College Basketball 2025-2026
- Thread starter Erial_Lion
- Start date
I really look at it more as a range of outcomes. Duke has the best chance to win…but they’re likely a bit overvalued right now. When I get a chance, I’ll dig up my post I’ve made before with tips on submitting a +EV bracket.
Arizona getting some love. Not sold on them. Florida is definitely in the mix but their blowout loss to Vandy has me wondering. Maybe it was just a conf tourney thing and they will reset and dominate again. Michigan has the horses but maybe that injury ultimately dooms them. Duke has an injury also. Really a tough call.
Posted it last year, and refreshed it with some examples from this year…
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Here is my guide to submitting +EV NCAA bracket pools...
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Here is my guide to submitting +EV NCAA bracket pools...
- Pay attention to the scoring system in your pool, and adapt accordingly. Does your pool reward bonus points for picking upsets? Then you should be looking to maximize those bonus points. This is an important rule that is so often overlooked (I'll ask people "what is your scoring system" and they'll say "oh, I don't know"...those are the people we want to be taking money from, not the one that we want to be). I’ll get in something like 35 bracket pools this year, and every one has picks tweaked towards that particular scoring system and size. Speaking of which…
- Pay attention to how many people are in the pool...the more people in the pool, the more you should be willing to deviate from the chalk. To do this, I'd pay close attention to the betting odds to win the tournament vs the number of people that are picking each team to win (here is a good link for that: https://fantasy.espn.com/games/tournament-challenge-bracket-2026/mostpickedchampions .Teams like Illinois and Iowa St are under-selected right now. If your pool is a 1/2/4/8/16/32 scoring system and has 500 people in it, you would go with Illinois to win it all with mostly chalk otherwise, and potentially take it home if they can pull it off only needing to outlast another handful of people that will pick Illinois (while their implied odds by Pomeroy to win it all are 4.8%).
- And on the flip side to that...if you're in a small pool, go really chalky. No reason to go out on a limb, let others do that while you maximize your odds of taking the big favorites.
- When people zig, you want to zag. Everyone loves St John’s, Michigan St, etc...I'll likely fade them. On the flip side, as everyone jumps off the UConn bandwagon, looks to pick against Alabama with the new suspension, etc, I’ll look to jump on them.
- Along those say lines...Pay attention to the geographical makeup of your pool, and adjust accordingly. One of my pools is based in Connecticut, so I always have UConn losing earlier...my upstate NY pools will fade Syracuse...my West Coast pools will fade more West Coast teams. Your goal is to go against the grain to maximize your odds of winning.
For those that don't follow closely, UMBC is coached by former PSU head coach Jim Ferry.
UMBC making furious comeback in last 2 minutes. Howard missing all their FTs.
Good game. UMBC had the last shot for the tie, missed. Great game. UMBC had their chances.
Princeton's coach was Pete Carrill. One of the 3 best camp clinicians I've heard. No order: Pete Carrill, John Chaney, Herb Magee
And sticking with recent protocol, Texas hits a big shot with a second left and people come off the bench to celebrate while the ball is still alive. It’s insane.
You know who was really good at camps and had the game down to a science? Dick Harter. He was terrific. I really enjoyed camping a long, long time ago where he was the guest speaker. He was really good with kids' names as well. Master teacher of rebounding.
Davey Jones, the collie molestor wrote an article on Harter and his ability and his foibles.
Thank you for this. I gotta get the book. (Jones’s article is basically a book review.)
Tough loss but great season for former PSU head coach Jim Ferry. He was the head coach for only one season after Chambers was dismissed, but handled a difficult season well. I still recall that he replied graciously to an email message I sent him at his psu email address thanking him for his efforts that season.
Harter's 1970-71 Penn team lost only one game. Unfortunately, it was the regional final vs. Villanova and the final score was 90-47. Penn lost only 3 games his last 2 seasons, two of them in the NCAA tournament.
Chuck Daly coached Penn the next year, 25-3 and lost in the Elite Eight. Imagine Bob Morse playing with a three-point line, ye gods.
Calhoun and Morse lost six games in four years. Their freshman team was undefeated, coached by Digger Phelps.
The Big 5 was top-notch in the late sixties, early seventies. Kenny Durrett was 3-time Big 5 POY, imagine that. I was at the 1971 #2 Western Kentucky-LaSalle game at the Palestra where Durrett scored 45 points. The day before he died my dad, floating in and out of lucidity, brought up that game, “That was the greatest performance I ever saw.”
The 1968-69 Explorers under the great Tom Gola finished 28-1 and #2 in the final AP poll. Durrett was just a sophomore but they had great seniors in Larry Cannon, Bernie Williams, and Rollie Taylor. Even Fran Dunphy was on that team.
Indeed. The pride of Abraham Lincoln HS in NE Philly. Passed away 3 years ago at the age of 77.
The ESPN headline reads as "Despite Scandals, Rick Pitino might be the best men's college hoops coach ever". Those scandals are a pretty big thing to ignore (I might be in the minority these days, but I still can't get past dirty coaches and forget about their past cheating).
www.espn.com
I'm looking forward to the next article titled "Despite Scandals, Bernie Madoff might be the best investor ever".
NCAA men's tournament: Rick Pitino's case for best men's college basketball coach ever
Less than 10 years ago, Rick Pitino's career seemed over. But after multiple scandals, he's back doing what he always does, winning in the NCAA tournament.
www.espn.com
I'm looking forward to the next article titled "Despite Scandals, Bernie Madoff might be the best investor ever".
Pretty crazy South Carolina-UConn women's game tonight as South Carolina handed UConn their first lost in the past year and a half. Geno didn't take it well, getting into it with Dawn Staley at the end, as then leaving the court without shaking hands with anyone else after the final whistle. Will be interesting to hear his side of things (not much that he can say that will make him look good coming out of this).
Really bad look. South Carolina completely outplayed UConn. Their defense was suffocating and they owned the boards. His in-game interview (I really wish they'd stop those) was over the top. It wasn't Staley's fault the officials didn't call a foul in third on SC and he called her out without her being able to respond.. I watch as many Gino interviews, tik tok videos as I can, but tonight was a really bad night for his team and for him. Staley, on the other hand, handled the post-game questions professionally and with a lot of class.
Plus him complaining about them ripping his player's jersey, when video clearly showed her ripping it herself out of frustration. And Staley said (and one account from someone claiming to overhear the conversation said the same thing) that Geno's beef was that she didn't shake his hand before the game, even though there is video of it happening.
He's obviously not used to losing and really struggled accepting it tonight...but it's an awful look for him (and the program).
In the postgame presser he still was complaining about the jersey being ripped. I don't know why anyone from the media didn't interject and say there is clear video evidence she ripped it herself. He would have probably not believed it and doubled down on his stupid, ignorant position. Auriemma comes off as a total baby and poor sport.
It’s tough when you’re used to beating mostly glorified high school level teams by 70 points and then you lose to a program that has comparable talent and is coached by a person who isn’t intimidated. And yeah, I know that UCinn beat USC last season, but USC now is the gold standard in that sport.
I have a big problem with women’s college basketball in general because the very few truly elite players play for just a handful of programs season after season, and many people treat UConn’s coach like he’s John Wooden when he’s built a career by beating up on teams made up mostly of unathletic, overmatched players.
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Auriemma has had personal beefs with a whole bunch of coaches, Pat Summitt, Muffet McGraw, Tara VanDervee, Staley. The common thread? Geno Auriemma. Seems like he takes everything personal.
He disliked Jim Calhoun too.