If you're trying to get through the madness of March with an office pool victory, then you should be paying attention to the game theory component of filling out a bracket.
What does that mean? Well, quite simply, you shouldn't just pick the best teams, cross your fingers, and hope for the best. Because, a lot of times, teams that are considered the best are also the most popular.
After looking at this year's bracket, maybe you're considering making Virginia the national champion. That's not a bad choice if you're just looking only at their probability of winning -- according to our ESPN's Who Picked Whom data, over 23% of the public has Virginia winning the National Championship game. That means they're not necessarily an optimal pick.
Who is, though? Let's dig in and compare our stage odds and the Who Picked Whom data in order to find the smartest bets in the tournament.
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Villanova has the best odds to reach the Final Four this tournament season, sitting at 57.18%. However, the public is picking them to get that far in the tournament 59.10% of the time, making them somewhat of a suboptimal choice. In fact, they're the 10th-worst pick when factoring in the public's picks.
| Final Four | Public's Pick | Our Odds | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kansas | 33.00% | 18.91% | -14.09% |
| Arizona | 15.70% | 4.20% | -11.50% |
| Michigan | 18.80% | 11.06% | -7.74% |
| Michigan State | 26.90% | 19.89% | -7.01% |
| Xavier | 23.10% | 18.07% | -5.03% |
| Kentucky | 8.30% | 4.80% | -3.50% |
| Virginia | 54.60% | 52.64% | -1.96% |
| West Virginia | 6.00% | 4.40% | -1.60% |
| Alabama | 1.60% | 0.16% | -1.44% |
| Villanova | 59.10% | 57.81% | -1.29% |
While our numbers don't absolutely hate Kansas, they certainly do when you consider how the public is viewing the Jayhawks. That makes sense, as Kansas has a nERD of 16.22 -- nERD measures the number of points we'd expect a team to win by against an average one on a neutral court -- which is eighth-best in college basketball. That's nothing to write home about as a 1 seed.
Which teams should you favor, then? The top choice may surprise you:
| Final Four | Public's Pick | Our Odds | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duke | 29.80% | 44.53% | 14.73% |
| Cincinnati | 11.00% | 20.53% | 9.53% |
| Tennessee | 4.90% | 12.05% | 7.15% |
| Auburn | 2.60% | 8.49% | 5.89% |
| Purdue | 18.20% | 23.71% | 5.51% |
| Gonzaga | 13.40% | 18.84% | 5.44% |
| Ohio State | 2.60% | 6.93% | 4.33% |
| Houston | 1.60% | 4.26% | 2.66% |
| Texas A&M | 0.70% | 2.87% | 2.17% |
| Texas Tech | 4.60% | 6.76% | 2.16% |
When we've done this exercise in the past, we've typically not seen popular teams like Duke rank highly in the "value" department. This year is clearly different, as Duke may have to go through Michigan State and the aforementioned Kansas in order to reach the Final Four. That's a huge reason they're not being picked as highly as they usually would.
You'll notice Tennessee and Cincinnati on the list, too, and that's really just a reaction to the public being so high on Virginia. In essence, if Virginia loses to one of those teams -- they're the 2 and 3 seeds in Virginia's region -- then all of a sudden you've got a nice edge in your pool.
National Championship Game
As far as the National Championship game goes, there are five teams that stand out as the worst value picks to get to that point in the dance:
| Championship Game | Public's Pick | Our Odds | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kansas | 15.80% | 6.84% | -8.96% |
| Arizona | 9.70% | 1.63% | -8.07% |
| Michigan State | 15.60% | 8.20% | -7.40% |
| Michigan | 7.40% | 3.80% | -3.60% |
| Kentucky | 4.10% | 1.98% | -2.12% |
Each of these teams are widely popular across the country, so it's not a shock to see them getting love across ESPN's platform. But Kansas is once again showing up as a bad value play, while powerhouse programs that maybe underperformed versus overall expectation are poor picks as well.
Here's how things look on the opposite side of the spectrum:
| Championship Game | Public's Pick | Our Odds | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Villanova | 32.30% | 39.58% | 7.28% |
| Cincinnati | 5.00% | 11.68% | 6.68% |
| Duke | 17.70% | 23.32% | 5.62% |
| Purdue | 6.90% | 12.22% | 5.32% |
| Tennessee | 2.00% | 5.67% | 3.67% |
| Gonzaga | 4.70% | 7.54% | 2.84% |
| North Carolina | 15.10% | 16.64% | 1.54% |
| Auburn | 1.00% | 2.40% | 1.40% |
| Ohio State | 1.00% | 2.17% | 1.17% |
| Texas Tech | 1.40% | 2.38% | 0.98% |
Villanova's at the top of the list because our numbers really like them. They actually have the highest nERD in all of college basketball, and Xavier, or at least compared to the other top seeds in the tournament. Only 3.20% of ESPN brackets have Xavier as National Champion, while Kansas is at 8.10%, Villanova at 14.50%, and Virginia 23.60%. Nevertheless, our numbers aren't into Xavier, as they rank as one of the worst 1 seeds our database -- which dates back to 2000 -- has ever seen.
Who should you pick as National Champion?
| National Champion | Public's Pick | Our Odds | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Villanova | 14.40% | 27.64% | 13.24% |
| Duke | 9.70% | 14.72% | 5.02% |
| Purdue | 3.00% | 6.58% | 3.58% |
| Cincinnati | 2.10% | 4.35% | 2.25% |
| Tennessee | 0.90% | 1.65% | 0.75% |
| Gonzaga | 1.90% | 2.43% | 0.53% |
| Auburn | 0.40% | 0.87% | 0.47% |
| Texas Tech | 0.50% | 0.86% | 0.36% |
| Nevada | 0.10% | 0.19% | 0.09% |
| Houston | 0.20% | 0.27% | 0.07% |
For those of you with some big kahunas, you could go with Houston or Nevada to make a run as Cinderella teams and win the whole tournament. But the best bet this year is easily our top-ranked team, Villanova. They're just not getting the respect they deserve.