Madness Myths: Your Bracket Should Match Historical Trends

It's nice to be aware of March Madness trends, but picking games based on those factors can be very risky.

All too often, bracket advice references March Madness trends and performances by seed. You won’t find any shortage of advice discussing how frequently certain upsets occur or how often particular seeds advance to the Sweet Sixteen or Final Four.

While those historical numbers are good to know as a general reference point, you should avoid taking it to the next step: making picks to mirror those historical trends with your bracket.

Yet, the public popularity numbers suggest that many bracket pool participants do just that.

Why March Madness Trends Are Fickle

Here’s an example of a popular March Madness trend taken from a recent (and popular) strategy article:

“A healthy way to reach a plausible Final Four without sticking strictly with favorites is to work off of averages. Over the past 25 years, the average sum of the Final Four seeds has hovered around 11. That can translate to two top seeds, a No. 3 and a No. 6, or any other number of combinations.

Obviously you can pick a lower sum total to work towards if you want to play a bit more conservatively with your bracket, but the numbers don’t lie. If your Final Four teams add up to seven or less, you probably have room to get a little riskier.”

That was written before the 2019 NCAA Tournament. The seed numbers of the Final Four participants did add up to exactly 11—with No. 1 Virginia, No. 2 Michigan State, No. 3 Texas Tech, and No. 5 Auburn.

Here’s what happened in the NCAA Tournaments after that:

• 2021: Seed numbers totaled 15 — No. 1 Gonzaga and Baylor, No. 2 Houston, and No. 11 UCLA.
• 2022: Seed numbers totaled 13 — with No. 8 North Carolina advancing.
• 2023: Seed numbers totaled 22 — No. 4 UConn and San Diego State, No. 5 Miami, and No. 9 Florida Atlantic.
• 2024: Seed numbers totaled 17 — Had two No. 1 seeds and No. 4 Alabama, along with the Cinderella run by No. 11 NC State.

The Problem With This NCAA Tournament Trend

That’s how this NCAA Tournament trend has performed. Some may consider it acceptable—after all, the seeds added up to 11 in 2019 and came close in both 2021 and 2022. However, there is one key issue at its core:

• 100 different seed combinations add up to 11 in the Final Four.

Let that sink in: even if you hit the perfect seed combination of 11, and it comes true, your chance of accurately predicting the Final Four is just 1%.

In addition, 42% would have gotten zero Final Four teams right, and another 40% would have gotten one correct. The average pool participant employing this strategy in 2019 would have gotten 0.78 Final Four teams correct.

Here are the year-over-year results of this trend:

• 2021: None of them would have worked because you would have used some teams seeded better than No. 11 UCLA but worse than the other three participants.
• 2022: At best, you could’ve hit three with a couple of possible combinations.
• 2023: A handful of combinations could have gotten you a couple of the Final Four teams correct (if you hit the right No. 4 or No. 5 seed picks to go with some top seeds), but the vast majority would have ended in zero correct.
• 2024: Maybe you got three if you correctly identified Connecticut and Purdue as two top seeds to take while adding Alabama, but again, that is just one of many combos to choose from.

How Does That Compare on Average?

Meanwhile, people with the straightforward approach of picking all No. 1 Seeds (or three No. 1 Seeds and a No. 2, or two No. 1 Seeds and two No. 2 Seeds) would have averaged 1.00 Final Four teams picked correctly in 2019. Here are the results for subsequent years:

• 2021: 2 correct
• 2022: 1-3 correct
• 2023: 0 correct
• 2024: 2 correct

That’s at least 1.20 on average, and if they got the right top seed through, that team won the title more often than not.

You could argue that playing for a long-shot chance at hitting an unpopular Final Four is worth the risk in large pools. But it’s a far too risky strategy in pools that most people are playing in (small-to-medium size).

The Public Follows These NCAA Tournament Trends

We don’t mean to pick on one excerpt from one article because this mentality appears when we look at broader public picking trends. As we also noted in our article Picking Too Many No. 1 Seeds, the public seems to limit the number of No. 1 Seeds it picks to reach certain tournament rounds.

That’s one of the best explanations for why the public takes an average of 1.09 No. 1 Seeds to the Championship Game, and most seem to avoid picking two No. 1 Seeds to meet for the title. Over the last 27 tournaments, over half of all title participants have been No. 1 Seeds (28 of the 54 teams).

Public Data Tells the Story

Since 2010, our public pick percentages show that the average combined seed number of the Final Four picks is 9.7. That’s closer to mirroring the 11.0 for past results than a more conservative strategy of picking better seeds.

Here are some other examples of public pick percentages compared to past results going back to 2011 (13 tournaments), suggesting that a decent portion of the public tries to match historical results.

• The public has averaged picking 23% of No. 6 Seeds to advance to the Sweet Sixteen; 15% have advanced.
• The public has averaged picking 17% of No. 4 Seeds to advance to the Elite Eight, while 13% of them have advanced that far.
• The public has averaged picking 11% of No. 3 Seeds to advance to the Final Four, and 8% of them have advanced that far.
• The public has averaged picking a No. 1 Seed as Champ 15% of the time. Since 2011, 17% of all No. 1 Seeds have won a national title.

Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

There is a saying, often credited to Voltaire, that the “perfect is the enemy of the good.” For those who don’t know, Voltaire also gave us the famous quote: “I dunk, therefore I am.”

Many people strive for perfection with their bracket approach. They make risky picks trying to nail reality. But picking those long shots is hard, and mostly, they pick an alternate reality that is never realized.

If people let go of the idea that they had to be perfect with their March Madness bracket picks (and instead tried to be good), they would probably do better. Trying to match March Madness trends by picking upsets at the same rate as they happened in the past is usually a way to fall behind in the standings.

Spoiler Alert: You Aren’t Picking A Perfect Bracket

In most smaller to mid-sized pools, nailing a couple of Final Four teams and picking the Champion correctly (if it’s a reasonably popular champion) is the path to finishing in the money.

If you get too risky and try to predict the impossible (perfect bracket), you will lose ground in most years when the popular teams (which you avoided) continue to advance.

So don’t fall into the myth that your bracket has to mirror NCAA Tournament trends and team/seed advancement rates. Avoid forcing some quota where your Final Four picks add up to a certain seed number or where you have a certain number of teams from each seed line advancing to a particular stage.