Another year, another men’s NCAA Tournament that has shown us nothing but bracket-busting parity during the opening weekend.
Not since, well, last year’s Tournament have we’ve seen such unpredictability with a seed total reaching 85 heading into this year’s rundown of Sweet 16 games. In fact, last year’s tournament set a record for overall unpredictability where at this point there was a remarkable seed total of 94. To put this year’s tournament in perspective; if you juxtapose seed totals and the hypotheticals, this year’s total could have been 93 if TCU was able to complete their own upset over top-ranked Arizona this past Sunday.
To further add to the craziness that is this tournament, we have four double-digit seeded teams still dancing; No. 11 Michigan, No. 11 Iowa State, and No. 10 Miami who don’t really raise any eyebrows from a casual perspective considering these are all teams from major conferences.
That is until you look closer at their resumes heading into March.
Michigan’s entry into the tournament was controversial, to say the least, based on their regular-season record and early bow out in the Big Ten Tournament to Indiana. Meanwhile, Iowa State lost their Big 12 Tournament game by 31 points while Miami’s last win over a tournament team prior to the actual tournament came on January 26 in a 78-75 victory over Virginia Tech.
Then there’s this year’s cinderella in Saint Peter’s who becomes only the third 15th seeded team to make the Sweet 16 and maybe the biggest surprise in tourney history.
What about the bets?
You’d think given the number of upsets betters are going to be wary heading into the Sweet 16 to put down any big-time wagers. That’s certainly an understandable feeling but if you’re still looking to place a wager it’s never a better time to put together a strategy for March Madness heading into the nitty-gritty of the tournament. However, with the number of upsets in mind, some of the best things anyone can do is not pay attention to the “expert brackets” and instead do your own research when it comes to team-by-team metrics and stats.
And it’s not like you have to be Jay Bilas or Bill Raftery to compare and contrast numbers heading into the Sweet 16. If you’re willing to take a little time to understand some of the different metrics and advanced metrics surrounding the college game your guess would be just as good as the talking heads you see on television.