SEARCH NEWS:

 

March Madness Contest Tips

He used one bracket for five different pools, stating confidently that he was ready to win everyone's money this year. By two in the afternoon, one of his final four teams was gone. By the end of the day, two of them were gone, thanks to the Hampton Pirates, and his bracket lay on the floor, crumpled.

And so, I thought, this is the beauty of being a bettor when it comes to tournament time. The tournament doesn't have to end when you lose a final four team or two ... rather, it can progress as it moves along, 63 distinct opportunities to handicap a game here and there.

There are a zillion different ways of handicapping the tournament. I will present three strategies that I'd like you to peruse.

#1. Choose your teams before the tournament.

Part of the majesty of the tournament is that you go in not knowing anything about a certain team, and three weeks later you are wearing their star player's jersey underneath your suit and tie. That certainly is a great feeling and not one that I want you to deny. However, you don't want to hop on the bandwagon with your hard-earned cash when a team has already covered three games in a row and hope for another cover. The bottom line is that all good things come to an end, and only one team will win the tournament. So, my first suggestion, is to take a few teams and ride them.

The way I like to do it is to choose one team in each bracket that I like, and one that I don't like. Believe me, you'll find them. Play on the team that you like and play against the team that you don't like. Follow this recipe throughout the tournament, continuing to play on the team until they've been eliminated. Chances are, if you pick wisely, you can give yourself a nice cushion. You probably won't end up betting on more than twelve or thirteen games this way, so you basically only need about one win from each team you like (and one win against each team that you don't like) to capitalize.

Here are the teams that I like:

Gonzaga (WEST)

Texas Tech (EAST)

Illinois (MIDWEST)

Alabama (SOUTH)

Here are the teams that I don't like, and am going to play against:

Ohio St. (WEST)

Oregon (MIDWEST)

Georgia (EAST)

Pittsburgh (SOUTH)

#2. Beware the impact of the media.

The best lines you are going to see are the lines for the Saturday and Sunday games on the first and second weekends -- the games that decide who goes to the Sweet Sixteen and who goes to the Final Four. Here's why:

The media goes nuts with the tournament. Any low seed who may actually be decent can be considered to be a great play until the word "Cinderella" starts getting thrown around. The four or five days at the beginning of the week allow for havoc to be wreaked upon the lines. The 48 hour turnaround on the weekend is a lot less impactful, and thus the lines will be more natural. Also, the teams will have, barring some sort of unbelievable performance, similar public sentiment as they did before the Thursday/Friday games. So you'll find a truer line. If you like a team in a Thursday/Friday game, but you're not sure, just watch the game. The weekend will likely afford another similar betting opportunity.

Unfortunately it's a bit more difficult to pick teams like this beforehand, but here are some teams that, if they win on Thursday/Friday, you should think about playing over the weekend: Missouri; Southern Illinois; Michigan St.; Boston College; Pepperdine; Pennsylvania; and Hawaii.

#3. Check out the preseason Top 15.

In the preseason AP Top 25, the following teams were ranked highly: Illinois (3); Kentucky (4); UCLA (5); Florida (6); Missouri (8); Stanford (13); Michigan St. (15). None of these teams, in the tournament, is ranked even close to where they were at the beginning of the year. In fact, some of these teams that were ranked so highly at the beginning of the year are ranked in the bottom half of their brackets. What does this mean? It basically means that these teams have legitimate talent. In some cases, they've been exposed to be not as good as they should have been, but it also means the potential is there. My advice would be to add all of these teams to the list of eams on which you are going to play.

In the tournament it all comes down to one game, and these teams are all legit basketball programs who could play a big game and upset a contender.

#4. Watch the moneylines carefully.

North Carolina-Wilmington is +420 against USC; Murray St. is +300 against Georgia; and my personal favorite McNeese St. is +450 against Mississippi St. (I love this game). These are all worth a one unit play, because if any one of them wins, you'll be up, and if two of them win you'll have a nice cushion for the rest of the tournament.

So, good luck this weekend. I'll be back early next week to see how I did and get you ready for the next week of action.

Enjoy the Festa!

< Gaming News