are from the Mountain West)
        
    • They went to the tourney last year
      
      • 10 teams left (Kentucky, Kansas State, Georgetown, Baylor & Vanderbilt all missed the big dance last year)
        
    • Their coach has at least five tourney appearances
      
      • 9 teams left (Purdue's Matt Painter has 4 tournament appearances)
        
    • They scored at least 77 points a game
      
      • 5 teams left - Ohio State (73.8), West Virgina (73.0), Pittsburgh (68.1) and Wisconsin (67.5) all averaged under 77 PPG
        
    • Their average margin of victory is 10 points or more
      
      • 4 teams left (Villanova has a 9.7 margin of victory)
        
    17 of the past 19 champions have possessed all 6 of these characteristics and the teams that qualify this year are:
    
    • Kansas
    • Syracuse
    • Duke
    • Maryland