You want to win your March Madness pool. The money is nice, but the bragging rights are even better.
However, it seems so difficult to win your pool. You don’t have the time to research all sixty some teams.
I have a better way for you.
To win your pool, you must combines analytics and strategy. Analytics gives you an edge over others in predicting winners. Strategy lets you exploit the biases of others in picking the best bracket.
I discuss these ideas in How to win your NCAA tournament pool, my book for:
- People who don’t think March Madness can be predicted. You’ll be surprised how often analytics can predict the winner of tourney games, even before it starts. See the Introduction Chapter.
- People who think you should just pick the team with the highest win probability as champion. You need think contrarian. See Chapter 3.
- People who don’t have 10 hours to research their bracket. A simple 3 step process helps you make the most important choice for your bracket.
- People who love March Madness. This book recounts the excitement of past tourneys through an optimal bracket.
How to Win Your NCAA Tournament Pool explains how to fill out your bracket based on pool size. This is the only genuine way to maximize your odds of winning.
Over the years, I had tried all of the different tricks like finding the trendy 12 over 5 pick, going with Kenpom’s ratings or the lines set by Vegas. Once in a while, I’d get close to winning a pool, but I needed something to push me over the top, and your book was fantastic for that.
In 2015, I won two pools, one of them had 100 entries, and the other had 20 entries. In 2017, I won two pools and finished second in another.
— Ryan Peters, Omaha, Nebraska.
In March of 2019, the book was the top seller in the Basketball category on Amazon.
To get your copy of How to Win Your NCAA Tournament Pool, sign up for my free email newsletter. In each correspondence, I strive for three attributes
- Valuable
- Concise
- Entertaining
Each Saturday, I send out a curated list of sports betting tips and analytics. Before the start of the NCAA tournament, I’ll send you my cheat sheet that makes it drop dead easy to fill out your bracket.
To sign up for this free service and get a pdf of How to Win Your NCAA Tournament Pool, enter your best email and click on “Sign up now!”
About the author
Hi, my name is Ed Feng. As a college basketball junkie in grad school, I wrote code to use Ken Pomeroy’s numbers to fill out my bracket. After that, people stopped inviting me into their pools.
Years later, I developed a ranking algorithm for sports teams based on my research in the mathematics of randomness. This led to The Power Rank, my site devoted to better predictions through analytics.
March Madness has played a huge role in my sports analytics journey from the beginning. In 2012, SB Nation made a gorgeous video on my tourney analytics and data visualizations.
In addition, here’s an unsolicited email about my rankings and predictions.
You’ll be glad to know that I have been and continue to be in first place in my family bracket, and yesterday the message board was abuzz with talk of my first 8 picks being perfect. My police officer cousin threatened to subpoena my IP address to make sure I had picked before the games started. I explained my picks and posted a link to The Power Rank website, which prompted my uncle to cry foul about my research methods!
— Tom Kellogg, Madison, Wisconsin.
The secrets behind winning your pool
My research reveals the following lessons on filling out your bracket.
- Can tournament games be predicted at all? You might be surprised how often one particular team wins, and why this matters in small pools. See Chapter 1.
- How to pick the right pool. You might as well light your entry fee on fire if you enter the wrong pool. See Chapter 2.
- The contrarian approach to winning a medium sized pool that will make sense to no one but you. This is the key to avoiding the luck of others in your pool. See Chapter 3.
- Should you avoid picking three point shooting teams as champion?. Live by three, die by the three. This advice has changed over the years. See Chapter 5.
- Your true odds of winning a pool based on its size. My Monte Carlo simulations give you the best possible estimates.
Here’s the experience of a few people who have used my approach.
I used Ed’s methods and won a pool with 102 entrants. As a woman, it was particularly gratifying to win as the pool consisted of mostly men who consider themselves knowledgable. Thanks, The Power Rank!
— L.S. Stindt, Ann Arbor, MI, 2019.
In 2018, I won my pool with 58 brackets. I used the member numbers and analysis that Ed provides and contrasted them with the public information from ESPN. Love all the content he provides during March.
— Brian Z, New York City, NY, 2018.
I won a 100 person pool ($10 entry) which paid $600 for first. In another 34 person pool, I won 3rd with North Carolina which paid $90. In my last pool with $50 entry, I had Gonzaga as champion and took second, which paid $300.
— Garrett Tobel, 2017.
There is no guarantee that you’ll win your pool. Even with the best strategy, luck can slap you in the face. Grandma, who doesn’t know the difference between John Calipari and Nick Saban, picks every sleeper team that makes the Sweet 16 and wins the pool.
However, analytics can greatly reduce the role of luck in your pool results. In about twelve thousand words and seven visuals, this book shows you the best strategy based on pool size. In addition, I provide an honest look at your chances of winning a pool.
How to win your pool
Members of The Power Rank get How to Win Your NCAA Tournament Pool as well as full bracket advice that applies the strategies to a specific tournament. Members also have access to all of my football predictions. To learn more, click here.
You can also get a pdf copy of How to Win Your NCAA Tournament Pool by signing up for my free email newsletter. In each correspondence, I strive to be three things:
- Valuable
- Concise
- Entertaining
Each Saturday, I send out a curated list of sports betting tips and analytics. Before the start of the NCAA tournament, I’ll send you my cheat sheet that makes it drop dead easy to fill out your bracket.
To sign up for this free service and get a pdf of How to Win Your NCAA Tournament Pool, enter your best email and click on “Sign up now!”
How to Win Your NCAA Tournament Pool, the professionally edited book, is also available from Amazon in both paperback and for Kindle. The paperback version of the book was updated in February of 2020 with a new design and crisp images.
- To read the paperback for $9.99, click here.
- To read the Kindle version for $2.99, click here. The book is also part of Kindle Unlimited, so you can read the book for free if you have subscribed to this service.
Don’t have a Kindle? You can download the free Kindle reading app for your smartphone, tablet, PC, or Mac, iPad.