PurpleAmerica, March Madness Style
We Talk NCAA Brackets....
We here at PurpleAmerica absolutely LOVE March Madness. There’s nothing better when it is wet or cold still outside, spring is right around the corner, and you choose voluntarily to sit in your entertainment room, watch four separate basketball games at once while munching Girl Scout Cookies and making runs to McDonalds at halftimes.
Now, I realize this may be too late for your Bracket entry, but a few tips I always adhere by that have allowed me to win many a friendly pool.
Bet against the Big Ten. That may change a little with the inclusion of all those west coast teams this year, but historically, the Big Ten does terrible in the tournament. There’s a history there where many of the better teams choke in the first round and many teams that everyone expects to go to the finals blow it before the Sweet Sixteen. This year, there are a number of teams that fit that bill, including my favorite Wisconsin Badgers, who although ranked 12th in the nation, travel to elevation in Denver facing likely two Rocky Mountain teams. There is one, and only one, real exception to the anti-Big Ten rule…
…Except Michigan State. If there is one perennial, its that Tom Izzo gets his squad prepped to play in the tourney every year. They always overachieve. Look to them to make an Elite Eight appearance and I wouldn’t be shocked if they upset Auburn there.
Pass through all of the 1-4 teams in the first round. On average, especially recently, they almost always win. If they do lose, nobody else picked them either, so it’s no real harm.
It used to be the 5/12 matchup where you saw upsets. In recent years, the 5/12 has settled with 3/4 of 5 seeds passing. Instead, its shifted to the 6/11 matchup, where on average two 6 seeds have failed. UNC, Drake, VCU and Xavier all fit the bill of a typical upset Cinderella.
Take all the 9 and 10 seeds in round 1. If your bracket gives you extra points for upsets, the 8/9 matchup recently had the higher seed winning only 33% of the time, and the 7/10 was only 50. What’s better is that this year, the 1 and 2 seeds are so good that if you get these wrong they’re NOT going to go past that. It’s an easy way to scrap up some extra points, and if there’s one thing I know, those points come in handy to edge out others who picked the same winner as you.
After the first two rounds, favor the SEC. The SEC was the best conference with the best teams this year by far. There are a number of teams that can win it all.
When in doubt, pick Duke. What can I say, I absolutely hate the Blue Devils but they always make a good appearance in the tourney.
Lastly, chalk is your friend. There is a reason why better teams have higher seeds. This year, the top 10 teams really are the top 10 teams in the country. Higher seeds really are indicative of which teams are better. I’ve run bracket tourneys in the past and those “experts” who love to pick upsets I included to show how people in the brackets compared. The experts almost universally always finished dead last. Why? Because its their job to make the games interesting, and if everyone knows who wins before they play, the ratings drop. Upsets are upsets for a reason, they rarely happen and when they do nobody expected them. Picking an upset can be great, but more often than not those that pick upsets pick the wrong upsets. The people who win bracket pools almost always do 3 things right; they pick higher seeds to win, they pick the overall winner, and in those close matchups in the sweet 16, they manage to pick one or two more wins than anyone else. That’s it, that’s the difference.
So have a good time with the NCAAs and Let the Madness Begin.
PurpleAmerica Pop Culture Random Top Five
This week: The Top 5 College Basketball Teams Ever
With March Madness, here’s our breakdown of the best ever:
The Fab Five. Michigan. Chris Webber dominated the floor but all five were phenomenal in how they played the game.
Early 90s Duke. Christian Laettner’s team that beat Kentucky in that all-time greatest game ever was stacked. Grant Hill, Bobby Hurley. I mean, most the entire country was rooting for Kentucky that game, and Laettner put the exclamation point down that they were just a hair better. Laettner would be the only college player on the Dream Team, and Hill and Hurley would be on the only team ever to BEAT the Dream Team.
Georgetown. Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown team was another that just seemed to beat up on everyone. The one black mark they had was in a championship game against Villanova, which had to play a perfect game to beat them and did.
UNLV. Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon and coach Tarkanian munching on towels during 40 point routs. It’s rare that you look at a college team and think they can beat some pro teams, but this one really could have.
John Wooden’s UCLA teams. No other team dominated college basketball as well and as long as the Bruins did in their runs with Wooden. Eventually including Lew Alcindor coming into his own, UCLA was all but unbeatable for a stretch that included 10 National Championships over 12 years. UCLA was the Galactic Empire before Star Wars.
PurpleAmerica’s Subscriber Mail
When we here at PurpleAmerica Respond to the Teeming Millions (well, we’re still working on that first million)
PurpleAmerica reader Toby Kunkler asked me “Where is the PurpleAmerica Mechandise?” I used to go through a different vendor and have been in the process of switching over to a new one. Well, Toby’s email motivated me to actually get going on this again this week.
So now the PurpleAmerica Store is now open!
Currently, we have coffee mugs, travel mugs and t-shirts, but look forward to additional merch to be added in the coming months! All the items are customizable for color and size. Get your PurpleAmerica Merch Today!
Have a question you want us to answer? Email us at purpleamericanunity@gmail.com
PurpleAmerica’s Historical Note from This Week
PurpleAmerica’s Dad/Uncle/Cheesy Joke of the Week
Not a joke this week, but just a fun March Madness fact…
According to ESPN, the closest anyone has ever gotten to having a perfect bracket in the 15 years they have had it on their website, an Ohio man in 2019 had every game going into the sweet 16 correct. That is a total of 48 games. He got the first 3 games of the Sweet Sixteen and then lost, marking 51 games into the bracket as the current record.
And with that…
