High-Risk Bracket: Take your chances in early rounds, play it safe after

If you've read my piece on the "Anatomy of an Upset" or the companion article identifying the potential upset victors and victims in the 2010 tourney field, you might be interested in this bracket. It goes out on a limb more in the early rounds of the dance, using the upset rules for matchups with a seed gap of four or more and tossup rules for closer matchups. (The tossup rules can be found on my website, if you're interested.)

Wes Johnson's Syracuse team -- the riskiest of the No. 1 seeds -- will be the champ, if you take this route. (AP)

The numbers would seem to indicate that this dance will be more unpredictable than usual. If you compare the efficiency ratings of the top 48 teams (theoretically the top 12 seeds) with their counterparts over the last six dances, you find that the two through five seeds are significantly weaker than in years past, the six through eight seeds are about the same as the average, and the nine through 12 seeds are stronger. Weak high seeds ... strong low seeds. Hmm. My guess is that a winning bracket will likely reflect this parity to some degree. So where does this high-risk bracket rate on the Madometer? Let's find out -- but first, we'll review the strategy employed.

Bracket strategy: I filled out this high-risk bracket using the upset and tossup rules described in "Anatomy of an Upset" on CBSSports.com and "Tips for Making Tossup Picks" on my site.

Bracket results: Last year, this strategy yielded a bracket that cratered, falling into the 22nd percentile of major tournament contests involving millions of entries. Of course, in 2006, when George Mason, UCLA, LSU and Florida formed an unlikely Final Four, this was my top performing bracket in the 96th percentile. Feast, meet famine.

So what do the upset/tossup rules say for 2010? Well, after some early-round insanity ... how do you feel about the crazy idea of taking all the one seeds in the Final Four? Then in a mild surprise, Syracuse comes out on top, beating Kentucky in the finals. I'm happy to see that the Wildcats made it to the Final Four in at least one of the bracket models I've featured, but I'm still wondering if the numbers aren't being too harsh to Kentucky this year. They don't like the fact that the Wildcats didn't go to the previous tourney, because only two of the last 25 champions overcame that inexperience. One was Louisville in 1986; the other was Syracuse in 2003 -- which happened to have a freshman phenom named Carmelo Anthony. The Wildcats have two phenoms ... so maybe they're this year's version of the 2003 Orange. Ironic, then, that this model has Syracuse bumping off Kentucky.

Altogether, there were 12 picks that deviated from high seed dominance. In the opening round, nine seeds Northern Iowa and Louisville advance and 10 seed Georgia Tech beats Oklahoma State. Then, in the upset matchups, things get really haywire: Cornell beats Temple, Washington surprises Marquette, Utah State bests Texas A&M and Murray State bumps off Vanderbilt. In Round 2, MSU beats Maryland, Clemson jolts West Virginia -- and both Murray State and Washington extend their Cinderella runs. In fact, the Huskies get all the way to the Elite Eight, where Baylor's win over Villanova is the only other low seed uprising.

After that, the bracket gets eerily chalky ... and Syracuse emerges as the champion. Considering Arinze Onuaku's day-to-day status and the way that the Orange finished the season, this in itself is a risky pick ... at least the riskiest of the four top seeds.

Where does the high-risk model land on the Madometer? How do you feel about a 9.8 percent deviation from perfect high-seed dominance? That's a little crazier than last year's dance (9.2 percent mad), but below the average of 13.7 percent. Of course, if you filled out a bracket that reflected average 13.7 percent unpredictability, your fortunes would go one of two ways: either to the top of your pool standings -- or the very bottom. But if you're in it to win it, you've got to take some chances. This bracket certainly does that in the early rounds, but maybe not enough from the Elite Eight on.

As with all these models, my best advice is to take what you think makes sense from the statistics ... and steer clear of picks that don't jibe with your gut. That's the best way to build a bracket that stands a chance of success -- and feels like your own. Good luck with your picks!

Peter Tiernan has been using stats to analyze March Madness for 20 years. His insights into the NCAA basketball tournament can help you build a better bracket. E-mail him at bracketscience@comcast.net or visit bracketscience.com.