Sports

March Madness: How to Win WT’s Bracket Pool

Xander Kope and Lorenzo Morrison

March 19, 2025

The teams have been selected, the bracket has been released, and now the only thing left to do to kick off the madness of March is to fill out your own bracket. But there’s so many choices, so many upset possibilities, so many ways that your perfect bracket can fall apart! Luckily for you, although March Madness is known for teams defying crazy odds, there are certain statistical patterns that do hold.

The Trapezoid of Excellence:

One of the best predictors of a team’s success in the tournament is known as the Trapezoid of Excellence. This chart plots teams on their net rating on the y-axis and the team’s pace on the x-axis. Essentially, the higher up a team is, the better that team normally performs. The further left a team is the slower they play, and the opposite for the right.

For a team to have success in March, they normally have to be around the trapezoid area. This is because the team needs to play at a certain quality, but also teams with a more stable playstyle. Teams like Alabama, who are all the way to the right, would need to perform at an incredibly high level to balance the risk that comes with their incredibly fast pace. The same is true for Drake, who is all the way to the left.

The teams in the trapezoid are the following:

Duke Blue Devils (1 seed)
Houston Cougars (1 seed)
Tennessee Volunteers (2 seed)
Auburn Tigers (1 seed)
Florida Gators (1 seed)
Maryland Terrapins (4 seed)
Texas Tech Red Raiders (3 seed)
Gonzaga Bulldogs (8 seed)

Some other teams on the cusp of the trapezoid:

VCU Rams (11 seed)
Saint John’s Red Storm (2 seed)
UC San Diego Tritons (12 seed)
Saint Mary’s Gaels (7 seed)

The chart can also be used to find potential upsets. If two teams that have completely different paces play each other, it is likely to be a crazy game where one team is forced to play outside of what they are used to. For example, the possible second round matchup of Saint Mary’s and Alabama holds two teams with near opposite paces. This could be a possible upset if Alabama gets slowed down to a pace they are uncomfortable with.

Some other trends to consider:

A 5 seed or lower (higher seed) has made the final four in the last 13 out of 14 tournaments
- Good candidates this year: Gonzaga? Creighton? Drake? BYU/VCU?
A double-digit seed has advanced to the Sweet 16 in 16 consecutive tournaments.
A 12-seed has defeated a 5-seed in 33 of the past 39 tournaments
- UC San Diego
- Colorado State
5 seed has never won a championship

One last piece of advice for your bracket. The KenPom rankings have been gaining popularity among analysts and fans. They break down teams on a possession-by-possession basis, analyzing offensive and defensive performance per 100 possessions. Created by statistician Ken Pomeroy, the system uses advanced metrics to provide a data-driven evaluation of a team’s quality. Since the 2002 NCAA Tournament every champion has had an offense ranked inside the Top 40 on the KenPom rankings and a defense inside the Top 25:

There are 13 teams this year that fit that description: