College Basketball Tournament Bracket Predictions
by Kurt Boyer
Updated: March 1, 2024
Predicting 2024's Bracket by Predicting Small Brackets Successfully
There are many "annual" sports events that can become more meaningful in a given year, while other years' installments are ignored as diddy-bump pastimes. The FA Cup is one, a showcase that England's top soccer managers won't play their best lineups in during the early rounds, but which is sure to produce a climactic corker if Manchester City and Liverpool F.C. happen to overcome their self-imposed challenges and make it to a final together. The national basketball teams of the United States can reduce any Summer Olympics or FIBA competition into a yawn, especially the women's team … but any unexpected loss for Team USA makes the next FIBA tourney into a blood-quest.
For NCAAM conference bosses holding their annual postseason playoffs, it's been all they could hope for to have college basketball's postseason conference events remain relevant in some ways, and in some years. The bigger and more highly touted a Division 1 basketball conference is, the tougher it is for the conference tournament to maintain its relevance. Selection Sunday committee members are realistic enough to know that nearly unbeaten teams from power conferences do not want to risk injuries for their finest guards and forwards headed into March's national tournament. So long as an expected #1 seed conquers a few have-nots, they can often phone in a league final without penalty.
The madness of March basketball's final tourney won't overwhelm the conference events this year, for there's a case to be made that no CBB team in the land has earned a #1 regional seed in March yet. If we're being honest, perhaps none of 2024's hoops contenders actually "deserve" a #1 seed in the Big Dance, though someone will have to get them!
We have reported on the ugly number of defeats suffered by the Top 25 this season, including a top-10 that still welcomes fellow 21-6 schools Arizona and Tennessee as of press time. It has put a stamp on the narrative that UConn, still a faltering FanDuel Sportsbook favorite to win the NCAAB men's crown at 5-to-1 odds, was embarrassed 85-66 by #15 Creighton, a score that would often change long-term college basketball odds quickly. But there just aren't any other candidates for #1 who've avoided meek road defeats of their own. Zach Edey and the #3 ranked Purdue Boilermakers lost to unranked Big Ten opponent Ohio State on a February weekend. Houston's loss to unranked TCU since the New Year, and the #2 ranked program's newfound Big 12 schedule's challenges had resulted in a dearth of marquee wins prior to the Cougars' big triumph over ISU.
NCAAB conference tournaments will play a big role in March brackets this year. Big Ten, Big 12, and other leagues' games have been so closely contested, and hard to predict, that a postseason title could carry extreme weight with Selection Sunday officials. Consider the plight of the Kansas Jayhawks, who should continue to fall behind the similarly-ranked Duke Blue Devils in sportsbook status following Duke's convincing win over Miami on Wednesday. Kansas University spent time as a popular top-5 CBB pick and a short-odds futures bet at FanDuel earlier this season, but then suffered its own embarrassing road defeat at #25 Texas Tech to fall into a losing pattern at home. That's made KU a "freak" contender at skeptical futures odds, since most teams are at least OK at home in 2024.
Duke University can't boast of having Coach K, or the pristine home-court record of every leading team from the Big 12 standings. But the Atlantic Coast Conference leaders just rang up a long win streak prior to tripping against Wake, and have the benefit of facing no ranked opponents until hosting forever-rival North Carolina on Senior Night. If the 2023-24 Duke Blue Devils win the ACC regular season and postseason conference titles, then Duke will have a prohibitive case for a #1 seed on Selection Sunday. However, the one path for Kansas to seed above a contender like Duke this March is to prevail over an even tougher field of Top 25 stalwarts in 2024's absolutely loaded Big 12 championship tournament.
Every #1 seed in a league postseason tourney will be forced to win at least 3 times to lift hardware, and with a couple of exceptions, never as few as half the number of victories that a Cinderella bid needs to win NCAAM conference title honors. That also stands in contrast to the "snake"-shaped brackets that Gonzaga, among other schools known for yearly Top 25 prowess, once negotiated out of their conference bosses, in the effort to play as little of the postseason conference schedule as possible. Duke probably has to keep its winning streak going to beat out North Carolina for the #1 ACC tournament berth, and Senior Night against UNC is a tough task.
We advise FanDuel readers to look to the Midwest for conference-tourney drama, and excellent picks to be made on underdogs against the Top 25. Kansas and Houston have felt the punishing fatigue of a Big 12 conference that's deeper than any league in college basketball, leaving the path to a Big 12 title open to an interloper like Baylor.
Making Your College Basketball Tourney Bracket Predictions
Have you noticed crowds of American college kids chatting excitedly in late winter? It could be that they’re excited about The Beatles or Frank Zappa. More likely, they’re talking about the "Big Dance," or the national championship tourney bracket.
You can make a case that college hoops has the best postseason in sports, regardless of taste or level of basketball fandom. Almost no other sports playoff produces a level of interest so far above the draw of its sport’s season. The buzz around ice hockey’s Stanley Cup playoffs tends to dwarf fan reaction to the NHL’s regular season, but is still largely a local phenomenon. The Kentucky Derby draws a billion times more interest than other horse races, but there’s no Thoroughbred “season” to compare it to. We don’t care whether Michigan beats Cupcake U. by 15 or 50 points in December, but even those who don’t typically watch sports on TV can be found filling out college basketball brackets.
The tournament’s setup is nearly flawless. Fans can debate about who should have gotten a #12 seed instead of a #14 seed, or which schools should be included in the First Four, a play-in round prior to the Round of 64. But there’s no question that the very best Division 1 programs, the teams with the truly solid chances to win, all get to play in the event.
Since there are 300+ teams hoping for a bid when the season begins, everyone who plays in the Big Dance is respected as a national power. If a champion goes 6-0 and cuts down the net, nobody can say they don’t deserve the accolades to come.
Bracket Betting: “Soft” Gambling on March's College Basketball
March hardwood is notoriously full of surprises. If the single-digit seeds of the college basketball championship tourney were able to eliminate double-digit seeds with real consistency, then it might be easier for gamblers to predict a perfect bracket.
As it stands, the chances of everyone you know being struck by lightning tomorrow are better than the 1-in-quintillions odds of predicting every game in the bracket.
Lots of people have gambled on college basketball, whether they know it or not! “Soft” betting on the big dance consists of office pools, social media dares, and “squares” games such as those played during the NFL postseason. High school students go around talking about how their “bracket” is doing during the Round of 32. Whether we’re wagering Monopoly money, homework duties, or real cash, pretty much everyone participates in the prediction circus when hardwood rules the airwaves in early spring.
There are many rip-off sweepstakes still hanging around. The modern era of legal sports betting is allowing companies like FanDuel to provide transparent, reputable hoops-gambling opportunities to the betting public.
Find an Honest Broker for College Basketball's Bracket Games
It’s great to support small businesses, but when it comes to postseason college basketball, it’s probably best to put your money on a “big-shot” provider.
No, it doesn’t have to be FanDuel. But it is wiser to wager with a reputable (and sizable) bookmaker and/or Fantasy sports site than with some independent bookie at a bar and grill. College basketball tournament sweepstakes promise a “jackpot!” payoff for a tic-tac-toe bracket prediction on the 1st and 2nd rounds. But there are so many upsets and surprises in the Round of 64 and Round of 32 that even pegging a few teams to reach the Sweet Sixteen can be a challenge. Pretty much everyone is bound to suffer some disappointments along the way and lose their buy-in without any hope of a big score.
Most of the “Special Prize!” sweepstakes on the internet don’t even pay off unless the customer picks 2 or 3 out of 4 Regional winners from each mini-bracket of 16. That takes a lot of good handicapping and a lot of luck. Combine just a pair of #1 or #2 seeds’ odds-to-win each contest in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th rounds into an 8-game “parlay,” and the payoff promised on an 8-up winner would probably be fantastic. Yet only at a legal sports betting book are such predictions rewarded with a fair payout amount.
College Basketball Tournament Betting: No More Greasy TV Offers
Back in the 1990s and 2000s, there was no shortage of sports scams and betting rip-offs that the job of touting college basketball teams on the web was thought to be distasteful. Hucksters were leading the public to gamble with unregulated and shady bracket brokers, after all. “I hear Bobby Knight is now an internet tout,” said Jim Rome on the radio prior to a college basketball postseason in the 2000s. “Next thing he’ll be on a grease-ball Saturday morning TV show, with a bunch of other grease balls asking for my credit card number!”
The 2020s are a time of celebration for sports gamblers, as legal sports bets are placed on protected servers and retail betting is always on the up-and-up. It makes turning a profit with accurate predictions on the tourney into a much less dodgy proposition.
Choosing and betting on winners is hard enough—let pros handle the rest.
Tips on Predicting Brackets in the Big Dance
Making a prediction on an accurate tourney bracket can be a bit challenging, even when fans attempt to simplify the task.
You might decide that a #2 seeded Oklahoma matches up very well against a #7 seeded Iowa State, which, if the same quarter of the bracket, would become the likeliest Round of 32 pairing following OU and ISU beating the #15 and #10 seeds in their respective Regional tourney openers. But the Cyclones are additionally only slender favorites over the #10 seeds in the Round of 64. Suppose the #10 is a team that Oklahoma would have more trouble with? Your prediction is Oklahoma in the Sweet Sixteen or the Final Four, but the outcome is affected by more than just the Sooners and their opponents’ outcomes on the court.
Try to find weak CBB betting favorites among the top seeds in each Regional bracket of 16. Examples include teams with injury problems who have earned a nice tourney seed thanks to having had a hot January, teams dealing with internal controversy that appears brushed over to the public, and “reputation" picks for upper seeds like Villanova in 2019.
How Team Reputations Affect the Betting Odds
In 2019’s Round of 32, the then-defending Division 1 Men’s Basketball champion Villanova Wildcats had little chance against high-powered Purdue. But they might have been facing a #2 or #1 seed in the 2nd round were it not for 2018’s national championship run. Like George Foreman winning a decision (and holding onto the Heavyweight belt) against Axel Schultz, Villanova had gotten dinged-around in a lot of rounds, but officials gave the Wildcats the benefit of the doubt with a solid #6 seed, and bettors took the hint, making Villanova’s betting lines shorter than they ought to have been.
The 2018 Arizona Wildcats are another example of a weak tournament favorite, a team for which a headline broke a blockbuster scandal just as the postseason got underway, but for whom betting odds remained firmly in the “minus” moneyline and spread category. That, of course, was prior to the other “Wildcats” getting blasted by double-digit seed Buffalo in the Round of 64. Weak favorites do more than invite “Cinderella” #12 or #14 seeds advancing. They make it easier for other favored squads to reach the Final Four.
Cinderella Can Help Tourney Favorites Advance
When Oregon and UC Irvine met in the Round of 32 in 2019, it's likely the Ducks and Anteaters were happy to see each other. Come to think of it, ducks and anteaters probably do get along just fine in the wild. But mascots’ real-life counterparts didn’t have anything to do with the excitement of 2 West Coast fan bases once the Round of 64 results were official.
Oregon had expected to play #4 seed Kansas State if it won a game to open the tourney, and the Anteaters had expected to meet a burly Wisconsin team from the Big Ten. But because each 1st-round game ended in an upset, Oregon and UC Irvine had more favorable match-ups on the court than they had expected in the 2nd Round.
Virginia had better match-up opportunities against 2nd-round winner Oregon than it might have against a team like the Badgers. Oregon put together a great defensive effort in the Sweet Sixteen and lost to UVA 53-49. What if the eventual champs had had such a poor shooting night against a Big Ten stalwart instead?
Is it Madness to Pick a College Basketball Tournament Middle Seed?
When it comes to picking a March middle seed, not a #2 or a #14 but a squad smack in the middle, there are 2 different schools of thought. Some contend that taking a Cinderella bid deep into the bracket is easier if the school is seeded #11 or #12, allowing it to play through a worst-case-scenario path of #5 and #4 seeded opponents to the Sweet Sixteen. No winner of #8 seed vs #9 seed Round of 64 contests in 2019 advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, each of the 4 bids losing to the #1 seeds in their respective Regional brackets.
Another school of thought is that a talented #8 or #9 team may have an easier path to the Elite Eight once it makes it out of the Round of 32 since the victorious middle-seed would then meet a #4 or lesser seed in a match-up designed for the #1’s path.
Ultimately, the choice is up to the person filling out the college hoops bracket. Is it worth buying a bunch of bracket-prediction “turns” and filling them all out differently? That’s up to each bettor, too. Some tournament speculators prefer betting on specific Regional outcomes—or even predicting a team’s outcome long before the Big Dance bracket is determined.
What’s the Difference Between Bracket Predictions and Bracketology?
Bracket predicting occurs once the March field is set on Selection Sunday; it’s the task of selecting winners in the dozens of games that will shape the Sweet Sixteen field.
“Bracketology” is the art of predicting what the field will look like in March. Remember that it is not simply a 64-team field or even a First Four-enhanced field of 68 that pundits are guessing, but the seeding of each contender and conference winner as well.
FanDuel Sportsbook offers an alternative futures board on the tourney that gives gamblers a 4x better chance of success, asking if each team will reach the Final Four. Perhaps a Cinderella is destined to fail against the finest players in the land once the big dance is narrowed to just 4 teams. But that won’t matter in Final Four futures gambling—all a Cinderella team has to do is win 4 games and show up for the gala.
Bet on College Basketball at FanDuel Sportsbook
FanDuel is happy to provide legal sports bets on individual games to speculators in 6 states if modern “bracketology” isn’t what you’re looking for.
Check out our entire college hoops blog for tutorial and tips pages on moneyline and spread betting, the Over/Under lines, and futures odds on the winner.
College Basketball Bracket Predictions and Betting FAQ
Did the Coronavirus Pandemic Affect Venues for the 2021 Tourney?
Absolutely. In early 2021, they announced that all tourney contests would be played in Indiana, with a majority of games held in Indianapolis. Fans can expect regional-host scenarios to slowly return to normal as the 2020s go forward.
What Are the Odds of Picking a Perfect Bracket?
Mathematicians have said that the chances of predicting a perfect 64 or 68-team postseason tournament bracket are as bad as 1-in-9.2 quintillion. Others believe that the chances of picking a perfect bracket are far better than the “9.2 quintillion” claim, but not enough so to take solace in. It would still take a 1-in-millions string of good fortune to get the Round of 64 exactly correct, even according to optimistic stats experts.
How Much Can I Win Betting on College Basketball Futures?
Despite it being uncommon for a “Cinderella” team to reach the Final Four, bettors occasionally score on a jackpot in college basketball futures. UConn was a 95-to-1 underdog going into the 2014 tourney, meaning that futures gamblers who picked the Huskies to win a title were rewarded with nearly $100 on the dollar when the bets paid off in April.
Is Online Sports Betting Legal in My State?
Sports betting is now legal in over 30 states. Check out FanDuel’s interactive map to get the latest on your state’s progress.
How Do I Get Started Betting at FanDuel Sportsbook?
Head to FanDuel Sportsbook and sign up! When getting started, consider using the site’s bet preview window to determine risk-reward figures before considering that first wager. However, it’s best to check beforehand whether your state allows legal online betting.
Where Can I Find College Basketball Tournament Odds at FanDuel Sportsbook?
Check out the “NCAAB” on the main menu, or look for special college basketball tournament sportsbook portals whenever the postseason begins.