Unfortunately I don’t have the time to do a typical deep dive into this year’s tournament so please refer to last year’s guide here March Madness 25 – ClevAnalytics
I will try and briefly discuss the different buckets of teams this year based on the profiles I discussed in last year’s summary. I also have a large and small pool bracket for anyone interested in some help. It very likely won’t win anything but based on the rules and guidelines I discussed last year Brackets- 2025 – ClevAnalytics hopefully it can give some good options for you.
Above are the true title contenders that fit the criteria I have used in the past. Technically, Lousiville would be on this list, however, they will be without star Freshman Mikal Brown for at least the first two games which just makes them not in that true contender tier for me. Teams like Purdue, Illinois and Vanderbilt are outside this group as they fall below the threshold for raw points per possession allowed on defense. Those teams all rank 72nd or worse (in Vandy and Purdue’s case much much worse) in pure points per possesion allowed. Only UCONN in 2011 ranked worse than 51st in ppp allowed at 72nd and won a title.
I am only picking one of these six teams to win the title in my brackets this season.
Using ESPN’s people’s bracket and comparing it to the market odds to win the title, Michigan stands out as the best leverage to win it all and the team I will be using the most in my pools.
This basket of high seeded teams who are elite offenses but 135th or worse on defense has historically underperformed their seed expectation. It took until 2023 for one of these teams (Miami FL) to make the Final 4 and we saw it again with Alabama in 2024. Last year, Alabama reached the Elite 8 before losing to Duke. These all or nothing offensive teams have performed better overall, however, we have seen plenty of teams continuing to get upset early (Missouri last year). I won’t have any of these teams in the Championship game and likely no further than the Elite 8.
As with anything else with some of these strategies, nothing is full proof and clearly matchups matter from year to year. I would never say never when it comes to one of these teams making a run to a title, but for me personally, I would rather not win a bracket pool by excluding one of these teams from a deep run than having an outlier performance from a historical perspective. Doesn’t mean you can’t advance these teams far I just like viewing these types of teams from the lens of a historical perspective.
Separately, Purdue falls into the sub category of #2 seeds in this group who have greatly underperformed historically. They have won 1.5 less games than expected based on their #2 seed. And after Bama won but was not close to covering a 21.5 point spread in round one vs Robery Morris (won by 9), that makes this subset of teams 0-7-1 ATS (6-2 SU) in round one games. Queens +25.5 would be the play this year vs Purdue if you decide to go down this road.
