Informed Tip of the Week: Important paper here about some of the underlying problems with home insurance coverage that Informed is working on fixing. Does a good job explaining a lot of the core issues such as disappearing roof coverage and the need for better information along with the obstacles to providing it.
NCAA Prediction Time
If you don’t remember (or are a newer reader), I came out with a guide to picking your college basketball pool that has nailed the last two champions. The approach is based on the concept that you can’t win by picking a consensus champion because too many others will have done the same thing and you will need to win by getting all your other picks right. It is thus easier to pick a credible, non consensus winner.
However, the system is most valuable when there is a clear overlooked potential winner like there was the past two seasons with Baylor and Virginia. That doesn’t exist this year. Gonzaga deserves to be the favorite and the other one seeds have real question marks.
So, it will take some extra nuance to win this year. Let me try to simplify things. The field is a bit more wide open this year behind Gonzaga. Let’s look at common characteristics of national champions.
Those are your nine contenders. Note, popular picks like Kansas, Kentucky, Duke, and Villanova don’t make the list. We can comfortably toss them aside.
Now, let’s evaluate some strategies:
#1 Pick Against Gonzaga
This would be the normal playbook. After all, Gonzaga is being selected by 28% of participants. Only one other team is > 10% (Arizona) so if you can get one of those single digit picks to come through you likely win your pool. And I listed seven other choices. Houston and Arkansas are at 1%! Texas is even lower. Why not pick one of those?
If you want to be bold, you can certainly do that. However, in that case, you are probably better off betting online as you can get Arkansas at 50-1 and Texas at 100-1 without having to worry about what other people pick.
The simpler way to bet against Gonzaga is with either Baylor or Auburn. They both meet the criteria and have favorable regions.
#2 Pick Gonzaga to Lose the Final
This is a hedge on the normal strategy. Pick Gonzaga to make the final, but lose it. There will be a lot of other people with this result (42% have Gonzaga in the final, but 28% have them winning which means 14% have them losing), but if you get the correct winner on the other side, you have a good chance to win overall.
This means you are eliminating teams from the East and West as your champion by advancing Gonzaga to the final. From the South and Midwest, we have four teams that meet our championship criteria: Arizona, Auburn, Tennessee, and Houston.
No point in picking Arizona. 30% of people have them in the final and 13% as champion. There are a lot of brackets with Gonzaga-Arizona for the title. You’ll never win that way. I’ll talk about Houston later, but they’re more of a longshot than you need here.
Auburn and Tennessee were each picked by 10% of people to make the final and 4% to win it. Having either one of those beating Gonzaga likely wins you your pool.
Which one? They’re really opposites of each other. Auburn was 22-1 a month ago and ranked #1 before struggling down the stretch. Tennessee started slower but has won seven straight and 12 of 13.
I’d lean Tennessee but they have a much tougher region whereas Auburn is in probably the weakest region. Either one of these fits the model, so go with whichever you like better.
#3 Pick Gonzaga to Win It All
Wait, this isn’t the playbook. What am I suggesting? Well, for starters, Gonzaga isn’t as overbet as normal. Last year, they were picked by 36% of people with a legit challenger in Baylor. The season before Duke was at 40% because of Zion. 28% isn’t totally crazy. The 538 model has them at 27%.
Also, remember what I said upfront. There isn’t an obvious alternative to Gonzaga, so it isn’t totally off the reservation to pick them to win and try to take your pool by getting at least three of the total Final Four picks right.
This isn’t easy, but it’s not necessarily that much more difficult than picking Auburn to win the whole thing. You have to decide is it more likely a 5% chance wins or that the favorite wins and you pick the correct runner ups.
So how would this work? Most others pick several 1 seeds to make the Final Four. Don’t do that.
Do you know the most common outcome is only one #1 seed makes the Final Four? So take Gonzaga with three lower seeds.
Who? Well, I already gave you two teams you can add to your Final Four in Auburn and Tennessee. If you really want to spice it up, you can go with Houston instead of Tennessee. The computer models love them and yet only 6% of people picked them to the Final Four.
In the East, a combined 60% of people picked Kentucky and Baylor. Take UCLA instead at 11%.
That gives you a 1 (Gonzaga), 2 (Auburn), 3 (Tennessee), and 4 (UCLA). That’s not a lock to win your pool (you’d probably need to get either Auburn or Tennessee right as the other finalist), but it’s the best chance you have if you want to pick Gonzaga to win.
My Pick
As you may have guessed, I’m zagging while others zig. One really important thing to remember about models. They’re not always right. Part of judgment is knowing when to say the model isn’t a good fit for the particular circumstances.
Gonzaga isn’t that overbet a favorite. There isn’t an obvious alternative. There are lots of 2, 3, and even 4 seeds who are as likely to make the Final Four as the other 1s.
So the way to be different this year is to try to beat the weaker #1 seeds. I gave you Auburn, Tennessee, and UCLA, but I’d also consider Arkansas and Houston.
If you want some real long shots, I think Memphis loses in the first round, but they are a top 10 team on talent. Could they beat Gonzaga in the second round and go all the way? Why not? Virginia Tech should probably be a 6 seed, not a 11. A Final Four is probably too much to ask, but they’re a legit long shot if you want one.
So, I’m going with Gonzaga this year. The way I’ll try to win the pool is to pick against all the other one seeds making the Final Four. That’s where the value is this season so I’ll adapt my strategy to the circumstances.