Every-Thing Sports
An amateur's guide to picking your NCAA brackets
Mar 19, 2019, 6:49 am
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Every year around Christmas, ESPN has their commercials for bowl season. One of the jingles says "it's the most wonderful time of the year." It's a play on the Christmas song of the same name. I beg to differ. There is a period of time in the fall when we have NFL and NCAA football in full swing, NBA regular season kicks off, and MLB is in the midst of crowning a new World Series champion. THAT is the most wonderful time of the year!
If there was any time of year that could rival that period of sports awesomeness in the fall, it would be Spring. While NCAA football has spring games that may not be as exciting to anyone outside of hardcore fans of those schools, the NFL has the combine, free agency, then the draft to keep our football taste buds satisfied. MLB is about to kick off its six to seven month quest also. But the real star is the NCAA basketball tournament.
March Madness, as it's commonly referred to, is responsible for billions of dollars of lost production from the American workforce every year. That number continues to grow as more people are growing up in the technology age in which we can stream tournament games, place bets, and pick brackets on our phones.
Most of you will make a bracket to see how you do. Some of you will fill out several brackets in attempts to win a prize or money. I've even seen my wife fill out brackets in a friendly office challenge every year and she doesn't watch NCAA basketball at all! She, like most of you, will go into the process with very little, if any, type of strategy (she literally picked by color one year). I'm going to lay out a part of my strategy and hopefully help you guys win something this year:
Strength of Schedule
Strength of schedule is the most important factor when considering your selections. Iron sharpens iron. Teams that have been battled tested are often able to withstand a huge swings of momentum and battle back to win. They also are ready for high levels of competition. This is why these teams are often selected as higher seeds.
Points Per Game
Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships. A good indicator is how many points per game a team gives up and/or scores. Teams that can play good lockdown defense and can score at a decent clip are more apt to advance in the tournament. Pay closer attention to their conference and higher profile non-conference games because those are the best indicators as to how well that team scores/defends against better competition.
Efficiency Ratings
I was listening to The Blitz as I was formulating my ideas for this article and AJ Hoffman made a point of talking about team efficiency ratings. He specifically cited the Pomeroy College Basketball Ratings as a source he uses when looking into these type of stats. I vaguely remember stumbling upon this site one night about a year or so ago when looking for help in determining who should I pick. Analytics are either the devil or a revelation, depending on who you ask. In this case, I find them to be quite the tool in helping pick that one game where you get stuck.
Put it all together
Now of course I use more than just these three factors in my selection process, but these are the ones that are perhaps most critical. I've talked to a few people over the years and they have agreed. Strength of schedule was first because it is widely accepted as the strongest indicator. Scoring offense and defense tells you how well a team can score and/or defend. If they fall short in one area, they're prone to being beat (see #1 seed Virginia last year not being able to score and being upset by #16 seed UMBC). Efficiency ratings will help you when some other indicators may have hidden truths. For example: if a team is 28-3, has a strong strength of schedule, scores 80+ a game and holds opponents to less than 70 a game, but is only a #4 seed or lower, there's a reason for that. This was written to help people who have no clue what they're doing. If you want serious help making picks or winning real money, you should probably follow AJ on his Twitter and his pregame.com pages.
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With the Astros now officially ten games under .500 for the season, manager Joe Espada is taking a lot of heat from the fanbase for the team's struggles.
While we don't agree with the sentiment, we even hear fans clamoring for the return of Dusty Baker and Martin Maldonado, thinking the Astros wouldn't be in this mess if they were still here.
Which is ridiculous. First of all, Maldonado has been awful for the White Sox, hitting .048 (even worse than Jose Abreu's .065). And for those of you that think his work with the pitching staff justifies his pathetic offense. Let me say this: Where was Maldy's game calling genius for Hunter Brown, Cristian Javier, and Framber Valdez last year? All of them regressed significantly.
And as far as Baker is concerned, we have no idea how much a difference he would make, we can only speculate. Baker would also be dealing with a pitching staff ravaged with injuries. And let's not forget, Baker was the guy that refused to move Jose Abreu down in the batting order, even though he would finish the regular season with the ninth-worst OPS in baseball.
The reality of the situation is managers can only do so much in baseball. Which leads us to something else that needs to be considered. Is Espada being handcuffed by the front office? Espada and GM Dana Brown both said recently that Jon Singleton was going to get more at-bats while they give Abreu time off to try to figure things out. Yet, there Abreu was in the lineup again in the opening game of the Cubs series.
It makes us wonder how much power does Espada truly have? The Astros have some other options at first base. Yainer Diaz may only have eight games played at the position, but how much worse could he be than Abreu defensively? Abreu already has four errors, and Diaz is obviously a way better hitter. Victor Caratini isn't considered a plus offensive player, but his .276 batting average makes him look like Babe Ruth compared to Abreu. Let him catch more often and play Diaz at first. Starting Diaz at first more often could also lengthen his career long-term.
Maybe that's too wild of a move. Okay, fine. How about playing Mauricio Dubon at first base? I understand he doesn't have much experience at that position, but what's the downside of trying him there? If he can play shortstop, he can play first base. He's driving in runs at a higher rate (11 RBIs) than everyone on the team outside of Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez. And he's producing like that as part-time player right now.
The other criticism we see of Espada is his use of Jon Singleton to pinch hit late in games. Let's be real, though, who else does Espada have on the roster to go to? Batting Abreu late in games in which you're trailing should be considered malpractice. Espada can only use who he has to work with. This all really stems from the Astros poor farm system.
They don't have anyone else to turn to. The draft picks the club lost from the sign-stealing scandal are really hurting them right now. First and second rounders from 2020 and 2021 should be helping you in 2024 at the big league level.
Maybe they go to Astros prospect Joey Loperfido soon, but after a hot start he has only two hits in his last six games.
Finally, we have to talk about what seems like a committee making baseball decisions. Lost in a committee is accountability. Who gets the blame for making poor decisions?
As time continues to pass it looks like moving on from former GM James Click was a massive mistake. He's the guy that didn't sign Abreu, but did trade Myles Straw (recently DFA'd) for Yainer Diaz and Phil Maton. He also built an elite bullpen without breaking the bank, and helped the club win a World Series in 2022.
The reality of the situation is Dusty Baker and James Click are not walking back through that door. And all good runs come to an end at some point. Is this what we're witnessing?
Don't miss the video above as we hit on all the points discussed and much more!
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