March Madness earns its name every single year. It doesn’t take long before some team you’ve never heard of suddenly becomes the most important name in your bracket. Sifting through all the chaos, we used Jaxon to identify the trends you should know before you fill out your bracket this year.

Start with the upsets you should already be expecting. The 12-over-5 is not really an upset at this point, it is a tradition. At least one 12-seed has knocked off a 5-seed in 34 of the last 40 tournaments. Northern Iowa and Akron are both worth circling in that role this year. The 11-over-6 seed matchups actually favor the 11-seeds with a 23-21 record going back to 2014, which makes South Florida, VCU, and whoever survives the First Four games legitimate threats in round one.

Speaking of, First Four teams have won at least one game in the main bracket in 12 of the last 14 tournaments, so do not discount whoever comes out of these play-in games. Texas got past NC State last night and their game against BYU in the West should be treated as a live first-round threat.

While it’s much more rare, just 6.8% historically, a 15-seed has beaten a 2-seed in three of the last five tournaments. Furman, Idaho, Queens, and Tennessee State are all in position to keep that streak alive. Finally, Nebraska enters as a 4-seed against 13-seed Troy, still chasing their first ever NCAA tournament victory. The math heavily favors them. March, however, has never cared much about math.

While upsets drive the conversation, Final Four teams almost always share one thing in common: they are elite on both ends of the floor. Since 2002, every national champion but one has entered the tournament ranked inside the top 20 nationally in both adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency.

This year, four teams fit that profile cleanly. Duke ranks fourth in offense and second in defense. Arizona is fifth and third respectively. Michigan sits eighth offensively and first defensively in the entire country. Florida checks in at ninth and sixth. Those are your statistical title contenders, and any bracket strategy worth building starts with those four names making deep runs.

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Over and Underperformers in the NCAA Tournament

by Ed Egros 👉️ Follow on X @EdWithSports

With so many NCAA Tournament games ahead of us, we may want to resort to trends to help us bet and fill out our bracket.  Fortunately, we have resources.

Who Loves March?

Bart Torvik’s website has a page that looks at which teams, conferences and coaches have exceeded and failed to exceed expectations based upon the seed they received.

Since 2000, the biggest overperformer has been Connecticut.  Winners of five titles in that span including one as a 7-seed, that trend makes sense.  The Huskies are followed by Michigan State and Florida.

However, the NIL era and transfer portal have given us more concentrated success among a handful of programs.  Granted, it’s a small sample size given this era began in the 2021-22 season, but the top-performing programs are UConn still, Miami (FL) and Arkansas.  

Who Hates March?

Some college basketball fans feel they often have a worse March than Julius Caesar.  Since 2000, the worst performers among those in this year’s tournament are Virginia, BYU and St. John’s.  However, in the NIL era, it’s Kentucky, Arizona and Wisconsin.  

But, Should We Bet on This?

Many of these programs have had coaching changes in the last four years.  But, recruits, program infrastructure and other things may be consistent enough that success remains steady.  

Even when analyzing specific matchups, these trends may not be permanent, but are still worth considering.

So, let’s go to Jaxon’s AI tools to look at a few of these teams to see if the trends should hold.

Arkansas (-15.5) vs Hawaii

How good is Razorback Darius Acuff Jr.?  Some are proclaiming him as the greatest guard John Calipari has ever coached.  

Let’s soak in who’s on that list: Derrick Rose, John Wall, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Devin Booker, et al.  To be grouped with MVPs and NBA champions is special, but to be better than them, at least collegiately, that’s special.

Acuff has led the Hogs to the sixth-highest adjusted offensive efficiency rating.  Given the uptempo style Arkansas plays with, 15.5 is not as daunting a spread as it would normally be.

Woo Pig Sooey!

Michigan State (-16.5) vs North Dakota State

If you’re a powerhouse, you can easily win these first-round games with elite offense or defense.  The Spartans should show us the latter.

Tom Izzo’s squad owns the 13th-highest adjusted defensive efficiency in college basketball, partly because of the number-one defensive rebounding rate (77.4%).  

This stat means North Dakota State needs to score on nearly all of its possessions.  Unfortunately for them, their effective field goal rate of 53.4% ranks 85th overall.  Back Sparty to cover the big number.

🌲 The Pine Line

🏈 Denver finally blinked. The Broncos just went out and got a really good one.

🏀 Have you looked at Westbrook’s career numbers lately? The full picture is worth a serious look.

⚾️ For the first time ever, Venezuela is the best in the world. USA’s dream team will feel this sting for a long time.

🤖 When an 11-year NFL veteran says he found an edge, you listen. “The data doesn’t lie - this is the real deal.”

💰️ The NBA could become a 32-team league. The two franchises have hefty price tags attached.

🏀 Round 1 ‘Upset Alerts’ From Jaxon

Going back to our trends from the intro, if we want the best chance of success then we need to find high seed ‘upsets’ that most casual bracket-makers will quickly overlook.

(12) Akron +8.5 over (5) Texas Tech (-115)

This one starts with an injury that has fundamentally changed what Texas Tech can do. The Red Raiders lost interior anchor JT Toppin to a season-ending knee injury, and the results since have been ugly. Texas Tech went 3-4 over their final seven games and absorbed a 75-53 beatdown at the hands of Iowa State in the Big 12 Tournament.

Without Toppin, Texas Tech leans almost entirely on perimeter production from Christian Anderson and Donovan Atwell. When those shots are not falling, there is no interior safety net. Akron ranks 64th in KenPom, post an offensive efficiency of 118.8, and are led by senior guard Tavari Johnson, one of the country's most reliable scorers at 20.2 points per game.

Akron enters at 29-5 and forces opponents into perimeter-heavy battles. Against a Texas Tech team that now lives and dies by the perimeter, that is a problem.

(13) Troy +11.5 over (4) Nebraska (-110)

Nebraska is chasing history, still searching for the first NCAA Tournament win in program history. Troy would very much like to keep it that way.

The Cornhuskers rank 314th nationally in offensive rebounding percentage. That number alone is a red flag in March, where second-chance points frequently decide close games. Troy grabs 34.8% of their own misses and features Thomas Dowd, a genuine double-double machine averaging 14.8 points and 10.1 rebounds per game. Victor Valdes adds playmaking at the point-forward spot, giving Troy multiple ways to create offense without relying on perimeter shooting.

Troy also plays at one of the slowest tempos in the country, ranking 304th in adjusted pace. Nebraska loves to shoot threes in a wide-open game but don’t expect Troy to give them one.

(10) Texas A&M +3.5 over (7) Saint Mary's (-115)

Saint Mary's methodical, possession-by-possession approach works beautifully against teams that are willing to play in that mud. Texas A&M is not one of those teams.

The Aggies rank 29th nationally in adjusted tempo. Saint Mary's sits 297th. The Gaels showed cracks against SEC pace this season, giving up 96 points in a loss to Vanderbilt. Saint Mary's was also just 1-4 in Quad 1 games, which raises real questions about whether the 7-seed reflects their actual ability.

Texas A&M gets to the line, crashes the offensive glass, and can make games ugly enough to erase a statistical gap. The Aggies are the most likely 10-seed to advance in the entire field. Take them.

🏀 The All-Chalk Final Four: Is the +1500 Parlay Worth It?

Duke, Arizona, Michigan, and Florida are not your average top seeds. The advanced metrics on this group are historically strong, and yet the parlay for all four to reach the Final Four sits around +1400 to +1500, implying roughly a 6.5% chance of hitting. The question is whether the market is undervaluing a historically dominant collection of programs.

Bet smarter, not harder.

The edge isn’t luck, it’s knowing what the field doesn’t. Get ready for March Madness by downloading the Pine Sports App. Fill out your bracket this year with AI-powered insights in the palm of your hand.

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