Before we get started I want to issue you a challenge, a Bracket Challenge. If you think you have better picks than some of the ones I give away, I’d love for you to join a Bracket Challenge with me. It is just going to be a free thing so there is no harm if you aren’t too familiar with filling out a bracket. But doing one of these is always a good way to get into the game a little more and have some interaction. In this group, I will encourage people to put their serious bracket in there but if you also want to throw a funny one in that is cool. Note: You must have at least created a bracket to join a group, you don’t need to submit it until the games start on Thursday at noon eastern.
There are a few ways to do this. If you want to do it in a browser just sign in to your ESPN account and go to this link. Then scroll to the bottom and search ‘KyleTheCommish’ and there should be only one option.
If you are doing it inside the ESPN Tournament Challenge app (it’s a very good app, highly recommend for filling out the bracket vs browser) there should be a Create/Join Group button on the bracket you want to enter into the group. Click that and there is a search button at the top right. Same thing search ‘KyleTheCommish’.
If all of this is too confusing there is a way to invite you through email and also a way to invite you through a link. I’ll send those out to anyone that requests one.
Good luck! If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to ask.
I made one giant 10k word guide of awesomeness for this March Madness Bracket season. This is one of the 5 sections of that mega-article. If you would like to read the beast of an article with all 5 sections, you can click right here. If you would like to view one of the other 4 sections, click on their names: Introducing the 2022 Bracket, Tournament Facts/History, Tournament Trends, Finding My Upset(s). Either way, thank you for reading this article and I hope you learn something.
As fun as upsets are, this is where the bread is won. If you have any chance of winning your bracket pool and beating your grandmother, you need to nail AT LEAST 2 of the Final 4 and you probably need to pick the Champion. I looked at Final Four teams from the last several years, here is what I learned.
1. Your Final Four teams likely fit or are close to these KenPom parameters.
- 25.0+ adjEM
- 92< Defense efficiency
- 120> offense efficiency
2. Getting four great teams down to one is very difficult. In my research last year, I found that a lot of Final Four teams and most all Champions have elite statistics to back up their Championship run. They likely fit at least 3 of the following 5 parameters.
- Effective FG% > 54%
- Assist/Turnover Ratio > 1.35
- 3 Point % > 37%
- Points Per Game > 78
- Steals Per Possession > 9%
3. Every Champion in the last 10 years has been ranked in the top 40 of KenPom Offensive and Defensive Efficiency.
Let’s break each of these down.
1. Gonzaga. That’s the only team in the nation that hits all 3 of KenPom’s parameters. Book them in New Orleans? Kansas, Kentucky, Houston, Baylor, UCLA, Villanova, Duke, and Arizona are all within 5 points of hitting it as well. That is a total of 9 teams that look like Final Four teams according to KenPom. These numbers aren’t averages from the previous 12 Final Four teams, rather they are guidelines for what most Final Four teams look like.
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2. Time to take these 8 teams and put them through the blender. I wanted to be much more specific about what I noticed in a Final Four team rather than an Upset Special which can be an “any given day” type thing. Final Four teams have multiple elite qualities to them and normally aren’t there because of luck. Here are the teams that fit these 4 parameters.
eFG% > 54%: Houston, Kansas, Duke, Arizona, Gonzaga
Assist/Turnover ratio > 1.35: Kentucky, Houston, Arizona, UCLA, Gonzaga, Duke
3 Point Percent > 37%: Duke, Gonzaga
Points Per Game > 78: Kansas, Kentucky, Gonzaga, Arizona, Duke
Steals Per Possession > 9%: Kansas, Arizona, Villanova, Houston*, Baylor*, UCLA, Kentucky, Gonzaga, Duke (those designated with * are above 10.9% which is the Champion average)
5 points: Duke, Gonzaga
4 Points: Arizona
3 Points: Houston, Kansas, Kentucky
3. It is not at all surprising that the cream often rises to the top by the end of this fabulous tournament. Most of the time tournament champions have been teams that are in the top 20 in both offense and defense on KenPom, but if you go back 10 years every single one is in the top 40 (Baylor entered last year’s tournament in the 40s on defense, but finished in the 20s). Better yet, every single champion since 2002, besides the 2014 UCONN team, was in the top 25 of both metrics. You know your champion is in the below list… you also know the teams that won’t be crowned in April.
Teams in the top 10 of both parameters: Gonzaga
Teams in the top 20 of both parameters (besides the above team): Arizona, Baylor, Houston, UCLA
Teams in the top 30 of both: Kentucky, Kansas, Auburn, Illinois, Villanova
Teams in the top 40 of both: Tennessee, Texas, Arkansas, UCONN, Murray St
Notable omissions: Duke (7/44), Purdue (3/100), Iowa (2/77), Alabama (14/94), Michigan St (38/53), Loyola-Chicago (42/22), Providence (31/79), Wisconsin (49/38), Texas Tech (65/1)
Takeaways & My Champion
Gonzaga is perfect in every way. Almost too perfect. They qualify for all Championship caliber trends. They are primed to win the whole thing according to tournament history/facts. They are up to snuff according to KenPom, the Committee (#1 overall seed), and anyone who has seen them play. They have an elite coach that has gotten them to the Title Game in 2 of the past 4 years. They have the quality of players and will no doubt lose one or two to the NBA again next year (Holmgren is the expected #1 overall pick). They have the easiest road to the Final Four (on paper)… but it only takes one game.
Embed from Getty ImagesDuke hit all of the parameters set forth in the first exercise but just missed out on being in the top 40 on defense to miss the second. If they play well enough on defense in the tournament that number will improve and they will join the top 40, so I am not too worried about that ranking. Especially when there are 5 or so teams ahead of them that are not playing in any postseason tournament. However, I am worried that they haven’t been as dominant as I would have liked this season. In a down year of the ACC and with a top 5 NBA pick in Paolo Banchero, things haven’t always looked easy for Duke. Tom Izzo is a potential R2 matchup and they may see the best defensive team in the nation in Texas Tech in the S16. Plus Gonzaga is in their way to getting to New Orleans. I’m out.
Arizona only missed the 3 point % mark by a slim margin, checking in at 35.6%. That was the only parameter that kept them from sweeping that exercise. My worry for them is that they play at an extremely fast pace. If they face Houston in the S16 or Villanova in the E8, they may struggle to just play a half-court game against really stingy, slow teams. They also are without their starting PG as of this writing. The talent is there and the metrics give them a chance, but I am worried. Stupid fact, but each of the past 5 Champions came as a 1 or 2 seed from the Sough region of the bracket.
Houston has an incredibly high ranking almost across the board… yet they are a 5 seed… in Arizona’s bracket… with Illinois staring at them in the 2nd round. I mean c’mon. I think their path to get back to the Final Four this year is just too rough. They will be a very tough out though with the way they play defense.
I hate picking Kentucky in the tournament. They are always so young and inexperienced. But Coach Cal seems to have really rallied around this group of boys because of their team-first attitude that they have grown over the season. They should be the favorites to come out of their region over Baylor and UCLA. But they would have to beat Gonzaga in the Final Four… that’s gonna be tough to do. It would be fun to see Chet Holmgren and Drew Timme face off against Tshiebwe though.
The blue blood I am swooning over this year is Kansas. They have beaten every single team they have played this year at least once besides Kentucky and Dayton. They lost to Texas, Texas Tech, Texas Christian (TCU), and Baylor (Waco, Texas) but also beat each of them in a different meeting. They will be playing Texas Southern or Texas A&M Corpus-Christi in their first matchup (1vs16) but after that the soonest they will face another team from Texas is in the Final Four if TCU/Houston advance. They are highly ranked in Assist/Turnover margin, they score a lot of points, and they have one of the best players in the country in Agbaji averaging almost 20 PPG. Plus, I’m not really scared of their region. Iowa is the only team that concerns me because they can score at will.
So what are my picks? Well, I won’t give you my Final Four. But as of this writing, I have Kansas cutting down the nets for the first time since Mario Chalmers became a household name.
Who is your Cinderella? Who do you think will cut down the nets? Let me know in the comments or at @KyleTheCommish on Twitter.
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