Deciding to trust my Self

Those of us who fill out NCAA Tournament brackets this week tend to spend a lot of time thinking about which first-round upsets to choose. It’s a lot of fun to be correct about the underdog that comes through, to have the right No. 12 seed knocking out a No. 5.
But in the long run, those first-round upsets don’t matter much. Winning your bracket is about getting as many teams as possible correct in the Final Four, and ultimately selecting the right champion.
Here is how I chose mine.

Choose a favorite
Yes, every once in a while Butler, George Mason or VCU makes a big run. But the statistics overwhelmingly favor a top-four seed winning the tournament.
So, that’s the list I’m going to start with. My choices are Duke, Florida, Georgetown, Gonzaga, Indiana, Kansas, Kansas State, Louisville, Marquette, Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, New Mexico, Ohio State, Saint Louis and Syracuse.

McDonald’s matters
Perhaps my favorite fact about the NCAA Tournament is that in every year since 1979 the team that won the championship has had at least one McDonald’s All-American on its roster. Last season’s champion, Kentucky, had six such players, including Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.
This step in the process eliminates six teams, including No. 1 seed Gonzaga. The others are Steve Alford’s New Mexico squad, Georgetown, Marquette, Michigan and St. Louis.
Each of the other 10 teams from my original list have at least one McDonald’s All-American. Indiana has two in Cody Zeller and Yogi Ferrell.

Pick a champion
Not surprisingly, a team that has already won a championship is likely to win another one. In this case, I’m talking about conference regular-season or tournament titles.
Louisville, Kansas, Miami and St. Louis won both the regular-season and tournament championships in the Big East, Big 12, ACC and Atlantic 10 respectively. Indiana was the Big Ten regular-season champion while Ohio State won the tournament title. And Florida won the SEC regular-season crown.

Scoring counts
As much as I love a basketball team that plays great defense, scoring matters. An average of 75 points per game seems to be the magic number in terms of predicting a tournament winner.
That criteria narrows my list of possible tournament winners to Indiana (80 points per game this season) and Kansas (75.4).
The next highest scoring team left on my list is Louisville at 73.6.

Pick your favorite
The biggest first-round upset pick in my bracket is No. 13 New Mexico State over St. Louis. I was somewhat tempted by No. 14 Northwestern State, the highest-scoring team in the county, over Florida, but decided not to pick against the Gators.
The lowest I have advancing deeper into the tournament are No. 12 seeds Oregon and California to the Sweet 16 and No. 5 Wisconsin to the Elite 8.
As for the champion, anyone who has ever read my column should know I’m not going to choose the Hoosiers if only to rile up area fans.
I’m picking the Jayhawks to beat Indiana in the national semifinal game on April 6 in Atlanta. But that doesn’t mean I’m picking Bill Self’s team to win it all.
Instead, I’m ignoring statistics and using my own personal bracket selection rule: If your favorite team is a real contender, take it to win the title.
So while the stats tell me Indiana and Kansas are probably the teams with the best chance to win it all, I’m taking Ohio State. In the long run, it’ll be a lot more fun for me if I can win my tournament bracket and have the Buckeyes take the title as well.

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