NCAA Bracket 2016: The Secret Formula for Picking a Winner

If you follow this simple six-step process for picking games in the NCAA men's basketball tournament, you will win your bracket pool.

What, are you skeptical?

Leave the skepticism at the door. This is a lock, a total stone-cold guarantee. Granted, one of the steps involves, well, more than a little luck. But if you follow the first five steps carefully, you can at least keep the luck to a minimum and put yourself in position to be the BMATO (Big Man at the Office).

All kidding aside, you know there are no real stone-cold guarantees when it comes to trying to navigate through your NCAA tournament bracket—or brackets, as we all tend to fill out more than one.

But the good news is that the odds of filling out a perfect bracket were adjusted in March 2015 by Duke math professor Jonathan Mattingly, who told USA Today's Nick Schwartz the they actually should be listed at one in 2.4 trillion (and not one in 9.2 quintillion, as previously advertised).

You don't need to be perfect to be a hero, though. If you follow these simple steps, you will have a better chance than most to come out on top in at least one of those office pools. So get ready to take notes and go well beyond the blind guesses most folks make.

Sign up and play Bleacher Report's Bracket Challenge now for a chance to win the Ultimate Sports Trip to four events of your choice.  And click here for B/R's Printable Bracket.

Step No. 1: Put in the Time

David J. Phillip/Associated Press

Those who picked Duke and Wisconsin to reach last year's championship game in Indianapolis were rewarded.

This is the most important step, and also the most difficult.

Yet it's very simple.

Do your research. Put in the time. Take a look at each individual matchup and consider all the factors before making a selection.

This is the Information Age. Whereas it used to be next to impossible to find out any information on the lesser teams without really digging in, now you can get detailed breakdowns on the likes of all the First Four teams playing in Dayton, Ohio.

With the click of a mouse, you can find out that these supposed NCAA tournament weaklings have a combined 11 Final Four appearances among them. Two of them belong to Holy Cross, the only team in the tournament with a losing record (14-19). So what if the Crusaders' two Final Four appearances came way back in 1947 (when they won the national championship) and 1948, with Bob Cousy running the show as their point guard?

While that means absolutely nothing in terms of filling out this year's bracket, it illustrates that you can find out just about everything about every team in the tournament, and you can do it quickly. An informed prognosticator is a more dangerous prognosticator.

Step No. 2: Don't Ignore the Betting Lines

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Kansas took down West Virginia in the Big 12 tournament and is a favorite in the NCAA tourney as well.

Sometimes the tendency is to ignore the betting lines set by Las Vegas.

That's a mistake. These are pieces of information conjured up by folks who usually know what they are talking about, and therefore, they at least need to be considered when figuring out which teams are going to make the Final Four in your bracket.

Odds Shark lists the favorites to get to this year's Final Four as Kansas, North Carolina, Michigan State and Virginia. Of course, that can't be the actual Final Four, because both Virginia and Michigan State are in the Midwest Region, with Virginia being the No. 1 seed and MSU the No. 2 seed. The team Odds Shark lists as having the best odds to some out of the West Region is No. 2-seeded Oklahoma.

None of those are major surprises, as they are all stud teams.

Then, of course, you need to remember that not all No. 12 vs. No. 5, No. 11 vs. No. 6 or No. 13 vs. No. 4 matchups are created equally. Baylor, for instance, has to play its first-round game against Yale in Providence, Rhode Island, which is just a stone's throw away from Yale's home in New Haven, Connecticut. Hence, Baylor is only a five-point favorite when all other logic points to the Bears winning in a total blowout.

So you need to look at the odds more closely. And you need to look at not only who is at the top, but also how some of the teams toward the bottom are listed. That can aid you in figuring out who is favored in earlier-round games, and even why, which can at least be a piece of the puzzle when it comes to figuring which of the lower seeds are primed to pull off early upsets.

Step No. 3: Sift Through All the Chatter

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Dick Vitale has been at this for a long time, but you can't believe all his prognostications.

There are so many experts and so many differing opinions among the sea of so-called and sometimes self-appointed "experts."

It's fine to listen to all the chatter, but then you must force yourself to sift through it and figure out who is making the most sense.

You might be a big Dickie V. fan, but let's face it: Dick Vitale can go off on a tangent and lose you in a hurry if you're not careful. As with all the analysts, listen to what he has to say, but don't take it all to heart. You have to sift through the white noise to hear the nuggets that are useful.

A few of our favorite college basketball analysts are ESPN's Jay Bilas, CBS' Seth Davis and Fox Sports' Gus Johnson. Regardless of who they might have played for or which conference they broadcast games for most frequently, they generally offer intelligent, unbiased opinions about what is happening across the entire landscape of college hoops.

They are the kinds of guys you should pay the most attention to. Enjoy Dickie V., Bill Walton and some of the others for the pure entertainment factor, but make sure there is some real meat to what they are saying before using it to sway whether you pick one team over another.

Step No. 4: All Outside Shooting Statistics Are Not the Same

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Villanova can shoot—but at times during the regular season, it was afforded attempts that won't be there from here on out.

Everyone knows that guard play and consistent outside shooting are usually musts for teams to go deep into the NCAA tournament.

But when you are examining the numbers of teams, remember that they can be skewed by certain factors. Which conference did a team play in, for instance? Did it have to shoot lots of threes to make lots of threes, or did it shoot an efficient percentage? And how did it shoot the ball when matched up against the toughest defensive opponents on its schedule?

Two of the top teams in this NCAA field in terms of total three-pointers made, for instance, are Michigan State and Villanova. But they both shot at high-volume rates to attain that status—and Michigan State likely deserves more credit for draining the long ball in the tougher Big Ten than Villanova does for getting it done in the new and weaker Big East.

Michigan, in addition to Michigan State, also makes lots of threes. And if the Wolverines win their First Four matchup against Tulsa, as expected, they'll face a Notre Dame team in the first round that ranks 323rd in the nation in opponents' three-point field-goal percentage (.376). If the Irish don't close out on their opponents' three-point shooters in that matchup, 11th-seeded Michigan could be a prime candidate to pull off the upset against the No. 6 seed.

Digging deeper into Villanova's shooting numbers, it should be noted that while the Wildcats made 29 more threes than any other team in the Big East, they took 77 more attempts than any other team to accomplish it.

What do these numbers tell us? Yes, Villanova once was ranked No. 1 in the nation this year. But beware.

Step No. 5: Respect History

Alex Brandon/Associated Press

North Carolina coach Roy Williams wouldn't mind a little March Madness history repeating itself.

Know and respect your college basketball history.

One of the more interesting tidbits to remember going into this tournament is that prior to this year, 1982 was the last time North Carolina beat Virginia in the ACC tournament final. The Tar Heels also happened to go on to win the national title that year, beating Georgetown in the championship game.

But there is more to it. North Carolina beat Virginia, 47-45, in the 1982 ACC championship game. This year, the Heels did it with defense again, pulling out a 61-57 victory that proved they can win the tough, grind-it-out type of defensive slugfest that often characterize an NCAA tournament tilt. The Heels' toughness and defensive effort have been a point of criticism for them this year, even by head coach Roy Williams himself. Their showing in the ACC tournament is certainly a good sign. 

So just like in 1982, when a UNC team that featured prolific scorers by the names of Michael Jordan and James Worthy won the national championship primarily with defense (giving up just 55.4 points per game), this year's version is displaying some defensive prowess, too. Williams, an assistant coach to Dean Smith during the '82 run, undoubtedly will mention the correlation between the 1982 team's success and his squad's attention to detail on defense a time or two. 

There are other bits of hoops history to remember heading into this one, such as the fact that a couple of the First Four participants are more tournament-tested than their records might indicate. Wichita State (24-8) made the Final Four in 2013, and tiny Florida Gulf Coast (20-13) endeared itself to the nation by making a run to the Sweet 16 as a No. 15 seed three years ago.

Save for Wichita State's Fred VanVleet and Ron Baker, those teams have different key players now, and they won't forget what the players who went before them at their schools accomplished. You shouldn't, either.

Step No. 6: Flip a Few Coins

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Can UNC Wilmington upset Duke? Strangely, stranger things have happened in the NCAA tournament.

You know there are going to be upsets. You know when you fill out your brackets that multiple games are going to cause you to pause and wonder which team you should pick.

So keep a coin nearby, ready for flipping.

Yep, that's right. After going through the first five steps in this process carefully, if you still can't figure out which team to pick in a certain matchup, flip the dang coin and let it decide.

That's what Dae Hee Kwak, a professor of sports management at the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology, did back in 2011 and again last year. Hey, he may be a Kwak (sorry, bad pun), but he's obviously a smart guy with a title like that.

Kwak told the Michigan student newspaper that he didn't think there was much real evidence to suggest investing tons of time to research makes a difference in how many games you can pick correctly. Nor does he think being a bona fide college hoops junkie (guilty here) makes a big difference.

"A grandmother who's never seen a game has a similar chance of doing as well as her grandson who spends eight hours a day watching and researching basketball," Kwak told Laura Bailey of the Michigan Times.

Well, we don't believe him. Not completely, anyway. But keep that coin handy just in case.