Tourney Bracket Strategy Guide

If you're among the ardent fans who adore the Final Four and are planning to unveil your crystal ball and fill out a bracket or two, you gotta check this out.

Sixty-four teams in the tournament, 64 time-honored tips from on how to fill out your bracket wisely.

SEEDS OF SUCCESS

1. Pick all No. 1 seeds to win their first-round games.
2. Pick two teams seeded 13th to 15th to defeat teams seeded two through four.
3. Pick one No. 3 seed to lose in the first round.
4. Pick at least one No. 2 seed to lose before second-round competition is complete.
5. Don't pick a No. 1 seed to reach the Final Four, let alone win the national tournament, if the school wasn't in the NCAA playoffs the previous year.
6. Don't automatically pick a perennial power to defeat an opponent with a double-digit seeding. More than sixty different coaches have lost at least one tournament game against a team with a double-digit seed since the seeding process was introduced.
7. Pick a team seeded No. 1 or No. 2 to win the national title. In the first 18 years since the NCAA Tournament embraced seeding, 13 of the champions were seeded No. 1 or 2. The only championship game without at least one No. 1 or No. 2 seed was 1989, when a pair of No. 3 seeds clashed (Michigan and Seton Hall).
8. Don't pick more than two of the four regional No. 1 seeds to reach the Final Four.
9. Pick the better-seeded team to win any second-round game pitting two double-digit seeds against each other.
10. Pick one team seeded 12th to reach a regional semifinal.
11. Pick one regional to have its top four seeds reach the regional semifinals.
12. Despite last year's success for Syracuse and Mississippi State, don't go too deep into the bracket with No. 4 and No. 5 seeds.
13. Unless vital criteria is met to suffice otherwise, go with better-seeded teams to win games in the four regionals. In the first 18 years of seeding, the better-seeded teams won more than 70 percent of the games in regional competition. Final Four games, however, have virtually broken even in regard to the original seedings.

    
    

    CONFERENCE CONFIDENTIAL
    

14. Don't get behind the (Big) Eight Ball although the league aligned with former SWC members to form the Big Twelve. Big Eight squads seeded third through sixth regularly were upset in the first round since the mid-1980s. No Big Eight Tournament champion ever went ahead and also captured the NCAA title. Will the same apply to the Big Twelve?
15. Pick at least one Big East team to lose in the opening round.
16. Pick at least two teams from the Big Twelve, Big Ten and/or SEC to incur opening-round defeats.
17. Don't pick a team from the Big Sky, MEAC and Southland to win a first-round game. They're winless in the Division I playoffs since the field was expanded to at least 52 teams in 1983.
18. Don't pick an at-large team with a losing conference record to get beyond the second round.
19. Pick at least two ACC teams to reach a regional semifinal
20. Pick at least one ACC team to reach the Final Four.
21. If an ACC school wins both the league's regular-season and tournament titles, pick the team to reach the Final Four.
22. Don't be swayed by a postseason conference tournament title or a poor performance in an elite league tourney. Disregard the "hot team" factor because a defeat in a league tournament is often a better motivational tool than a complacency-inducing victory.
23. Don't pick a Big East member to win the national championship and be wary of including any team from the acclaimed league among the Final Four. The Big East had just two schools reach the Final Four in the last nine years (1989 runner-up Seton Hall and 1996 runner-up Syracuse).
24. Double your pleasure by picking two teams from the same conference to reach the Final Four.
25. Don't choose a different member from the same league as the previous year's champion (SEC) to capture the crown. There has been just four times in NCAA playoff history for two different schools from the same conference to win the title in back-to-back years--Big Ten (Indiana '40 and Wisconsin '41); ACC (North Carolina '82 and N.C. State '83); Big East (Georgetown '84 and Villanova '85), and ACC (Duke '92 and North Carolina '93).
26. Don't pick an undisputed Big Ten champion to reach the Final Four.
27. Two of your Final Four picks should be teams that didn't finish atop their regular-season conference standings.
28. Burnout has a tendency to set in. Remember that the odds are against a conference tournament champion reaching the NCAA Tournament final.
29. Don't pick a team to reach the Final Four if it lost in the first round of a postseason conference tournament.
30. Don't be too concerned about a regular-season defeat against a conference rival with a losing league record.
31. Don't bet the farm on the Pacific-10 Conference. A Pac-10 team regularly loses an opening-round game to an opponent seeded 12th or worse.

    
    

    NUMBERS GAME
    

32. If there are as many as four first-time entrants, pick one of the novices to win its opening-round game.
33. Don't pick a team with 30 or more victories entering the tournament to win the national title.
34. Don't develop an aversion for coaches with impoverished playoff records. Remember: Legendary John Wooden lost his first five playoff games as coach at UCLA by an average of 11.4 points and compiled an anemic 3-9 record from 1950 through 1963 before the Bruins won an unprecedented 10 national titles in 12 years from 1964 through 1975.
35. Don't be obsessed with comparing regular-season scores. Two-thirds of the NCAA champions weren't exactly invincible as they combined to lose more than 50 games by double-digit margins.
36. Pick a team with at least 25 victories entering the tournament to win the championship. Villanova, entering the 1985 playoffs with 19 triumphs, is the only national champion in the last 35 years to enter the tourney with fewer than 20 wins.
37. Don't pick the top-ranked team entering the tournament to reach the national championship game, let alone capture the crown.
38. The best place to start selecting the Final Four is in the previous year's round of 16. More than half of the teams reaching the national semifinals since 1988 advanced to a regional semifinal the previous season.
39. Don't tamper with a "curse" by picking a team with the nation's leading scorer on its roster to reach the Final Four. No national champion has had a player average as many as 30 points per game.
40. Make certain your Final Four picks include at least one 30-game winner and one team with a minimum of six defeats.
41. After choosing your Final Four schools, don't automatically select the winningest remaining team to go ahead and capture the title.
42. Don't pick a team to win the championship if an underclassman guard is leading the squad in scoring.
43. Don't pick a team entering the tournament undefeated to go ahead and win the title. Of the first 17 teams to enter the playoffs with unblemished records, just seven were on to capture the national championship. Excluding UCLA's dominance under coach John Wooden, the only unbeaten NCAA champion in the last 36 years is Indiana '76.

    
    

    PICKS AND DON'T PICKS
    

44. Pick any team defeating North Carolina to already be in or on its way to the Final Four.
45. Don't pick UCLA to reach the Final Four if an ACC school is in the way on the Bruins' road to Indianapolis.
46. Don't pick the Preseason NIT winner (Indiana) to reach the Final Four, let alone capture the national title. For whatever reason, no Preseason NIT titlist has won the NCAA crown.
47. Don't forget the cliche that the "East is Least." No Eastern school has won the East Regional and the national title in the same season since the tournament went to four regionals.
48. Pick Duke to reach the Final Four even if opponents from the prestigious Big East and Big Ten are in the Blue Devils' path. The Dynasty in Durham won its last 11 playoff games against Big East and Big Ten competition.
49. Don't pick a member of the MAC and WAC or former member of the SWC to reach the Final Four. No Mid-American member has ever reached the national semifinals, no WAC member has won a Final Four game (Texas-El Paso won the 1966 title four years before joining the conference) and the 12 SWC Final Four teams all failed to come home with the national championship trophy.
50. Don't pick a Conference USA member to reach a regional final.
51. Pick Kansas to win a regional final if the Jayhawks advance that far.
52. KU has gone on to the Final Four each of the last six times the Jayhawks reached a regional championship game (1971-74-86-88-91-93).
53. Don't pick a team to win the national title if its coach is in his first season at the school.
54. Make certain the coach of your championship team has at least five years of head coaching experience.
55. Don't pick a team to capture the title if it is coached by a graduate of the school. None of the last 20 champions, coached by 15 different men, were guided by a graduate of the university.
56. Pick at least one Final Four team with a coach who will be making his debut at the national semifinals. Just four Final Fours (1951, 1968, 1984 and 1993) had all four coaches arrive there with previous Final Four experience.
57. Don't pick the defending champion (Kentucky) to repeat as national titlist because 13 different schools won the last 14 titles.
58. Don't pick the defending national runner-up to win the championship the next season. The only teams ever to finish national runner-up one year and then capture the title the next season were North Carolina (1981 and 1982) and Duke (1990 and 1991).
59. Do make certain at least one of your Final Four teams dons Nike sneakers. Nike gained untold millions of dollars in free advertising when at least one school wore its sneakers at the last 10 Final Fours. Nike was shut out of the 1986 Final Four after having all four teams wearing its "swoosh" sneakers at the 1985 Final Four.
60. Pick one team not ranked among the top ten in either of the final wire-service polls entering the tournament to reach the championship game.
61. Don't pick California (lost Shareef Abdur-Rahim early), Connecticut (Ray Allen), Georgetown (Allen Iverson), Kentucky (Antoine Walker), Louisville (Samaki Walker) and Massachusetts (Marcus Camby) to reach the Final Four if you think those vital undergraduate defectors will become pro stars.
    Of the 10 individuals to score more than 20,000 points in the NBA or be named to at least five All-NBA teams after participating in the NCAA Division I playoffs and then leaving college with eligibility remaining, none of their schools reached the Final Four the year or years they could have still been in college--Auburn (Charles Barkley departed early), Houston (Hakeem Olajuwon), Indiana (Isiah Thomas), Kansas (Wilt Chamberlain), Louisiana Tech (Karl Malone), Michigan State (Magic Johnson), North Carolina (Bob McAdoo and Michael Jordan), Notre Dame (Adrian Dantley) and Seattle (Elgin Baylor).
62. Pick at least one of your Final Four teams to have a transfer starter but don't choose a squad in that category to win the title.
63. Don't be infatuated with first-team All-Americas when deciding Final Four teams because a majority of NCAA consensus first-team All-Americas failed to reach each of the last 21 national semifinals.
64. The star search should focus more on pro prospects. Do select Final Four teams that each have a minimum of one player who'll eventually become a No. 1 NBA draft choice with one of the squads reaching the championship game to have at least three players who'll become a No. 1 NBA draft pick. Excluding Florida '94, every team advancing to the national semifinals since the field expanded to at least 48 entrants in 1980 has had a minimum of one player who eventally became an NBA first-round draft choice. Every championship game since 1969 has had at least one team with a minimum of three players who eventually were selected in the first round or high in the second round of the NBA draft.