So your office is giving a weekend in Vegas to the winner of your NCAA Tournament pool, huh? You’re actually going to punt that spring cleaning this weekend and hunker down and watch 12 hours of conference tournaments?
Don’t bother. Those games aren’t good indicators for a team’s success in the NCAA Tournament, and your wife (or husband) will have a divorce lawyer on speed dial by the Atlantic-10 semis.
Instead, clip and save my handy little office-pool cheat sheet below. I am qualified. I worked 10 years in Las Vegas, where I could put my money where my mouth was at any of the many larcenous sports books in town. So read below and use it as a friendly guide as you navigate your bracket after it’s announced Sunday. Amaze your friends. Thrill yourself. And when you’re in Vegas, lounging by the pool trying to decide where you want to eat rack of lamb that night, think of moi.
Then again, if you’re out of the running by the second round, don’t blame me. After all, I spent my entire 10 years in Las Vegas living under a bridge.
Don’t fall in love with Cinderella. Yeah, she’s cute. She’s tempting. But, if you look at history, she’s only good for one game. Maybe two.
A 16th seed has never won a game and seeds 13 through 15 have made only five Sweet 16s. Only one 12th seed ever won a game in the Sweet 16. Eleven No. 11 seeds made the Sweet 16 and have gone 4-7.
OK, George Mason was the exception last year. The Patriots and Louisiana State in 1986 are the only 11th seeds to make the Final Four. But good luck picking the next George Mason out of this month’s batch of mid-majors.
Don’t think too much. Stick with favorites. While no Final Four ever had four No. 1 seeds since the expansion to 64 teams in 1985, 45 have made the Final Four since 1979. Last year was only the second time that no top seeds made it.
Ignore momentum. Ol’ Uncle Mo doesn’t stay up this late. Fast finishes don’t mean much at the dance. The NCAA Tournament selection committee puts a lot of emphasis on how teams do in the past 10 games. It shouldn’t.
According to Mike DeCourcey, The Sporting News’ college basketball maven, teams that entered the NCAA Tourney winning at least eight of their previous 10 games made 42 appearances in the Sweet 16. Teams that were 7-3 or worse made 38 appearances.
That’s called splitting hairs.
Also, in the past five years, of the teams seeded in the top 16 of the entire field who didn’t make the Sweet 16, 17 were 8-2 or better entering the tourney and 17 were 7-3 or worse.
So don’t shed any tears for highly ranked teams getting bounced from their meaningless league tourneys this weekend. They’ll sacrifice a lower seed for another day of rest.
In the past three years, LSU, North Carolina, Michigan State, Georgia Tech, Louisville and Duke reached the Final Four without winning their tournaments.
Go heavy on guard play. The big guys look good in airports but they’re lousy dancers. Guard play is the most important ingredient in a Final Four run. The defenses are too good; the pressure is too great.
Look at last year. George Mason shocked everyone except people who value senior guards. Tony Skinn and Lamar Butler were the Patriots’ two leading scorers. Darrel Mitchell was LSU’s second-leading scorer at 16.8 a game, and UCLA was led by guards Jordan Farmar and Arron Afflalo.
Need I mention Florida, which won it all with guard Lee Humphries hitting 46 percent from 3-point range on the year and making a school NCAA tourney-record 22 3-pointers?
And mediocre guards can kill you. Third-seeded Iowa was nothing special in the backcourt last year and No. 14 Northwestern State upset it with Jermaine Wallace, a three-year starting guard, hitting a 3-pointer with 0.5 seconds left to win.
Look for home-state advantage. This tournament is supposed to have neutral courts. Wrong. In the past 10 years teams playing in their home states have gone 65-14, including 38-5 the last four years, one year after the NCAA went to that inane pod system to keep teams closer to home.
So there are your helpful tips for next week. Here’s another: Try not to start drinking beer before noon. And if your favorite backcourt goes 0-for-30, don’t come after me. Following the Final Four, I will be nowhere to be found.
John Henderson can be reached at 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
