Obviously the biggest sports betting event for the next few weeks will be the NCAA basketball tournament and as usual Sports Untapped has you covered.  We’ll have writeups and betting selections on tournament games, of course, but we’ll get started with that annual rite of March–the NCAA tournament bracket.   Whether you’re playing in an office pool or one of the many contests online such as the excellent one offered by BetUS, everyone is filling out brackets and looking for advice on how to maximize their chances of winning.

As a sports handicapper, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that every March people come out of the woodwork looking for help with their NCAA hoop brackets.  I guess that’s a logical request, though this is really outside of the province of what sports handicapping is all about.  Still, we’ve compiled some historical data that should help you put together a good NCAA tournament bracket.  Before you do anything, you need to figure out the rules of the contest or pool you’re playing and plan a strategy.  Some pools give greater weight to later rounds, some pools give more credit for picking upsets, etc.  There’s no one size fits all strategy to this process, but the general idea is to pick as many winning teams as possible.

Looking to pick a perfect NCAA tournament bracket?  For that, all I can wish you is luck.  The odds of putting together a perfect NCAA tournament bracket are astronomical.   How astronomical?  You’ve got a better chance at heading down to the local 7-11, buying a single lottery ticket and winning the Powerball jackpot.  Oh, and getting struck by lightning on the way to and from the 7-11.  The odds of picking a perfect NCAA are 9 quintillion to one or, to be more precise, 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 1.  And that doesn’t include the play-in game. If you’re interested in the math behind how this figure is determined, you can read all about it here.  By way of comparison, the odds of hitting the aforementioned Powerball jacketpot are 1 in 195,249,054.00.

For most contests and pools, however, filling out a perfect bracket isn’t the goal.  Here’s some historical performance data that can help you put together a winning bracket.  Note that all of the W/L figures given are straight up, and date back to 1985 when the tournament was expanded to 64 teams.

–#1 seeds have never lost a first round game to a #16 seed: Your easiest decision is to pick all four #1 seeds to advance to the second round.  A #16 seed has never beaten a #1 seed.

–#2 seeds are almost as successful in the first round: #2 seeds are 88-4 against #15 seeds in the first round.

–#3 and #4 seeds are also strong first round choices: Not exactly brain surgery so far–top seeds usually win the first round games.  #3 seeds are 81-15 and #4 seeds 76-20 in their first round games.

–Middle seeds are where first round upsets occur: Most of the first round upsets–and for the purpose of this discussion we’re simply talking about a lower seeded team beating a higher seeded team–occur in the middle rounds.  In fact, #9 seeds hold a 52-44 edge over #8 seeds.  Typically, these middle seeds don’t make it past the ‘Sweet 16′ but they’re where you’ll find the majority of opening round upsets.

In our next post, we’ll look at some strategies for the later rounds and then get started with some NCAA basketball betting positions on specific games.