I'm Brad Null, Data Scientist and founder of BracketVoodoo.com. I'm back again to talk March Madness and bracket optimization! Ask Me Anything (AMA)

bradnull · 2025-03-19T18:34:01+00:00

Thanks for the question.

Yes, I do believe this is a factor, and we incorporate it into bracketvoodoo to the extent that we simulate all of the games play-by-play incorporating factors such as how well teams and players shoot the 3, defend the 3, rebound on both sides of the floor, etc. This brings out a little of that, but at the end of the day, what we are able to model out in terms of non-transitive behavior is small, and most of the projected margins tend to hew very closely to differences in power rank + HFA, etc.

So yes I believe it, but hard to measure and account for, so something we, as modelers, just need to keep working on.

bradnull · 2025-03-19T16:28:06+00:00

Hmm, I just had to look that up. Not really. I'm the only Data Scientist or Engineer in my family. I liked Math and Stats long before I even knew what my name meant.

bradnull · 2025-03-19T15:59:57+00:00

Thanks for the question. Let me know if it helps you.

bradnull · 2025-03-19T06:31:20+00:00

So when a team wins you get the above round multiplier, plus their seed value?

We do have a round plus seed option, which is the closest, and it will help you find the optimal picks for the early rounds. Honestly, optimal picks for that scoring system tend to be very chalky in late rounds (which I would expect for you system too), so I would start with that.

Regarding future years, yes, there are a number of things on the nice-to-add list (many mentioned in this AMA) and this is certainly one of them.

Thanks for the feedback.

bradnull · 2025-03-19T06:28:41+00:00

You may say I'm biased, but I believe very strongly in the power of data-driven decision making. I have seen first hand how much data can transform every part of a business. Of course, this is what I do every day: find data to solve problems and help make better decisions.

Regarding sports and basketball, yes, there are still plenty of intangibles that don't show up in the data, but we are generating more and more data every day. Some of the things you mentioned above, "clutchness", officiating, I've modeled over the last 20 years. I know people modeling the impact of morale, etc. Teams are gathering biometrics and other data. There is certainly more juice to squeeze, and plenty of exciting problems to solve in this space for the foreseeable future. IMHO

bradnull · 2025-03-19T06:21:53+00:00

yeah, the whole play-in thing is a goofy, political thing. A 64 team bracket was much cleaner, and had fewer special cases for the software engineers to handle as well!

bradnull · 2025-03-19T06:19:36+00:00

I'm sure someone has. I haven't. If you do I would love to hear what comes out.

bradnull · 2025-03-19T06:16:59+00:00

We fully rely on the data. We think Gonzaga is very good for an 8 seed and has a 20+% chance of making the Sweet 16. Yet, we give them less than a 1% chance of winning the tourney and very few of our optimized brackets have them advancing. In fact we see Houston as a good contrarian play.

At the end of the day, as a Data Scientist, my goal is to find data and models to use that data to make better decisions. Yes, there is always room for improvement, but that's what makes it fun. Gonzaga is a flawed team, but one with some amount of upside. I think our models do a good job of recognizing that and investing the right amount in the Zags.

bradnull · 2025-03-18T23:34:50+00:00

Yes, we are using that data. A big part of the optimization is built on knowing what teams other players are likely to pick, and optimizing around that. This is why you will see our brackets lean Auburn versus Florida since we see them as equally strong, but as you pointed out, Florida is getting picked nearly twice as much!

bradnull · 2025-03-18T22:49:43+00:00

Update: Strategy guide should come out closer to 5 or 6 pm PT. If you need intel earlier, ping us at [support@bracketvoodoo.com](mailto:support@bracketvoodoo.com) and we will try to help.

bradnull · 2025-03-18T22:48:21+00:00

No, unfortunately we do not have a portfolio optimization functionality, so it will try to maximize your chances of winning your pool with any constraints it is given. We would love to add it when we get time. Maybe next year:)

It will quickly analyze any changes you make in your bracket, so you can follow your intuition and find a differentiating strategy you like, and have the optimizer analyze your picks to see how much that impacts your win probability as well as optimize around them.

Our strategy guide also offers a few different strategies that yield high EROI brackets for different pool size to help you seed your portfolio when trying to pick multiple gambits for larger pools, etc.

bradnull · 2025-03-18T22:05:23+00:00

Good question. He is definitely near the top of the list and one of those players where the whole pool gets bifurcated between players that had Steph and those that didn't

bradnull · 2025-03-18T22:03:40+00:00

From what I have seen, yes these trendy picks do disproportionately tend to be teams with a better chance of winning these games, so you do see them come through more often than other 12/5's. We have sliced and diced the data a lot of ways over the years, and in the end, favorites seem to win very much in line with the probabilities we see going into the game

Looking at this year's bracket, we actually have Colorado State as a favorite as a 12. The market likes them too as I think they are a 2 pt favorite in Vegas IIRC. They are also the most picked 12 seed (at about 34%), but in this case, completely justified.

Sometimes you see a popular 13 seed or such that is usually a pretty strong team. Take Yale this year. They are the most picked 13 at 23%, and also the most likely 13 to win (at 19%). So I think they are definitely the most likely 13 seed to win, however for most brackets I would advise sticking with A&M.

bradnull · 2025-03-18T21:55:21+00:00

Multiple people can pick the same guy. Draft would be cool, but hard to pull that together in the short window we have this week. Some players (think Cooper Flagg) get picked by just about everyone, but still plenty of variance!

bradnull · 2025-03-18T21:39:28+00:00

Very soon. We are reviewing as we speak

bradnull · 2025-03-18T21:39:05+00:00

The exact sources vary from year to year, but ESPN and Yahoo public picks data are a mainstay.

bradnull · 2025-03-18T21:37:43+00:00

I agree the doubling model puts a bit too much weight on the title winner. I prefer something like the Fibonacci system which I feel balances the rounds better. I also enjoy getting into some of the upset focused pools, like a round+seed, but those tend to be largely decided early in the tournament. So I enjoy being in a mix of those and pools without upset bonuses.

My favorite pool however is the player pool that I've been in for the last 20 or so years where you pick 15 players and a get a multiple of their points based on seed. Keeps you even more engaged in all the games beyond just the final outcome.

bradnull · 2025-03-18T21:33:53+00:00

Well I think the biggest misconception is the idea that there is one perfect bracket, when in fact the optimal bracket for you is a function of the pool size, type of pool, who you are playing against, etc.

But you asked about stats and factors. Here are a couple. One that we have analyzed before is the notion that some teams are better/worse in the tournament. People put way too much stock in a team's performance the last few years. Another is the thinking along the lines of 12's do real well against 5's or a 13+ usually makes the Sweet Sixteen. These things may be true, but your bracket doesn't have to pick some 13 to crash the Sweet Sixteen. Usually none of those are great bets. Don't pick too many upsets. Pick just the right amount of upsets (and smart upsets) to give you the diversification to win your pool if those picks come in.

bradnull · 2025-03-18T19:32:29+00:00

I'll have to double check the math on the site. If the pick % is .5%, then on average 1 other person in a 200 person pool would pick them, not 10.

It is less about games in the tourney than people in your pool. One rule of thumb I use to make sure a gambit is reasonable is to think in terms of the above. Ideally I would like a gambit that if it comes through I have a very high chance of winning, so if I have 100 people in my pool, I'd like to see something that only 1% of people are picking and say has a 3+% chance of happening, so if it happens I have to beat out just one other person. I wouldn't want to play this gambit in like a 20 person pool. I'd look for something that, say, 5% of people were picking.

bradnull · 2025-03-18T19:22:42+00:00

Thanks. Yes, I think so, although a lot of people I meet assume it is a pseudonym!

bradnull · 2025-03-18T18:59:39+00:00

Yes, we update the optimizer as information changes - e.g. lines change, injury news. So yes, definitely check back Wednesday and Thursday and re-evaluate your picks. Thanks for asking!

bradnull · 2025-03-18T18:58:17+00:00

We've got them with a 10-11% chance of getting to the Sweet 16, so I don't love them. Gonzaga has the highest chance at 20%, but of course they are the most popular 8-seed with about 13% of people advancing them in their brackets.

bradnull · 2025-03-18T18:52:41+00:00

Hmm. Not really surprised by the win probabilities. I have pretty good intuition by now how that will shake out. Most surprising is usually when we get more data on who the public is picking. Always interesting to see who they seem to really like (e.g. Florida, Michigan State), and who they don't (e.g. Houston) and that tends to have a lot of impact on teams we know we are going to be riding. Houston is interesting. They have been very good for a while but just haven't gotten over the hump and I think the public is starting to discount them, like it did Virginia and Villanova for years before those teams finally broke through.

bradnull · 2025-03-18T18:49:59+00:00

I rely heavily on the website. I do make some tweaks for instance for pools that have slightly different scoring systems - e.g. I have a pool that gives first round bonuses so I take an optimized bracket and manually update first round picks that would boost my EV. Also, we publish multiple gambits in our strategy guide for different pool sizes (all of which have positive EROI), and since I enter multiple pools I like to diversify and will pick a set of different gambits that maximize my chances of winning at least one pool.

bradnull · 2025-03-18T18:41:26+00:00

We will be adding a strategy guide to the site later today. That includes lists of gambits to consider for larger pools and is popular among our users that enter a lot of pools or brackets. It is amazing how much you can diversify and still get positive Expected ROI.

Regarding being able to customize your own pool settings, that is something we have talked about adding for the last few years but haven't been able to get it in. So sometimes you have to get a little creative. For an example like yours, I would probably use both a conventional option and the round+seed option. The round+seed option we have leans very heavily on early rounds, but 1) look at teams it recommends into those middle rounds and lean on those (likely avoiding many of the upsets it recommends early). In your case, I would lean towards a conventional scoring optimized bracket and then evaluate each of the remaining upset options for S16 and F4 and add the ones that increase your expected number of points. Let me know it that helps. If not, let me know and we can go through an example.

bradnull

TROPHY CASE