What to Consider for Your Bracket Strategy
What factors do you consider in selecting your bracket teams to advance? Whether it is your office pool, a club bracket contest or an online bracket registration, looking ahead to possible match-ups is needed to speculate on who will be eliminated.
Advancing to the next round is the key to staying in at least two regional bracket.
Upset picks early on is a boost to your chances and having more spots available to you in the second round. You will get lucky at times but a bracket strategy from certain factors to consider should be part of your selection process. A little research goes a long way with the following observations.
Take in to account those lower seeded teams who finished their season on a high note. Momentum and playing your best ball at the end of the regular season has a carry over effect in the tournament. Good performance down the stretch instills confidence and some strong vibes that teammates feed off each other.
Where are those first or second round upsets. If the carry over momentum from a season ending strong performance is evident, you need to take chances and go with your gut instincts sometimes. You need a few upsets to move ahead but do not pick more than two or three at most in the first two rounds. Forget a 16 seed beating a one seed — has never happened.
Number two seed wins 95% in the first round. The rest in between seeds is where to research and find that upset.
Other factors to consider for your basketball betting strategy is how well a team played against top 20 ranked teams. Strength of schedule can reveal a comparison of players and match-ups. Even when losing to a ranked team, the results in a loss can be a good indication of where a team fits in the overall basketball landscape. A strong showing in a loss can put an underrated team on the map. An impressive won/loss record is only as good as the strength of the opponent and can be misleading. A team can be overrated until they play stronger competition. A good performance in a loss or a solid win over ranked teams is the hint of a possible upset. An 11 seed over a 6 seed is a good spot for an upset.
Strength of schedule is part of your research but attached to that schedule is how well your team played on the road. Playing away from home and traveling to the opponents home court is a difficult part of the game. Home court teams have a well known advantage. How your team performed in hostile territory makes them a stronger competitive team.
However, this is not the case as all teams play on a neutral court site in four different regions around the country. Different locations requires most teams extensive travel to first round games. But some teams play close to home in the early rounds and are familiar with the away environment. How to handicap those teams that played well on the road is an important factor to consider. Checking the away record indicates how well a team travels and how mature their psyche adjusts to their “field of battle”.
A neutral site for both teams is a level playing court and no obvious advantage for either team. But being on the road can favor those teams with a good away record from a long regular season. Now they play to advance and are mentally ready for any court in any place and no travel hangover.
