For every uninformed fan who called UNI over Kansas or St Mary’s over Villanova, there are probably just as many amateur Ken Pomeroys who are sheepishly crossing out UTEP and Wofford from their once bold Sweet Sixteen. Picking upsets is fun, because we think it gives us an edge over our coworkers in our office pool completely legal competition played for candy. Problem is, everybody knows there are going to be upsets, and more often than not we over think our brackets and end up worse than average. At least that’s what two University psychologists suggest.
When It Comes To Filling Out Your Bracket, You’re Probably Trying Too Hard
↵↵Avid college basketball fans tend to predict more upsets than actually occur and moreover don’t outperform random chance in predicting which underdogs win, says Sean McCrea of the University of Wyoming
↵↵The psychologists analyzed the success rates of the large pool of ESPN brackets from ‘04 and ‘05, and came up with an average success rate of 73% Had participants gone strictly chalk those years they would have had success rates of 87% and 75% respectively.
↵Trouble is, the object is not to get a decent percentage right, it’s about winning. And we all know nobody ever wins by going chalk the whole way through. Which is probably why I am going to continue to pick teams like Utah State and San Diego State to try and get the upper hand next year.
See More:
