How To Win Your March Madness Bracket Pool in 2025

And a Yale/Texas A&M First Round Matchup Breakdown

D&D readers are finally getting a breather from my usual political posts to talk about college basketball and March Madness. Anyone who knows me knows the only two things I love more than elections are college basketball and making money, so let’s get into it.

I've had a pretty good run with UConn lately - their back-to-back titles have helped me make over $4k combined from bracket pools in the past two years, though I'll be the first to admit luck played its part. Last year's less public version of this post seemed to help quite a few people with their pools, and while past performance doesn't guarantee future results (and I might be due for some mean reversion), I figured I'd share my thoughts this year.

From a statistical standpoint, if you follow my advice in bracket pools, you’re probably looking at an expected (average) return of 2-5x on your investment, with a bigger edge (but more variance because you’re going to hit big super rarely) in larger pools and a smaller edge (but less variance) in smaller pools.

Table of Contents

SECTION 1: Summary

SECTION 2: Math Thoughts

SECTION 3: Basketball Thoughts

SECTION 4: Full Model Probabilities

SECTION 5: Bonus Yale Thoughts

If anyone has questions abt a specific team I didn’t cover (e.g. why are you so low on Purdue?) feel free to leave a comment.

SECTION 1: Summary

Compared to what the general public (the people you’ll be playing against in your bracket pool) is picking, I am pretty high on Duke and Houston to win the title and Texas Tech to advance to the E8 or even F4/Title Game, and I am low on St John’s and Kentucky to advance to the E8, Michigan to advance to the S16, and Memphis to advance to the 2nd Round. I recommend picking more favorites from a seed perspective than you are used to both early and late in the tournament, since there are pretty big tier breaks between the 4 and 5 seeds and the 8 and 9 seeds this year which is convenient for picking teams. This is the strongest set of 1 seeds compared to the field in the history of the NCAA tournament. It’s a boring year for making brackets, because in most situations you want all 1 seeds in the Final Four. If you’re in a small pool (<100 people) you want to be picking all 1 seeds to the F4 (really anyone can win but I would recommend Duke or Houston) with the potential exceptions of Texas Tech or even Maryland. If you’re in a larger pool (>100 people) it opens you up to some more fun stuff like Louisville/Gonzaga/Iowa State/Arizona to the F4 or Colorado State/UNC (if they win their play-in game) to the Elite 8. In really large pools (>500 people) you can have Tech/Maryland/Louisville/Gonzaga/Arizona/Colorado State win the title or lose to Duke/Florida or something.

SECTION 2: Math Thoughts

These tips apply to brackets every year. First, understand the math of brackets. To maximize your chances of winning your pool, you need to do two things: pick good teams who are likely to win and differentiate yourself from the rest of your pool—especially in the later rounds. Differentiation matters in earlier rounds too, but it’s usually more smart to pick “chalk” (the favorites). The goal is to pick up points where others lose them. You’re better off finishing first or last—not somewhere in the middle.

Winning money through bracket pools is subtle and long-term. You’ll lose more often than you win, especially in big pools. Success comes from finding small edges that build up over time. Remember, for a team to reach a later round, they must win every game leading up to it. A super easy second-round matchup can make a team a great title pick.

Next, consider the size of your pool. The larger the pool, the more risks you should take. In small pools (fewer than 25 people), it’s often best to pick mostly chalk, perhaps deviating slightly with your title pick. In mid-sized pools (around 100), you’ll still want to stick with a lot of chalk. When you are getting above 100 then having some lesser teams in the F4 starts to make more sense.

The pool’s scoring system is also key. In seed-bonus pools, where you get a bonus for picking lower-seeded teams to win, take advantage of that by picking strong double-digit seeds in the first two rounds. However, you should still pick a top seed to win the title. In flat-scoring pools—where the point structure is something like 1-2-3-4-5-6 instead of 1-2-4-8-16-32—picking chalk in the later rounds is crucial since differentiation is less important. Focus on accuracy with a little differentiation in the early rounds.

(the rest of the general advice is for people who take this more seriously, skip to the next section if you’re getting bored)

How “sharp” your pool is also matters. If you’re in a casual pool with friends, family, or work colleagues, it’s fine to pick trendy teams, such as teams with strong traditional (KenPom) analytics profiles for their seed like Gonzaga or Missouri to make a deep run or early-round upsets like Baylor or VCU. But if you’re in a sharp pool with more serious players who will be looking at analytics and think they know basketball, you want to turn the tables on them and avoid those trendy teams.

My competitive edge comes from looking beyond surface-level “efficiency” analytics to uncover the deeper stories behind why teams outperform or underperform their statistical profiles. The #1 most important consideration is to view college basketball as a small-sample exercise in a Bayesian world. We start with priors—such as the preseason AP poll and KenPom rankings—and update them based on in-season results. Many analysts mistakenly rely 100% on the data (season results), ignoring the importance of incorporating priors into their posterior beliefs about team strength. That approach throws away valuable information.

This concept is fundamental to how you should view NCAA brackets. It might seem like one of those spurious correlations you should ignore, but it’s actually rooted in a sharp Bayesian understanding of college basketball. The streak will be broken at some point—St. John’s or Michigan State could do it by reaching the Final Four this year—but it still offers critical insights. For example, it flags Florida (preseason #21 AP / #26 preseason KenPom) and, to a lesser extent, Texas Tech (preseason unranked AP / preseason #12 KenPom) as teams to be wary of. On the flip side, it suggests that teams like UNC, Kansas, UConn, and Baylor—who underperformed their preseason expectations—are more likely to succeed in the tournament.

This also extends to conference strength. Teams from conferences that were stronger than expected during the regular season (like the SEC this year) tend to underperform in March, while teams from conferences that were weaker than expected (like the ACC and Big East) tend to overperform. The reason? Cross-conference results early in the season provide only a small sample of data, and failing to account for regression to the prior can lead to misjudging team strength.

Other key factors I consider:

• Health: Are there teams that struggled with injuries but are finally healthy?

• Experience vs. Talent: Have highly talented but less experienced teams improved significantly over the past two months?

• Schedule Strength: Did some teams inflate their efficiency metrics by dominating weak opponents while struggling against tougher competition?

• Key Absences: Are there teams missing a key player due to injury—one who won’t return for the tournament?

• Rotational Changes: Have lineup adjustments significantly altered a team’s performance?

• Matchup Factors: Does a team have an especially favorable/unfavorable draw?

• Shooting Variance: Have opponents hit an unsustainably high or low percentage of jump shots or free throws, distorting perceptions of a team’s true strength?

Finally, for the tiebreaker score, a good rule of thumb is to enter 144 (e.g., 76-68), which is considered the optimal total. If your title pick is a high-scoring team like Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, or Gonzaga, adjust the total upward. For lower-scoring teams like Houston, Texas A&M, or Tennessee, adjust it downward. The tiebreaker matters, especially in large pools. Massive proportion of $ winning situations are going to include tiebreakers. Don’t overlook it!

SECTION 3: Basketball Thoughts

I’ll start with two teams where my analysis differs significantly from both the analytical consensus and the market (Vegas/Polymarket betting odds). I’m willing to take a stand on these teams—not just because my original gut view is different, but because the more I look the more I believe others are overlooking something important. I’m factoring in the widespread disagreement and still confident that my perspective is the right one.

HATE: St. John’s (2)

I’m much lower on St. John’s than both the market and other analysts, but this is one of the rare teams I’m very willing to take a strong stance against. Their draw is also brutal—Kansas is an incredibly strong 7-seed.

As I mentioned earlier, college basketball is a small-sample exercise where priors matter, and St. John’s is attempting to break a long-standing trend: 39 straight teams that have started the season unranked and earned a 1 or 2 seed have failed to reach the Final Four. That alone is a red flag. But even worse, they’ve played a soft schedule and haven’t beaten a single Top 25 KenPom team all year (unlike MSU which dominated the 2nd best conference in the country and returned a team who’s underlying analytics last year were actually pretty decent and were probably systemically underrated in the preseason, but I digress). So what do we actually have here? A team that (1) wasn’t expected to be elite coming into the season and (2) hasn’t proven they can beat top-tier competition. Yes, they’re physical, great defensively, and force a ton of turnovers—but teams like this often inflate their ratings by dominating weaker opponents while struggling against better ones. St. John’s has yet to prove they can beat high-level teams, and I hate their chances of making a deep run. I wouldn’t pick them past the Elite Eight under any circumstances. In larger pools, you could even justify taking Kansas over them early, though in smaller pools, that’s riskier since St. John’s is still the more likely team to advance.

LOVE: Texas Tech (3)

With ISU down, Tech is probably the best dark horse in the field that I want my readers to be in on. I think Texas Tech is the 5th best team in the country (behind the four one seeds) and even better they have a soft S16 draw against St. John’s and E8 draw against Auburn. To start this section on Tech, check out this comparison detailing the three best players in college basketball this year on a per minute basis.

You’ve probably heard of Player A (Cooper Flagg) and maybe even Player B (Johni Broome), but Player C—JT Toppin—belongs in that conversation. He’s the best basketball player you haven’t heard of, yet somehow, at just 19 years old, he had only one Power 5 offer just a year and a half ago. The biggest difference between him and guys like Flagg or Broome isn’t talent—it’s playing time. He hasn’t been on the court as much this year, but when he’s healthy, he’s proven he can handle heavy minutes in big games (logging 33, 30, 34, 38, 30, 44, 34, 37, 32, and 35 in various matchups this season).

Texas Tech has been extremely banged up all year but still managed to perform well. Almost all of their key players have missed time, and Toppin himself played less than half of their minutes through their first 23 games due to a lower-body injury, an ejection, and other setbacks. Despite this, he’s an absolute force, and the supporting cast has held up surprisingly well in his absence. Now, with the team getting healthier in time for the tournament, they’re going to be exceptionally dangerous.

The only concern? Darrion Williams and Chance McMillian—likely Tech’s second- and third-best players—missed their last Big 12 Tournament game. While both are expected to play in the first round, their minutes may be limited. For Tech to seriously compete for a title, they’ll need them fully back and effective by Saturday’s key matchup. We may not get much more injury news before Thursday, but the fact that they were cleared to play four days before the 3-14 game is a strong sign for their availability moving forward.

One other thing to watch: when Tech has been short-handed in the backcourt, they’ve given Kerwin Walton significantly more minutes. His playing time has fluctuated from as little as 5, 7, 8, or 9 minutes to as much as 31 and 38 minutes in recent months. And frankly, I think he’s awful. First, the eye test tells me he’s a terrible defender and he doesn’t provide that much on offense besides making wide open threes at a slightly above average clip. Second, the analytics back up what I’m seeing—which is always a great feeling.

I’m hoping Williams and McMillian return so Tech can shift back to a seven-man rotation—something they’ve done often earlier in the season—with Toppin, Hawkins, Federiko, Anderson, and Overton, while essentially cutting Walton out entirely. That would be a major upgrade. Walton has played 44% of Tech’s minutes this season—only 13% fewer than Toppin—which is wild considering how much of a black hole he is on the court. If they tighten up the rotation and minimize his role, this team could take a huge step forward.

St John’s vs. Texas Tech

It’s a happy accident that the 2 seed I hate and the 3 I love could face off in a potential Sweet 16 matchup. That said, I want to be clear: I only give Texas Tech a 41% chance to make the Elite Eight and St. John’s 29%, meaning there’s a 30% chance I look like an idiot and a 40% chance I look like a genius—pretty even either way. The key edge here is that the public is overwhelmingly picking St. John’s. If you take Texas Tech and they advance, you’ll gain 8 points on a lot of people. Even though 41% is still below 50% (meaning it’s more likely to be wrong than right), it’s the safest choice in terms of expected value for that slot.

Love: Duke (1)

Pick them in every pool, no matter the size! They’re the best team in the country, and while plenty of people are choosing them, not enough to make me hesitate—and it shouldn’t stop you either!

Like: Houston (1)

A very strong team and deserving 1-seed, but they got unlucky with Gonzaga as their 8-seed and Duke as their opposing 1-seed. If you're picking them to get past Duke, you should go all the way and pick them to win the title. They’re the second-best title value pick after Duke in smaller pools (<100 entrants).

Meh: Florida/Auburn (1)

They’re on the opposite side of the bracket from Duke, and both are strong Final Four and runner-up picks (especially to Duke!). However, too many people are picking them to win the title, and there isn’t much reason to do so in most pools. In smaller pools (<100 entrants), Duke is a better option, while in larger pools (>100), Duke over a riskier team like Texas Tech, Maryland, Iowa State, Colorado State, or Louisville—or Houston over Auburn or Florida—makes more strategic sense.

Don’t Like: Alabama/MSU/Tennessee (2)

Small fades. They just aren’t good enough to be a final four pick in any pools basically. It is just a weak year for 2 seeds and the 1 seeds are all a tier ahead.

Hate: Kentucky (3)

Big fade. They play a style of basketball—strong offense, weak defense—that has historically been a negative predictor of tournament success, even when controlling for overall team strength. On top of that, their roster profile isn’t ideal: they’re extremely experienced but lack high-end NBA talent, which tends to be a bad combination for deep tournament runs. Injuries are another concern. Their fourth-best player, Jaxon Robinson, is out for the season, and their second-best player, Lamont Butler, has been dealing with persistent shoulder issues. He still looks banged up heading into the tournament, and even if he plays in Rounds 1 and 2, he likely won’t be at full strength. That said, their early path isn’t terrible—Illinois, Xavier, and Texas aren’t exactly world-beaters—so you can justify picking them through to the Sweet 16. But beyond that? No shot. Definitely not to the Elite Eight.

Hate: Memphis (5)

Memphis simply isn’t a very good basketball team. From a pure team quality standpoint, they shouldn’t even be in the tournament. In my ratings, they’re closest to Yale among teams in the field, and in KenPom, they’re sandwiched between two 10-seeds and actually rated lower than Northwestern—a team that’s gone 7-13 in its last 20 games. Yet, they’ve somehow built their resume on an unsustainable 10-1 record in games decided by six points or fewer. Even worse, their second-best player, Tyrese Hunter, will likely be out for at least the first weekend. And to make matters worse, they drew Colorado State—a team I’ll break down below…

Love: Colorado State (12)

Colorado State did something more teams should consider midway through the season: they asked, “What happens if we cut our two worst players out of the rotation?” The answer? They’re now 10-0 in their last 10 games and have covered in all 10. Since mid-February, they’ve been playing at the level of a 1-seed. Now, some of this surge has been fueled by unsustainably good shooting, so I’m not saying they’re actually a Top 10 team. But they’re almost certainly a Top 25 team right now. The key is that this isn’t just a random hot streak—it’s a direct result of cutting Jorgensen and Williams from the rotation, validating what the analytics had been saying all along (which isn’t always the case). On top of that, Nique Clifford is a legitimate Top 25 player in the country. For a mid-major, having the best player on the court in multiple tournament games is rare, but that’s exactly what CSU might have. They’re clearly favored over Memphis in the first round and pose a serious threat to Maryland in the second. That being said Maryland is pretty good and then Florida in the next round is quite good so it’s not an ideal draw beyond Memphis.

Hate: Michigan (5)

Michigan isn’t as good as their seed suggests—they’re more like a 7-seed in terms of actual team quality but have built an inflated resume by winning a lot of close games. Their 13-4 record in games decided by six or fewer points has made them the fourth-luckiest at-large team in the field (behind Memphis, Oregon, and Utah State). To make matters worse, they drew a brutal 12-seed in UCSD—an awful stylistic matchup for them. It almost feels like the committee is playing a joke on Michigan fans. Michigan ranks in the 9th percentile nationally in ball security—the worst among all at-large teams—while UCSD ranks in the 100th percentile in forcing turnovers—the best among all at-large teams. There’s strong empirical backing that high-pressure defenses thrive against teams that struggle to take care of the ball, and this is a textbook case. Because of that, I only give Michigan a 53% chance to win in the first round, which is terrible for a 5-12 matchup.

Like: Iowa State (3)

With the devastating news that Keshon Gilbert is out for the year, Iowa State's tournament outlook has dramatically shifted. What once looked like a potential 1 seed now faces a significant challenge. Iowa State was one of college basketball's most complete teams when fully healthy. The Cyclones demonstrated elite potential before and after Milan Momcilovic's 7-game absence, where the team clearly missed his 6-8 frame and premier spot-up shooting that creates crucial spacing.

However, losing Gilbert is a crushing blow. As Iowa State's best player for much of the season, his exceptional guard play before the groin strain was pivotal to their success. The Cyclones were already showing vulnerability with him missing 4 of their last 7 games, including that concerning loss to BYU in the Big 12 quarterfinals. This team had legitimate national title aspirations when healthy. While Tamin Lipsey's minor injury shouldn't be a long-term concern, Gilbert's absence creates a void that's nearly impossible to fill. The Cyclones remain dangerous, but they're definitely only a small value (they can be picked to the E8 over MSU some) where with Gilbert they would have been at the top of my list for dark horses to watch.

Love: Gonzaga (8)

Absolute smash as a Top 10 team stuck with an 8-seed. They have elite analytics, a strong talent profile, and have been on the wrong side of a lot of close games. It’s rare to see a team this good seeded this low—not just because they’re at full strength now, but because they’ve played at this level all season. The issue? Their second-round matchup is brutal, and I only give them a 20% chance to make the Sweet 16. But in large pools (300+ people), taking a shot on them upsetting Houston and making a deep run—even to the Final Four—could be a great high-upside play. Most brackets will have them exiting early, so if they pull it off, you’ll gain a ton of points on the field. I generally don’t like Cinderella runs for teams on the right side of the bracket (since Duke and Houston are there and are better values than Auburn/Florida), but Gonzaga is one of the two exceptions (along with Arizona).

Like: Arizona/Maryland (4)

Arizona and Maryland are strong 4-seeds, but both face tough Sweet 16 matchups against the two best teams in the country, Duke and Florida. In larger pools (100+ people), you can justify taking them on deep runs to the Final Four or even the title game. And in really large pools (500+ people), they’re my second and third favorite dark horse title picks—assuming you’re not rolling with Texas Tech. As I mentioned in the Gonzaga section, I slightly prefer Arizona as a team, but since they’re on the right side of the bracket, I’d lean toward Duke/Maryland title games over Florida/Arizona in bigger pools.

Like: Louisville (8)

Louisville is a really, really good 8-seed—more like a 4- or 5-seed in actual team quality. But unlike some of my other under-the-radar picks, everyone who follows college basketball closely already knows this. Their underseeding is brutal, and while I think most of the committee’s decisions were fine (including leaving WVU out), this one is a complete head-scratcher. That said, picking them over Creighton in the first round is a must. Creighton is solid, but Louisville is clearly favored (~60% chance to win) and is still only being picked in about half of all brackets. In really large pools (500+ entries), they also have Cinderella potential for a Final Four or even a title run. And I love that they’re on the left side of the bracket, which makes that kind of deep run even more viable.

Love: North Carolina (11, play-in)

We’ll see tonight if they win the play-in—they’ve got about a ⅔ chance to do so. If they do… as I mentioned in the math section, it’s crucial to factor in start-of-season priors when evaluating teams. UNC has both a strong talent profile and great recent form—they were ranked #9 in the country preseason and have played at a Top 14 level over their last nine games. That’s an incredible profile for an 11-seed. It’s funny—many people were upset about them getting into the tournament, yet they’d actually be favored in their 11 vs. 6 matchup against Ole Miss. In large pools (300+ people), it might even be worth taking them to the Elite Eight since their 3- and 2-seed matchups are relatively weak. And in really large pools (500+ people), making a Final Four or even title game run is totally reasonable—especially since they’re a left-side team.

SECTION 4: Full Model Probabilities

(assumes UNC and Xavier win play-in games, they are the stronger/more notable teams. don’t pick SDSU to go anywhere if UNC goes down)

SECTION 5: Bonus Yale Thoughts

Since I go to Yale and many readers will be Yale-affiliated, I’ll share my thoughts on Yale’s first- and potential second-round matchups. Yale is an excellent mid-major team and arguably the best Ivy League squad in the last eight years. Bez Mbeng, John Poulakidas, and Nick Townsend are all extremely strong players, and we drew the weakest 4 seed in Texas A&M. That said, I’m concerned that TAMU is a tough stylistic matchup for Yale.

Texas A&M is an offensively unskilled but extremely athletic and physical team that plays elite defense and dominates the boards—especially the offensive glass. There’s plenty of past data that shows teams with this statistical profile tend to struggle more against high-level teams but overwhelm weaker opponents, which isn’t ideal for Yale in the first round. TAMU generates the highest percentage of its offense in the country from second-chance points, and Yale relies on four wings (Mbeng, Townsend, Isaac Celiscar, and Casey Simmons) ranging from 6’4” to 6’7” for much of its defensive rebounding. While not having a true big lead your defensive rebounding works in the Ivy League, Townsend and Celiscar will be undersized vertically by a couple inches against TAMU’s bigs, and Simmons will be down 40 pounds on his matchup.

Yale also isn’t well-equipped to exploit one of TAMU’s main weaknesses—turnovers. The Aggies are a turnover-prone team (5th percentile in live-ball turnovers), but Yale doesn’t force many turnovers (16th percentile in forcing live-ball turnovers), which means they’ll have to get stops through defensive rebounding instead. That’s a problem against a team that thrives on offensive boards. Center Samson Aletan, Yale’s elite shot-blocker and rim protector, does not contribute much as a defensive rebounder because he often prioritizes help-side defense and shot-blocking over rebounding. The Yale coaching staff will likely need to adjust his approach against TAMU or take the risk of relying on the wings to rebound at a decent rate on the weak side.

The one stylistic silver lining for Yale is that TAMU runs much of its offense through two high-volume low efficiency guards, Wade Taylor and Zhuric Phelps. Mbeng, the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year, is an elite perimeter defender who matches up well against them.

For Yale to pull off the upset, four things need to happen:

1. They need to take and make more threes, as scoring inside will be tough against TAMU’s elite interior defense. TAMU allows a higher percentage of points from beyond the arc than 98% of teams nationally, making outside shooting a key factor. Poulakidas, Yale’s only high-volume three-point shooter, will be especially crucial—he needs to get hot.

2. Mbeng must not only lock down Taylor and Phelps, forcing them into inefficient shooting nights (think 5-for-17), but do so without as much interior help Yale’s perimeter defenders have relied on from Aletan all season.

3. Yale has to hold its own on the defensive boards, which requires Aletan adjusting his playstyle to some degree or Townsend/Simmons somehow holding their own on the against stronger and taller opponents. Yale has rebounded 74% of their opponents missed shots this year, and the goal is to just hit 60% against TAMU.

4. Yale needs to take care of the ball, something they’ve done well this season. However, TAMU’s athleticism and defensive intensity will be at a level Yale hasn’t encountered before. Given how ineffective TAMU is offensively, Yale cannot afford to let them generate easy points off live-ball turnovers and runouts.

My model gives Yale just a 24% chance to win, which is solid for a 4-13 game. That said, if Yale pulls off the upset, the second-round draw is promising. Michigan is a weak 5-seed, and their struggles against teams with a legitimate big to guard Goldin and a strong wing defender like Mbeng on Wolf play right into Yale’s strengths.