THEÂ Bet Us $1,000,000 MARCH MADNESS BRACKET IS BACK.
March is here, and that means college basketball’s 2009 March Madness is just about to begin. College basketball fans wait every March for the tradition, excitement and upset that make up the Madness of the NCAA Basketball tournament. Office pools become a big hit, and are usually won by the office geek or a female making picks based on a team’s uniform colors, but real fans know that big money brackets are what is really important.
BetUs.com March Madness and brackets go together like tortilla chips and salsa, and BetUS have just launched the mother of all March Madness brackets: a $1,000,000 bracket—that’s right, a one million dollar March Madness bracket.
There are lots of different ways to complete your March Madness bracket, but using logical techniques will greatly enhance your odds on winning that one million dollars. First round games are interesting and there are nearly always upsets. It may be tempting to take the highest seeded teams in the early rounds, as they’re usually favored by big numbers and point spreads don’t play a factor in bracketology, but don’t be fooled. There is always a Cinderella story—a low seeded team that makes it through to the last 16 (known as Sweet 16) or the Final Four. George Mason were the Cinderella story a few years back as they went on to stun top-seeded perennial powerhouse Connecticut with an 86-84 overtime victory to make the Final Four. It was the first team from the Colonial Athletic Association ever to make it that far during March Madness.
When it comes to the polls, it is nice for a team to be ranked as one of the best 25 teams in the nation, but by no means is it a real indicator of where a team truly stands. A good example is of this is LaSalle; in 1990 they entered the tournament with a 29 – 1 record in and lost in the second round of the tournament to Clemson.
Here are a few historical points of interest:
- Since the NCAA started seeding teams in 1979, only once have all four # 1 seeds made it to the National Semifinals (Final Four); this was in 2008 when Kansas, North Carolina, Memphis, and UCLA made the cut.
- At least one # 1 seed has made the Final Four in every year except: 1980 and 2006.
- A # 16 seed has never beaten a # 1 seed since the field was expanded to 64 teams (now 65). Do not be the one person in your pool to rest your hopes on College of Charleston being able to upset the University of Connecticut.
- When it comes to the # 15 seed, teams have had very little success as well. Only 4 teams have been able to knock off the # 2 seed in the first round of the tournament.
- A smart thing to do when filling out your bracket, is to make sure to follow the college basketball game odds and let that be an indicator as to which is the favorite team according to the oddsmakers. If a # 1 seeded team is favored by 25 points or more over a much lower seed, it’s a pretty safe bet the big favorite will win the game. But always keep in mind: there will always be upsets, and that’s a fact.
Knowing when to select the underdogs is the key to a winning bracket. Again, follow the odds, because oddsmakers are sharp and more times than not they’re correct. Use games with lines of ten points or less to select your underdogs. These games usually feature the middle-seeded teams. There is a much greater chance that a team favored by ten points or less will get upset against a team favored by 25 or more.
If you can’t be bothered following the lines then you could just pick the stronger mascot, when you don’t know anything about the teams, look at their mascots; you could make a pick based on each mascot—in a fight to the death, which would win, a duck or a lion? Otherwise just do what my sister does—make a pick on the team’s uniform colors.
Whatever your method for choosing your bracket, get in on the action this March, download the BetUS printable March Madness bracket and enter the one million dollar March Madness Bracket contest. Print it out and use it as your March Madness office bracket, as your Sweet 16 bracket or as your Final Four bracket during the most famous of college basketball tournaments.
