by Aster C. Lilly

Created on: March 15, 2007   Last Updated: April 27, 2007

If you've ever tried choosing a bracket for March Madness, you know a few things:

It's easy to choose the top few teams, but it's difficult to predict who will win, and what college will have a Cinderella story. Here are a few pointers:

1. TOP SEEDS DON'T ALWAYS WIN, BUT THEY'RE SOLID BETS

Usually, there will be one over-powering team to beat. They're usually in the top two seeds. Pick the team that will obviously destroy everyone else. I would dare to say that it's safe to pick a top-seeded team.

However, pick the top-seeded team with this in mind: The Championship Team must win SIX consecutive games. It's tough.

In the last twenty years here are the breakdowns for teams that won, based on seed:

1985 - Villanova (Not Ranked)
1986 - Louisville (#7)
1987 - Indiana (#3)
1988 - Kansas (Not Ranked)
1989 - Michigan (#10)
1990 - UNLV (#2)
1991 - Duke (#6)
1992 - Duke (#1)
1993 - North Carolina (#4)
1994 - Arkansas (#2)
1995 - UCLA (#1)
1996 - Kentucky (#2)
1997 - Arizona (#15)
1998 - Kentucky (#5)
1999 - Connecticut (#3)
2000 - Michigan State (#2)
2001 - Duke (#1)
2002 - Maryland (#4)
2003 - Syracuse (#13)
2004 - Connecticut (#7
2005 - North Carolina (#2)
2006 - Florida (#11)

2. CHOOSE SOME UPSTARTS, TAKE A RISK

I sometimes choose a few underdogs in my brackets. Why? Because the look of amazement on people's faces when they see the underdog prevail. How did you look into the future and predict that? Easy, I chose opposite what you did, because I wanted to see the look on your face.

Plus, if the underdog loses, there's no shame in that. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

How do you pick the cinderella team?

3. DO SOME RESEARCH

Finally, actually take a look at the data. Here are the sites that I suggest for data-mining.

Ken Pomeroy's NCAA blog

http://kenpom.com/stats.php

Vegas Insider's Odds on March Madness

http://www.vegasinsider.com/college-basketbal l/odds/futures/

I never bet real money on an NCAA Tournament. I usually have a limit of $20. After all, this isn't gambling, it's fun!

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