Suddenly Everyone Is a College Basketball Expert
They come out of the woodwork every year. When March Madness arrives, suddenly, everyone's a college basketball expert. To their credit, a lot of people do follow the sport intensely. But it's impossible to truly follow every team. There are 64 teams that make the tournament after the First Four games. No one watched 64 teams this year closely enough to know how to discuss each one.
Even if we reduce that number to feasible champions, there are still 32 teams. No one ranked lower than an eight seed has ever won it all, so even among those qualified possible winners, watching 32 teams enough to know about them well is a tall task.
Yet, this time of year, everyone's an expert. There's plenty of data around to help these so-called experts, but they, like all of us, are usually wrong.
The only thing predictable is that upsets will happen
It is admittedly very hard to predict college basketball games, especially in the tournament. There's no rhyme or reason to the various upsets that happen all the time. 12 seeds beat five seeds pretty often, but it's still almost impossible to pick the right ones.
There are some 13s that beat fours. An occasional 14 will topple a mighty three seed. There are 15s that occasionally make runs, including St. Peter's in 2022. They made the Sweet 16. It's only happened twice, but 16 seeds have beaten number one seeds before. These things happen, and the experts are just as clueless as the rest of us.
The data at hand helps us know which teams are good. We know Duke is the best team in the country. Houston, Michigan, Florida, and Arizona are also extremely good. If any one of them won it all, it wouldn't be a surprise, and the college basketball experts are probably right to predict them.
But if (or when) one or more of those teams fails to make it to the Elite Eight or even the Sweet 16, would it be a shock? It would, but since March Madness is literally known for the upsets, it wouldn't be. They're impossible to pick, but we all know they're going to happen every year.
The actual college basketball experts aren't that great either
Some experts will try to predict which matchups are the most ripe for upsets. They'll analyze which higher seeds have injuries or have faded down the stretch and which lower seeds are better than we all think. They won't get them right, though. Picking an upset is like a blind squirrel finding a nut or a broken clock being right twice a day. It happens, but it's not really a replicable or reliable thing.
North Carolina is a popular upset pick. They lost Caleb Wilson for the year, and even as a six seed, they seem ripe for an immediate exit. This UNC team, without Wilson, beat Louisville, another six seed. They have other good players, so would it be shocking if they went on a run? Not really.
Being an expert in any sport means you have credentials or good insight. But in college basketball, that means very little. Just because you know the data doesn't mean you'll make the right picks. Sometimes, it means you'll make the wrong ones.
If you're trying to make a bracket, you can and should listen to the experts. They're not stupid, and they can bring some clever insight that might help you pick an individual game. But in the grand scheme of things, they're somewhat flying blind just like everyone else.
And of course, it's always a good idea to vet these experts. People who arrive just in time for March Madness to give you their two cents might not be worth listening to. Those who've been talking about it all season and have delivered good takes consistently might be a little smarter.
