Here’s Bracket Help For The $1 Billion NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament: Applaud Bill Self And Take Kansas

The explanation the TV duo of CBS and Turner pays the NCAA a median of $1 billion per season via 2032 for March Insanity protection is as a result of something can occur between the primary and the final dribble of most video games.

Not solely that, however it usually does.

Numbers. A lot of numbers inform you all it is advisable to know concerning the mania surrounding the NCAA males’s basketball match, and people numbers transcend $3.1 billion, which is the amount of cash the American Gaming Affiliation estimated 45 million People wagered on final 12 months’s occasion.

Let’s begin with the numbers that received’t occur Thursday or Friday when the NCAA males’s basketball match begins its quick break towards the Ultimate 4 slated for the primary week of April in Houston.

For the second time in 148 tries, a No. 16 seed received’t threaten to trigger earth to swap locations with Jupiter by beating a No. 1 seed.

It’s 5 years later, and I’m nonetheless rubbing my eyes.

Virginia actually did lose again then to UMBC (or the College of Maryland, Baltimore County, to be official). Worse, the supposedly loaded Cavaliers owned the general No. 1 seed, however they have been clobbered by 20 factors.

As for this faculty basketball season, New York Publish author Zach Braziller had it precisely proper in mid-January when he stated of the chaos within the nationwide rankings as much as that time, “Of the Related Press high 25, 11 groups misplaced on Saturday. There have already been 13 completely different groups ranked within the high 5. Of the six main conferences, the first-place group with the most important lead is, of all groups, the ACC’s Clemson, picked eleventh within the league.”

That stated, UMBC clones received’t floor this time round sporting glass slippers for Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. As a substitute, general No. 1 seed Alabama will crush the Islanders within the S0uth area.

Identical to Alabama, Purdue is simply too strong and too centered to undergo a first-round knockout from a light-weight, which suggests Purdue received’t choke towards Fairleigh Dickinson within the East. Neither will H0uston versus Northern Kentucky within the Midwest nor Kansas versus Howard within the West.

Houston and Kansas joined Alabama and Purdue by working most of this season with tunnel imaginative and prescient.

Now about these different numbers . . .

I’ll tease you with a few of them (whereas offering strategies) that will help you construct a basis for a worthwhile bracket. As an illustration: A No. 11 seed has triumphed throughout the opening spherical of 64 throughout the previous 17 tournaments.

Take No. 11 seed Pitt over No. 6 seed Iowa State.

Pitt is a prolific taking pictures group, particularly from 3-point vary, the place the Panthers join 36% of the time. OK, OK, they dropped three of their final 4 video games, however Iowa State limped into the match with eight defeats over 11 video games, and of the 12 losses for the Cyclones, 11 have been away from house.

FYI: Greensboro, North Carolina (the place Pitt and Iowa State play Friday within the opener) is 1,040 miles from Ames, Iowa.

There are also these numbers: A No. 8 or a No. 9 seed has reached the Candy 16 for the final 5 straight years. Go together with Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway within the East along with his streaking No. 8 seed Memphis Tigers. They’ve received six of their final seven video games, together with a 40-point victory over Tulane throughout the semifinals of the American Athletic Convention match.

They’re fast, environment friendly and constant on offense and protection. They’ll crush No. 9 seed Florida Atlantic, and so they’ll outrun Purdue’s 7-foot-4 heart Zach Edey within the second spherical to achieve the Candy 16.

I’ll shut with the biggie.

For 5 straight tournaments, a No. 1 seed has received all of it.

It’ll be six straight.

Kansas will turn into the primary repeat champion in males’s faculty basketball since Florida in 2006 and 2007.

Two phrases: Invoice Self. He’s the Kansas miracle employee of a head coach in so some ways. The Huge 12 was this season’s hardest convention, however regardless of his Jayhawks shedding 74% of their scoring from that 2022 nationwide title group, they have been within the high 25 in offense. In addition they remained Invoice Self robust on protection by ending among the many nation’s high 10.

To conclude that “miracle employee” theme for Self, he’s in his 3oth season as a university basketball coach general and twentieth at Kansas. He missed the Huge 12 match final week to have two stents positioned in his coronary heart for therapy of blocked arteries.

He’s again for the NCAA match.

Guess what would make a fairy story ending this season for Kansas and their 60-year-old coach who was simply in a hospital mattress?

Uh huh.