Jumping in Office Pool: Sweet 16 Dos & Don'ts For Assembling NCAA Bracket

Participating in office pools for major sports events, whether for money or not, has become as American in the national workplace as filling out your vacation schedule. Both forms can be perplexing because you frequently second guess yourself on where to go, when to go and exactly what to do. More often than not, you want to modify the submissions moments after turning them in. You feel as if you've flunked Office-Pool Economics 101.

No office pool heightens your frustration more than the NCAA Tournament. The allure of the office anarchy can be attributed to the futility of the exercise. Just ask Pete Rose when he was relaxing at spring training. Still, a little sophisticated guidance is better than none at all as you strive to meet the deadline for submitting your final NCAA playoff bracket.

If you're among the ardent fans who adore the Final Four and are starving for relevant handicapping tips, a sane approach to surviving March Madness has arrived. It is time to start chewing on historical nuggets to avoid making another April Fool appearance when results are posted on the bulletin board. Pay close attention to these sweet 16 dos and don'ts on how to fill out your bracket. As events unfold, you might want to rekindle old memories by assessing CollegeHoopedia.com's most magical playoff moments and All-Time All-NCAA Tournament teams.

1. SEEDING CAPACITY
DO pick a top three seeded team to win the national title.
In the first 35 years since the NCAA Tournament embraced seeding, 31 of the champions were seeded No. 1 (20 titlists), 2 (six) or 3 (five). The only championship game without at least one No. 1 or No. 2 seed was 1989, when a pair of No. 3 seeds clashed (Michigan and Seton Hall), until last year when #3 Connecticut opposed #8 Butler.

DON'T pick more than two of the four regional No. 1 seeds to reach the Final Four.
No. 1 seeds always look tempting (especially after all four advanced to national semifinals in 2008). But the Final Four did not have more than two of them any year from 1979 through 1992.

2. DOUBLE TROUBLE
DO pick two teams seeded 13th or worse to defeat teams seeded two through four and one team seeded 12th to reach a regional semifinal.
Since the seeding process started in 1979, never have all of the top four seeds in each regional survived their opening round. A No. 12 seed advanced to the round of 16 five consecutive years from 1990 through 1994.

DON'T automatically pick a perennial power to defeat a team with a double-digit seed.
More than 100 different coaches have lost at least one tournament game to an opponent with a double-digit seed since the seeding process was introduced. Playoff newcomers shouldn't be shunned if they get any break at all in the seeding process. First-time entrants assert themselves when they receive a decent draw. Of the schools making their tournament debuts since the field expanded to at least 52 teams, almost one-fourth of them survived the first round.

3. SCORING SUMMARY
DO shun a potential championship team if an underclassman guard is leading the squad in scoring.
The only freshmen to lead a national champion in scoring were Utah forward Arnie Ferrin in 1944 and Syracuse forward Carmelo Anthony in 2003. Of the sophomores to lead national titlists in scoring average, the only guards were Indiana's Isiah Thomas (16 ppg in 1981) and Duke's Jason Williams (21.6 ppg in 2001).

DON'T tamper with a "curse" by picking a team with the nation's leading scorer on its roster to reach the Final Four.
No national champion has had a player average as many as 30 points per game. The only player to lead the nation in scoring average while playing for a school to reach the NCAA Tournament championship game was Clyde Lovellette, who carried Kansas to the 1952 title. The only other player to lead the nation in scoring average while playing for a team advancing to the Final Four was Oscar Robertson, who powered Cincinnati to the national semifinals in 1959 and 1960 before the Bearcats were defeated both years by California. The Bears restricted the Big O to a total of 37 points in the two Final Four games as he was just nine of 32 from the floor.

4. PICKS AND PANS
Unless vital criteria is met to suffice otherwise, DO go with better-seeded teams to win games in the four regionals.
The better-seeded teams win a little over 2/3 of the games in regional competition. However, Final Four games have virtually broken even in regard to the original seedings.

DON'T pick a team to capture the NCAA title if the club lost its conference tournament opener.
No team ever has won an NCAA championship after losing a conference postseason tournament opener.

5. DIRECTIONAL SIGNALS
DO remember the cliche "East is Least."
No Eastern school won the East Regional and the national title in the same season since the tournament went to four regionals until Syracuse achieved the feat in 2003. The first seven national champions from the East Regional since 1956 were all ACC members (North Carolina '57, N.C. State '74, North Carolina '82, Duke '92, North Carolina '93, Duke '01 and Maryland '02) before Carolina won the East Regional again in 2005.

DON'T accept the axiom that the "West is Worst."
What does the Left Coast have to do to shed a misguided image? The Pacific-12 Conference supplied two NCAA champions in a three-year span (UCLA '95 and Arizona '97) before Stanford and Utah reached the 1998 Final Four. Arizona was runner-up in 2001 before UCLA participated in three straight Final Fours from 2006 through 2008. Although the Pac-12 struggled this season, the multiple-bid Mountain West and/or West Coast could take up the slack.

6. MATHEMATICAL ODDS
DO pick two of the ten recognizable schools with the all-time best playoff records to reach the Final Four.
There is a strong possibility some familiar faces will arrive in New Orleans since at least two of the ten winningest schools by percentage (minimum of 50 playoff games) usually appear at the Final Four. The top ten schools are Duke (.744 entering the '17 tourney), UCLA (.725), North Carolina (.719), Florida (.714), Kentucky (.707), Kansas (.699), Michigan State (.683), Michigan (.672), Indiana (.667) and Ohio State (.667).

DON'T be too wary of first-rate coaches with dime-store playoff results.
High-profile coaches are occasionally grilled because of their dismal tournament resumes. But they're due to eventually turn things around and shouldn't be written off altogether. Remember: Legendary John Wooden lost his first five playoff games as coach at UCLA by an average of more than 11 points and compiled an anemic 3-9 record from 1950 through 1963 before the Bruins won an unprecedented 10 national titles in 12 years from 1964 through 1975. It doesn't seem possible, but additional elite coaches who didn't win their first NCAA playoff game until their 10th DI season or longer include Dana Altman, Rick Barnes, P.J. Carlesimo, Pete Carril, Bobby Cremins, Tom Davis, Cliff Ellis, Bill E. Foster, Hugh Greer, Leonard Hamilton, Marv Harshman, Terry Holland, Maury John, Mike Krzyzewski, Ralph Miller, Mike Montgomery, Joe Mullaney, Pete Newell, Tom Penders, George Raveling, Kelvin Sampson, Norm Sloan, Butch van Breda Kolff and Ned Wulk.

7. GO WITH MIGHTY MO?
DO remember the odds about a conference tournament champion reaching the NCAA Tournament final.
There is a theory that burnout has a tendency to set in. But more than half of the NCAA titlists since seeding started in 1979 also won their conference postseason tournament the same year.

DON'T be swayed by a postseason conference tournament title or a poor performance in an elite league tourney.
Disregard the "hot team" factor because a defeat in a league tournament is often a better motivational tool than a complacency-inducing victory.

8. LOOKING OUT FOR NO. 1
DO look for a school other than the defending champion (Connecticut in 2014) to become national titlist.
Duke was fortunate to repeat in 1992 when they reached the Final Four on Christian Laettner's last-second basket in overtime in the East Regional final against Kentucky. Florida repeated in 2007 despite winning its last five contests by 10 or fewer points.

DON'T pick the top-ranked team entering the tournament to reach the national championship game, let alone capture the crown.
There is a clear and present danger for pole sitters. Only three of the 29 schools atop the national rankings entering the NCAA playoffs from 1983 through 2011 went on to capture the national championship and only six No. 1 squads in the last 25 seasons of that span reached the title game.

9. NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK
DO pick at least one Final Four team with a coach making his debut at the national semifinals.
Just four Final Fours (1951, 1968, 1984 and 1993) had all four coaches arrive there with previous Final Four experience. There has been at least one fresh face among the bench bosses at the national semifinals all but one of the last 27 years. In 1993, coaches Steve Fisher (Michigan), Rick Pitino (Kentucky), Dean Smith (North Carolina) and Roy Williams (Kansas) returned to familiar surroundings at the Final Four.

DON'T pick a team to win the national title if its coach is in his first season at the school.
Steve Fisher guided Michigan to the 1989 title after succeeding Bill Frieder just before the start of the playoffs. But the only individual to capture an NCAA crown in his first full campaign as head coach at a university was Ed Jucker (Cincinnati '61 after seven years at King's Point and Rensselaer). The average championship team head coach has been at the school almost 13 years and has almost 17 years of college head coaching experience overall. The only championship head coaches with less than five years of experience were Fisher and Fred Taylor (second season at Ohio State '60).

10. SENIORS AND SHEEPSKINS
DO realize that senior experience needs to be complemented by the vigor from undergraduates.
A senior-laden lineup is not a prerequisite for capturing a national championship. An average of only two seniors were among the top seven scorers for NCAA Tournament titlists since the playoff field expanded to at least 64 teams in 1985. Eight of the 16 NCAA champions from 1991 through 2006 boasted no more than one senior among its top seven scorers. Only three NCAA champions since Indiana '87 - UCLA (1995), Michigan (2000) and Maryland (2002) - had seniors as their top two scorers.

DON'T pick a team to capture the title if it is coached by a graduate of the school.
A champion is almost never guided by a graduate of that university.

11. CHANGE OF ADDRESS
DO pick at least one of your Final Four teams to have a transfer starter.
Almost every Final Four features at least one starter who began his college career at another four-year Division I school.

DON'T pick schools that lost a vital undergraduate to reach the Final Four if you think the defectors will become pro stars.
Ten individuals scored more than 20,000 points in the NBA or were named to at least five All-NBA teams after participating in the NCAA Division I playoffs and then leaving college with eligibility remaining - Charles Barkley (departed Auburn early), Hakeem Olajuwon (Houston), Isiah Thomas (Indiana), Wilt Chamberlain (Kansas), Karl Malone (Louisiana Tech), Magic Johnson (Michigan State), Bob McAdoo and Michael Jordan (North Carolina), Adrian Dantley (Notre Dame) and Elgin Baylor (Seattle). None of their schools reached the Final Four the year or years they could have still been in college.

12. CONFERENCE CALL
DO pick two teams from the same conference to reach the Final Four, with at least one of them advancing to the championship game.
Double your pleasure: A pair of members from the same conference frequently advance to the Final Four.

DON'T be condescending and overlook quality mid-major conference teams.
It's not a question of if but where will David defeat Goliath. There have been more than 100 Big Boy losses against members of lower-profile conferences seeded five or more places worse than the major university which is currently a member of one of the current consensus top six leagues. A total of 74 different lower-profile schools and current members of 23 different mid-major conferences (all but Great West, Northeast and Summit) have won such games since seeding started in 1979.

13. REGULAR-SEASON REVIEW
DO pick two of your Final Four teams from schools failing to finish atop their regular-season conference standings.
The best is yet to come for a team or two that might have been somewhat of an underachiever during the regular season. Almost half of the entrants since the field expanded to 48 in 1980 did not win outright or share a regular-season league title.

DON'T put much emphasis on comparing regular-season scores.
A striking number of NCAA champions lost at least one conference game to a team with a losing league mark. Many NCAA champions weren't exactly invincible as a majority of them lost a regular-season games by a double-digit margin.

14. AT-LARGE ANSWERS
DO avoid picking an at-large team with a losing conference record to go beyond the second round.
An at-large team with a sub-.500 league mark almost never wins more than one NCAA Tournament game.

DON'T pick an at-large team compiling a mediocre record to reach the regional semifinals.
Only a handful of at-large entrants winning fewer than 60 percent of their games manage to reach the second round.

15. RACIAL PROFILING
DO pick at least a couple of teams coached by African Americans to advance a minimum of two rounds in the tournament.
More often than not, at least two teams coached by African Americans reach the regional semifinals (round of 16).

DON'T pick a team to win the championship if its top two scorers are white athletes.
Duke had the only two teams in recent memory to win the NCAA title with white players comprising its top two point producers that season. In 1991, the two two scorers were Christian Laettner and Billy McCaffrey, who subsequently transferred to Vanderbilt. In 2010, Jon Scheyer and Kyle Singler were Duke's top two scorers. Laettner also led the Blue Devils in scoring when they captured the 1993 crown. The only other white players ranked among the top three scorers for NCAA championship teams since the field expanded to at least 40 teams included: Randy Wittman (third for Indiana '81), Steve Alford (led Indiana '87), Kevin Pritchard (third for Kansas '88), Eric Montross (led North Carolina '93), Jeff Sheppard/Scott Padgett (first and third for Kentucky '98), Gerry McNamara (third for Syracuse '03) and Tyler Hansbrough (led North Carolina '09).

16. LAW OF AVERAGES
DO pick one "sleeper" team not ranked among the top ten in either of the final wire-service polls entering the tournament to reach the championship game.
There likely will be a Rip Van Winkle finally waking up to advance to the national final after not being ranked among the top ten in an AP final poll.

DON'T pick the national runner-up from one year to win the championship the next season.
The only three teams ever to finish national runner-up one year and then capture the title the next season were North Carolina (1981 and 1982), Duke (1990 and 1991) and Kentucky (1997 and 1998).