Printable NCAA Bracket 2018: Downloadable Bracket and Picks Advice

Millions of brackets will be filled out in the days leading up to the first round of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament by big sports fans, casual sports fans, non-sports fans and even animals.

Of course, given the high-variance nature of a one-and-done tournament, sometimes the non-sports fans and animals end up winning your pools (I know, because I've lost to both). 

Still, every year brings a fresh, new beginning and the possibility of finally taking down a pool. Here's a look at two pieces of advice to get you started below. Also, if your competition still does things the old-school way, you can use this printable bracket to fill out.

Bracket

Picks Advice        

Use Rating Systems and Vegas Sportsbooks To Help Guide Your Decisions

The Pomeroy College Basketball Ratings and Sagarin Ratings are two of the best systems you can find for NCAA tournament picks. Pomeroy places a heavy emphasis on team efficiency, while Sagarin even provides a guide to predict scores for teams should they play each other.

As far as the Vegas sportsbooks go, they definitely know what they are doing more often than not. If you take a look at OddsShark, you'll notice it already has lines for each of the first-round games (minus the ones that will involve First Four matchups, as those will take place Tuesday and Wednesday). It also has updated national championship futures lines as well.

Both the ratings systems and sportsbooks are particularly helpful when picking games between similar seeds. For example, one may just assume that Arkansas is the better team than Butler because the Razorbacks are a No. 7 seed while the Bulldogs are at No. 10.

While Arkansas could well beat the Bulldogs, Butler may actually be the better pick here, as it is a slight one- to 1.5-point favorite in most sportsbooks, per OddsShark. Butler is also ranked higher than Arkansas in the Pomeroy and Sagarin Ratings.

Keep these three factors in mind when making your picks. If a team is ranked above another in both ratings systems and favored in Vegas, then give the edge to that squad in that respective matchup.

Walk the Line Between Chalky and Risky

Everyone wants to be one of the people who can say that they took a No. 13 seed to beat a No. 4 team in the first round or correctly had a No. 6 seed in the Final Four.

While March Madness tends to get wild, the cream usually rises to the top, as Eric Vander Voort of NCAA.com noted here.

For instance, a No. 1 seed has won the championship 20 times since the tournament field expanded to 64 teams in 1985. No. 2 and No. 3 seeds have won a combined nine times, while all other seeds have won on just four occasions.

As far as Final Four appearances go, No. 1 seeds still dominate, as they've made it 54 total times, or just twice fewer than No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 seeds combined. All others have reached that far on just 22 occasions.

While it's best to not go far off the beaten path, it's still a good idea to differentiate yourself a little bit from the rest of your pool. You will want to find the most plausible path of least resistance when making your picks in order to try to win.

If you're in a pool with a bunch of Duke fans, for instance, take another school with a decent shot at winning it all instead. If that team wins or goes further than Duke, then you might have a chance.

If you're in a massive office pool (or one of the national pools with thousands of people), then you may need to take some bigger (but calculated) risks.

For example, it's unlikely that No. 4 Gonzaga is a popular pick to go deep this year. Casual (or non-) fans probably don't recognize the school name as much as other blue-blood programs who are ranked higher, such as North Carolina and Duke.

However, if you take a look at FiveThirtyEight's March Madness predictions, you'll see that the Zags actually have the second-best chance (24 percent) to emerge from the West regional, with UNC besting them by just one percent. Therefore, the Zags could be the sharp play to make the Final Four.

Ultimately, you'll have to find ways to get pool points that most others won't earn in order to win cash and bragging rights.