More Than a Guessing Game: How to Pick Your NCAA Tournament Bracket

Whether you're at the office or just playing at home there are several criteria you should look at when choosing your NCAA Tournament bracket. You may think this is March Madness, but there is a formula to this madness. At this stage of the season I'm not a big fan of the RPI, which I think is overrated. I also believe that everyone has now had a week's break, for the most part and so most teams are rested going into the Big Dance. So how a team is playing at the end of the year is immaterial. Unless your name is the Georgia Bulldogs. They aren't a team I'd wanna play right now, that's for sure. Here are five criteria essential to choosing your bracket.

1. Promixity.

That's right. How many fans can your team bring to the party? Are they bringing the band too? It's a lot easier to bring those two crucial items if you don't have to travel thousands of miles. Unless, of course, your name is Duke. They'll bring their traveling party even if the game is being played in Alaska. If you're No. 1 seed North Carolina, for example, you could have as many as four "home" games in your region, the East, this year. They'll bring a lot of fans to the party, about 15,000. Is that fair? Not really, but that's the way the ball bounced for the Tarheels. Are they complaining? No, but they also know they'll have to play the games. In their way stand the Indiana Hoosiers, who know something about the game and are currently having a chip on their shoulder.

Another team benefiting from the "home game" atmosphere is No. 1 seed UCLA out of the West region. The Bruins have essentially two "home games" in Anaheim, which is just down the freeway from Westwood. So obviously UCLA has what amounts to a home-court advantage. But No. 10 seed Arizona, their conference foe, may be waiting once the Bruins get to a West region final.

2. Coaching.

Why is it every year you see more coaching changes immediately after the NCAA Tournament? The reason is simple. Some coaches use the Big Dance as a proving ground for their coaching skills. Tony Bennett did it with tiny Wisconsin-Green Bay and now he's leading Washington State to the party. Fran Fraschilla did the same thing with giant-killer Manhattan and then packed up the moving truck for New Mexico, where he stayed for awhile before becoming an analyst for ESPN. Think that would have happened had Manhattan not made the Big Dance?

If you don't pay attention to coaches on the rise in this tournament you too are missing the whole point of March Madness. If you don't think a coaches' ability to coach doesn't come under intense scrutiny and the watchful eyes of bigger schools you've never watched an NCAA Tournament post-game press conference, where the coaches sit at the table behind name placards and bright lights. It's their first job interview and they know it. After all, this is what the tournament all is about.

3. Players.

The game is played by the players, so why wouldn't the players be a factor? How does the team play? What are the team's tendencies? Do they play a fast-paced transition game or do they slow it down and play Princeton-style? These factors are important in determining who is best. The best teams have a great inside-outside combination but there are very few of those teams in any tournament, to be sure. One thing I always watch for are guys who can light it up behind the three-point arc, particularly the Indiana colleges. I don't know if my hunch came from watching the movie "Hoosiers" all those years but you can't tell me that Valparaiso didn't know they had a good chance to make noise when they had a guy named Bryce Drew hucking up and making everything from the parking lot. And you also can't go wrong when you have a guy named Greg Oden leading Ohio State behind his unusually gifted 7-foot frame. These are things you need to take into account.

4. Matchups.

Why does Arizona always give most teams trouble in the NCAA Tournament? The answer is they always have athleticism, which is hard to defend. The same goes with Kentucky and its bench. I can remember all the years when Utah would have a great team, only to go down in the late minutes to the 'Cats and their 10^th, 11^th and 12^th men giving valuable minutes. Lately the team making tons of noise is Gonzaga, which always seems to have a good inside-outside combination. But the main thing you should always look for is if the team you're choosing has a big guy in the middle, for that always seems to carry even the weaker teams a tad further than you may expect.

5. Gut instinct.

How you feel about a particular team does carry some weight, particularly if you have some inside knowledge about that team or its matchup. For example, an 8--9 or a 7-10 matchup usually is a toss-up, whereas a 1-16 matchup has NEVER had a No. 16 win an NCAA Tournament first round game. The other matchup that has seen its fair share of shockers is the 3-14 matchup. A team this year that may have a rough time winning its first-round game is No. 3 seed Stanford, who will go up against a better-than-anticipated No. 14 seed Cornell from the Ivy League. If your gut instinct tells you to choose a team that normally wouldn't have a prayer of winning, you need to look at all the factors first. But sometimes it just comes down to sheer luck.

Whatever way you choose your NCAA Tournament bracket, whether it's by scrutinizing each team and matchup or just closing your eyes and guessing, it seems there are always a few surprises nobody expects. And that's why we love March Madness.