Best Bracket Picks Via Most Respected College Basketball Metrics
March Madness odds and bracket picks are back in season, with the NCAA tournament kicking off Thursday, per usual. That means it's time for an annual tradition at TheLines: filling out March Madness brackets with the best expert bracket picks. We can look at which teams have the best chances to advance by using advanced college basketball metrics and tracking systems.
Once again, we've filled out brackets based on how KenPom, Bart Torvik, Haslametrics, and ShotQuality rate each team.
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Haslametrics Bracket Picks
KenPom Bracket Picks
Bart Torvik T-Rank Bracket Picks
ShotQuality Bracket Picks
Comparing And Contrasting The Major College Basketball Metrics
Let's review a few major themes in these metric-based expert bracket picks.
Macro Agreement, But Micro Disagreement
ShotQuality's distrust of Houston aside, the major analytics agree that the top seeds are quite strong. Duke and Auburn make the Final Four in every runout, and Florida and Houston make it in three out of four sims.
However, there's some disagreement regarding splitting hairs among the top teams.
Florida's surge to the SEC title and Auburn's late-season slide caused the Gators to move past the Tigers in KenPom and Haslametrics' numbers. Auburn lost three of its final four games after being co-national favorites with Duke.
Speaking of the Blue Devils, despite their incredibly dominant regular season, they didn't do enough to end up ahead of Houston in Haslametrics or T-Rank. The Cooper Flagg injury impacts picks on a micro level that a catch-all metric like this isn't going to reflect. Consult our complete list of relevant March Madness injuries to make sure your handicapping is up to date.
Based on the analytics sites' overall data, Houston's likely to be the best value among the No. 1 seeds in terms of March Madness bracket picks. They won't carry nearly as much ownership as the other top teams. Yahoo's pick distribution has over 30% of national brackets on the Blue Devils and 20% on the Gators. Houston's way down at less than 9%, but the metrics essentially believe in the Cougars.
Texas Tech Most Threatening Non.-No. 1 Seed?
Texas Tech isn't being considered among the favorites, but perhaps it should be. The major metrics — even the ones that selected Florida for the Final Four above — are big believers in the Red Raiders.
Part of the case for Texas Tech comes from drawing a favorable possible Sweet 16 matchup. Analytics sites generally regard St. John's as the weakest No. 2 seed. The Red Storm barely cracks the top 15 for the purely numbers-based ones, and tracking site ShotQuality has them down at No. 46.
However, a big part of the problem is that the sites all love the Red Raiders on merit. They check in at no worse than No. 9 (Haslametrics) and as high as No. 3 (ShotQuality).
TheLines' Eli Hershkovich concurs, tabbing Texas Tech as his favorite March Madness pick.
St. John's, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Kentucky Among Upset Candidates?
It's important to remember that this bracket-picking exercise is binary -- in each hypothetical game, we advance the higher-rated team. That can obscure some very real upset possibilities that the metrics sites might believe in. They wouldn't pick an upset outright, but they may see value in the underdog either in a spread bet or as a contrarian bracket pick.
For instance, let's look at St. John's. While only ShotQuality picked Kansas to beat the Red Storm, the metrics largely have these two teams rated closely together. With more than 72% of Yahoo brackets selecting St. John's to the Sweet 16, Kansas is a nice value play if you see them getting past Arkansas.
More than 50% of brackets also have St. John's in the Elite Eight, while the analytics sites see that as a slam dunk pick the other way.
The analytics sites are also leery of Michigan State. While Tom Izzo has a well-established history of strong tournament performance, Iowa State is a large potential roadblock in the Sweet 16. The analytics sites see that as a toss-up at worst, if not a likely Cyclones win.
According to the metrics, Kentucky and Wisconsin should also be on upset watch. They have potent No. 6 seeds lined up in the second round (Illinois and BYU, respectively), to say nothing of Xavier and Texas on Kentucky's side. The Musketeers, in particular, garner a decent amount of respect from the numbers.
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