OK, I'm not trading, but I still did a few brackets. My Final Four picks are: Louisville, Memphis, Pitt, and Gonzaga, with the non-#1-seeds meeting in the championship game.
Eddy Elfenbein had some good advice:
You’ll also notice that some seeds are pretty choice locations. For example, #12 has a decent record against #5—even better than #11 against #5, and close to #10 against #7. Whenever a #12 wins, it’s often reported as a big upset, but it’s really not. On average, more than one #12 wins each year.
After that, #12 plays the winner of #4 versus #13. They actually have a winning record in the second round. A total of 16 #12 seeds have made it to the Sweet Sixteen.
Compare that with #8 or #9 who have always had to play #1 in the second round. The lesson is that the longer you avoid a top three team, the better.
UPDATE: So did Chris Wilson:
Act as if you're a hedge-fund manager in the good old days: Risk is your friend, and the consequences of making a bad bet are small. And unlike with a multibillion-dollar hedge fund, you're not playing against opponents with equal fidelity to statistics and information. Your office pool is full of people making decisions based on snippets of games they happened to catch and whatever allegiances or vendettas they're bringing to the table. This is your chance to take advantage.UPDATE: John Carney provides an alternative approach to Wilson:
Again, your overall strategy should be to look for situations where the national bracket values a team much higher than the objective statistics.
You should choose your brackets like a short seller. Instead of trying to pick winners, pick losers. Direct your analysis to detecting weaknesses within teams that have been overlooked by the fans. This may involve more work, including looking at the fundamentals of teams and paying attention to individual players, than stat arb but it also doesn't depend on just crossing your fingers and hoping the bell-curve rings at the end of each game.
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