2025 NCAA tournament holder Picks: How to choose upsets, winners, use betting lines and other tips to win your pool

March is here.

The NCAA men's tournament clip was announced. It is time to make your selection.

Regardless of whether you have a die-hard Hoops head, a casual or someone who has never seen a college basketball game, there is a decent chance that you were invited to fill in a bracket. If you are in one of the latter camps and want to play, don't be discouraged.

Clamps are for everyone, and just because they hit it does not mean that they have no chance. With a few basics you can also compete with the person who organizes your bracket competition and has been observing College Hoops since November.

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If you enter your brackets in a bracket Mayhem, you have two chances for 25,000 US dollars – one for our men's and women's competitions*. The winner takes everything in every bracket, so you have to beat a lot of competition. But the price (free) is correct.

The random selection of teams based on colors or mascot preferences is not an optimal strategy. But when mascot is definitely happy. Brackets should be fun. However, if you want to enter into a sound strategy to reduce your bracket competition, we have to take some tips into account. And one of our experts has already predicted the result of each game in the first round to make it easier for them.

How the NCAA tournament and the goal of the bracket work

It is the first step towards success how the tournament and the evaluation of the tournament and the bracket works. The NCAA tournaments begin with fields of 68 teams that were announced on Sunday evening. Eight of these teams in every tournament of the last four options and the lowest-set automatic bidding winners play the elimination, which are the first four. You don't have to worry about choosing these games from bracket purposes.

As soon as the eight first four teams are reduced to four, the real 64 team NCAA fields are defined. You can now fill out your brackets, but if you believe that one of the first four teams has the chance to take a deep run, it is best to coincide in this section of your bracket to ensure that the teams that you choose actually move on to the field.

[Full NCAA tournament bracket revealed | Printable bracket]

Tournament games begin in round 1, which is divided for men on Thursday and Friday and on Friday and Saturday for women in 16 games. Higher seeds play in the four holder regions – East, South, Midwest and West – that are divided into 16 teams. No. 1 seed will play seeds No. 16; Sama No. 2 plays No. 15 -Semen – and so on until No. 8 and No. 9 seeds face.

Pick up the pick -up, but proceed with caution

The correct selection of early disturbances is the key to gaining your bracket. It is even more important not to lose a team that ultimately takes a deep run.

There are six round NCAA games over the first four, and the inserts twice with every round in Bracket Mayhem (1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 points). If you select the winners of the first round, you get a point, while the correct selection of the NCAA champion is worth 32 points. Losing the last Four and championship teams in the first round is a good way to get out of the run early.

How do you avoid this error? Well, that's the fun – and the challenge of the bracket. However, the first rule is that you selectively select your higher disorders and know the history of the early round spots.

It is not the best idea to choose high seeds to lose early, but …

Only two No. 1 seeds have lost to 64 teams in 1985 against a seed no. 16 since the extension of the men's tournament. Both upset has taken place in the past seven years. No. 16 seed UMBC in 2018 defeated number 1, Virginia, Virginia, in which the greatest sowing in tournament history. Then Fairleigh Dickinson found Zach Edey and Purdue in 2023.

What was previously considered impossible can now be done with more parity at least in the modern iteration of College basketball. But there is an overwhelming long shot.

No. 2 seeds are not entirely reliable, but the selection against one in the first round is also a very risky offer. Only 11 No. 2 seeds lost in the first round of men against No. 15 seeds, and Princeton in the most recent example in Arizona in 2023. Princeton defeated Missouri this year to come to the Sweet 16, where it lost to Creighton.

In 2022 the St. Peter's Beat No. 2 Kentucky Kentucky, then up to the elite. St. Peter was the lowest seed, which ever won three games in the NCAA men's tournament.

So there are real advantages to select these upsets if you believe that a high seed is susceptible. And higher seeds are more susceptible than ever. Only know that this is the most risky game you can do. It is the ultimate high-risk game with a high effort, which in all likelihood creates its bracket.

High -quality upsets are even less common on the side of women. No. 16 Harvard defeated Stanford No. 1 in 1998. This remains the only surprise of a NCAA women's seeds No. 1 since the tournament was expanded to 64 teams in 1994. In fact, it is the only time that a team achieved 14: 16 in the women's tournament. According to the NCAA, these teams are 1-360 in the NCAA tournament.

[Click for NCAA women’s printable bracket]

Where search for disorders

When looking for early disorders, common sense comes into play. Games with teams that are closer infants produce more disorders. The wider the gap, the less often the excitement. The NCAA generally does a good job to sow teams correctly.

According to the NCAA, 11-6 upsets are the most common, even more than 10-7, but hardly. From there, the commonality of upsets of the gap in the sowing from 12 to 5 and so up to the hard-to-grapple 16: 1 surprise corresponds. This does not take into account 8-9 matchups that are as close as possible. Go to your stomach in these games.

A total of 61 seeds No. 11 recorded the rounds of men, which corresponds to a winning rate of around 39.1%. No. 10 seeds are not far back, with 60 wins in the first round. No. 12 seeds produced 55 winners in the first round, No. 13 seeds 33 and No. 14 seed 23.

Disruptions in 12-5 matchups are popular tips every year. Those who were heavy in 2024 with 12 seeds were rewarded in four games in four games in the first round with a profit rate of 50% with two No. 12 seed winners (Grand Canyon via Saint Mary's and James Madison via Wisconsin).

In the second round, No. 2 losing 1.2 times per tournament in the second round. It is not a bad idea to have at least one seed No. 2 in front of the sweet 16.

If you want to watch yourself in the women's bracket early, it is usually the right way to start with No. 12 seeds. Since 1994, 33 seeds of women No. 12 have secured the number 5 seeds in the first round, an average of more than one year. But there was none in 2024.

Ten of 120 No. 13 seeds have recorded victories since the expansion of the field, and there were none last year. And remember that only one team has ever won 14-16.

Advanced analytics and betting lines are their friends

When you are torn down, let the experts be your guide. Analytics Guru Ken Pomeroy crunches the extended data and spits out a ranking system called Kenpom for the field of men. Consider it as the top 25 of the Analytics set and one that extends to the entire 363 NCAA Division-I field.

Then there are betting lines in which you can search for spreads and futures in the first round for BetmGM. Note that the spread of points is considering how the public leans in addition to the expert inputs.

But mostly you enjoy. Spend as much or as little time as you want with your bracket. One can fill-and often a five-minute exercise. Have fun and good luck.

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* No purchase necessary; void where forbidden. Open only for legal residents of the 50 US, DC or CA, 18+. The entrance season ends before the official tournament on March 20, 200, for the men's competition and on March 21, 25 for the women's competition. See Official rules for men And Official rules for women.