The EvanMiya College Basketball Show

Evan (00:00)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Evan Mia College basketball show. I'm your host, Evan Mia Kawa, and we have a special bonus episode for you guys. I am going to fill out my bracket officially right here right now over the next several minutes. So you'll get another short and sweet episode going through my official bracket picks. Normally, I wait till Wednesday to fill out the bracket, and part of that is I don't wanna quickly

fill it out on Sunday night or Monday with knee-jerk reactions. I really like to sit in it for several days and then to finally sit down on Wednesday morning after having studied all of these matchups and let kind of things in my brain sort of marinate, if you will. So we're here now and we're gonna do it. And before we start filling this out, I wanna kind of give a brief overview of how I approach filling out my bracket.

Several things, first of all, I really try and avoid bias based on narratives. So obviously if a narrative is backed up by data and backed up by what we actually, what is actually true, I'm all for it. But if there's a narrative that has gone past the truth, I try and buck against that. And part of that is when you are filling in a bracket, the strategy to win your bracket pool when you have, you're playing it's 10, 20, 50 people.

is not to be above average in your bracket, it's to have the best bracket. And with that comes being a little bit contrarian to what everyone else is doing. If you fill out a great bracket and it's pretty predictable and it happens exactly that way, but five other people in your group pretty much did the same thing, your chances of winning that bracket are one in five and they come down to those small margins. Whereas if you have a fairly unique bracket or at least a bracket that's a little bit different than what other people have,

there's a good chance your bracket doesn't do very well, but in the chance that stuff does kind of happen more towards what you're picking, there may not be that many other people competing with you in the end because of that. So I try and avoid narratives that everyone else is following. So an example of that would be, I think the narrative this week about Duke and the injuries impacting them has been a little bit overblown. Yes, not having Caleb Foster for the tournament certainly will matter a lot.

Not having Patrick and Gangba for the ACC tournament also mattered, but he should be back for this first weekend, hopefully. And if not, he certainly will be back for the Sweet 16, at least that is what they're saying. And I believe that. And when you look at the team adjusted ratings on my site that account for injuries, the adjustment without those players is about a point and a half ⁓ with Foster being out and Gangba being questionable. That still makes them a Final Four.

a title contender for me. So that is the sort of thing that I try and not ⁓ over index in my bracket. So narratives is number one. Number two is I try and look at a statistical approach to building out certain number of upsets, how I want my final four to look,

chalky it is based on the actual tournament simulation probabilities that I have at evanmia.com. for example,

If you look at the tournament probabilities, and I'm looking at this right now, the probability, the expected number of one seeds that we will have in the final four, if you add up all of their chances of getting to a final four, is 2.2. So out of the four one seeds, the most likely outcome is that two of them will reach the final four. So I'm going to pick two one seeds to get to my final four. That means that I'm gonna leave two great teams out of that final four, but...

I'm trying to follow that guideline there. So my general principle going into this is I wanna pick two one seeds and then I probably wanna pick a two seed and then something else that seems reasonable. So there's one. Another one is number of one seeds in the Elite 8. The expected number of one seeds in the Elite 8 is three, 3.0. So that means the most likely outcome is that one of these one seeds is out in the Sweet 16 or earlier.

So I'm going to pick a one seed to not make it there, even if it is likely, the most likely team in their pod to get there, I wanna pick one to not be there. Looking at first round upsets, the chance of a one through four seed losing in the first round this year is about 50%. So there's a 50 % chance we see all the one through fours win and a 50 % chance that at least one of them loses. Now there are 16 total possibilities there.

If we do have an upset, it's really hard to pick where that's gonna come from. So I would be totally comfortable with going completely chalk and picking all the one through fours to get to through the first round. But I'm open to picking an upset there because it's a pretty much a coin flip as if it could happen or not.

Okay, another one. The chance that we have a 12 upset of five this year is 63%. So it is more likely than not that we have a 12 over five upset. So I'm open to picking a 12 over five upset. If we look at the six versus 11 matchup, it gets really interesting. The expected number of six seeds to get to the second round is 2.5. So basically the most likely outcome is that we have either two or three

of the six seeds win or vice versa, we have one to two 11 seeds getting to the second round. So I want to at least pick one 11 seed, if not two, to kind of match that trend. So that gives an example of some of the stats that are in my head. In addition, the idea behind bracket value is not just picking what the most likely outcome is, because if I did that, I would just pick chalk in terms of the likely favored team. And that bracket will have the highest expected points in terms of its total outcome.

but it won't be necessarily the most likely bracket to win my bracket pool because everyone else will be probably picking similar things.

So ESPN used to have this, they no longer do, but Yahoo does. There is a page which I will link in the episode description that has a pick distribution of who the public consensus brackets are picking to advance in each round. And oftentimes I will look at these odds and compare them to my tournament odds and see if there are any massive discrepancies. So for example,

If 63 % of people are picking Duke to get to the Elite 8 or to get to the Elite 8 Final Four, I can't remember which page I'm looking at here. The point being, if 63 % of people are picking one thing and then my tournament simulations show there's only a 40 % chance, that is ⁓ a value play of maybe I don't pick that team or in the vice versa, I pick another team that has a 25 % chance compared to the crowd-sourced 12 % chance. That would be a value pick in my mind, even if it's not the most likely outcome.

So I will be referencing that as we go through this. ⁓

Okay, the final one is that generally speaking, I try to follow a 10 % rule. What I mean by that is I don't pick any outcome that has less than a 10 % chance of happening. So I will not pick any first round upset that has under a 10 % chance of happening. I won't pick a final 14 that has less than a 10 % chance of getting there. I'm not, it's totally fine to do that.

to pick teams that are less likely than that. But for me, that is a rule of thumb that kind of keeps me within a reasonable range of outcomes and then I have freedom within that to pick.

So with that being said, let's go ahead and fill this out here. So I've got this up on ESPN. I'm going to do this pick by pick. I will spend time on more of interesting ones and I will breeze past the more simple ones for me. So we'll do East region first here.

Picking Duke to win in the first round. I'm picking Ohio State over TCU. I think this Ohio State team is really talented. I've been, they're one of the more under seeded teams in this tournament. So that's a no brainer for me. St. John's Northern Iowa. I like Northern Iowa, but St. John's is a really good team, a three seed in terms of their team quality. I'm picking them here. Kansas Cal Baptist, kind of interesting, but I think ultimately talent wins this one. So I'm picking Kansas. So I'll chalk so far. Louisville South Florida.

Is one I spent some time on thinking about and this has been a very popular pick especially with the news that Mikel Brown Jr. Will not be playing in this game. However, even with the Mikel Brown news, my model has Louisville favor to win by five in this game 65 chance there thereabouts of winning and Given how many people are especially in the media are you know picking the upset here in South, Florida? I'm actually gonna pick Louisville. I think Louisville is

Also a under-seated team in terms of how strong they are. My biggest nitpick with Louisville is that they don't play well against really good teams. This matchup does not really qualify. South Florida more represents an average team in terms of team strength that they've faced this season. So I'm picking Louisville. Picking Michigan State over North Dakota State. I'm picking UCLA over UCF. I think UCLA has been playing really well recently. And I probably won't have them advancing past UConn here.

which I will pick to Yukon to win this game over Furman. But Donna Vindent has been playing really well. Hopefully Tyler Bilodeau is healthy. UCLA looked really good in the Big Ten tournament. They're very talented team. And so that's a team that I'm monitoring here, but I'm going to have a tough time picking them here. So back up to the top here, Duke, Ohio State. I'm taking Duke, just to clear talent disparity there, though I think this could be a really good game. St. John's, Kansas. This is going to be a really awesome game. Would not be surprised at all if Kansas won this game.

But St. John's has won the Big East tournament, their 11th best in the country on my site. I think that they physically, and in terms of their defensive pressure and presence, pose a challenge here. So I'm picking St. John's. Louisville, Michigan State, I'm not really looking past Tom Izzo here, so I'm picking Michigan State. And as I mentioned, Louisville has not played great against better teams. This certainly would be one of the best teams they played all season. UConn, UCLA, really fun matchup. I think Dan Hurley gets this done.

So it is pretty chalky here to the Elite Eight. Now we have Duke and St. John's and I think big picture of the one seeds, especially with the whole bucking narratives thing. I want to put Duke in my final four because according to my tournament probability simulations, they have a 57 % chance of getting to the final four. That is the second most in the country after Michigan. and I think that

Some people are more worried about Duke than they should. So I'm picking Duke here. I will pick this game here between Michigan State and Yukon is pretty much a 50-50 coin flip. And for that reason, I think I actually looked at the, let's see here, probability of making the final four in this region. Yukon is being picked 14 % of the time and Michigan State is being picked 9 % of the time.

Given that this is a coin flip, I'm gonna go with Michigan State as the bracket value play here. Obviously, Yukon could win this game, but I Michigan State here is the better pick. And then I'm picking Duke to beat Michigan State. So I have Duke going to the final four in the East region.

All right, over to the West region. Arizona over Long Island. I'm picking there. Villanova, Utah State. I'm picking Utah State. I think they're the better team in this matchup. Wisconsin, High Point. This is a 5-12 matchup that could be one of those 12s that you could pick as the expected ⁓ outcome of having a five lose to a 12, the more likely outcome here. I just think Wisconsin is more talented. And my big note with High Point.

Wisconsin is favored by seven in this game and a high point has not played well against the better teams on their schedule They have one of the worst opponent strength adjustments at Evanmia.com that does not bode well So I'm picking Wisconsin here Arkansas Hawaii I just think Arkansas is too talented and I would really be shocked if Arkansas lost this game. So I'm picking Arkansas over Hawaii BYU versus Texas is a pretty much a coin flip. I actually have Texas favored by

half a point in this game. And ⁓ as such, have no problem picking Texas as one of my 11 seeds to win here. And, ⁓ you know, a lot of it has to do with the BYU adjustment for Richie Saunders and how worse they've played since. So I'm picking Texas over BYU. I'm going to take Gonzaga over Kennesaw State. Miami versus Missouri is a good matchup. I really have liked Miami, Florida all season, so I'm going to pick them there. I'm picking Purdue over Queens. Back up to the top for the

beginning of the second round. I'm going to take Arizona over Utah State, not worried about Arizona here at all. Wisconsin, Arkansas, fantastic matchup. Either one of these teams getting to a Sweet 16 and playing Arizona would be awesome. I have Arizona by three and a half, or sorry, Arkansas by three and a half over Wisconsin. And I do think that, you know, Darius, Acuff, and all the other role players on the Arkansas team have just completely figured out how they want to play.

And I think they're playing really good basketball, obviously, SEC tournament winners. So I'm Arkansas here over Wisconsin. Gonzaga, Texas. I think Gonzaga narrative wise has been kind of slept on. The Braden Huff injury obviously impacts them, but I still think this team is good enough to get past Texas. So I'm taking Gonzaga and then Miami, Purdue. think Purdue gets past Miami. So we have complete chalk so far. Arizona versus Arkansas and Gonzaga versus Purdue.

I am going to take Arizona over Arkansas. think this is an awesome, awesome game, but Arizona has been one of the most consistent teams in the country. Many would argue they are the favorite to win this tournament. I've seen a lot of people make that case. So I'm taking Arizona here. Gonzaga-Purdue, awesome matchup. I really like this Purdue team. So I'm going to take them over Gonzaga and then I'm going to take Purdue over Arizona. Now...

Arizona will be the favored team to win this whole region and to beat Purdue in this game. That is the most likely outcome. And I totally get that. And I think that is the, if I'm predicting what's going to happen, it's Arizona going to a Final Four. However, I'm picking Purdue in my bracket because I think this is one of those spots where I'm not trying to pick all the one seeds. And I think Purdue has more doubters than they should at this point.

If I check their team rating at evanmia.com, are, let's see here.

Purdue is the sixth best team in the country. So that's the second best two seed outside of Houston. And if I look at the probability of ⁓ Purdue playing and beating Arizona in this game.

Arizona would be favored by four points in this game. That gives Purdue a 34 % chance of winning this. That is not a crazy upset. And big picture, this is one of these bracket value compared to what people are doing things. My tournament simulations give Purdue a 27 % chance of making the Final Four. On Yahoo, only 15 % of people are actually picking them to the Final Four. That's almost double the odds according to my tournament simulations than what people are picking. So to me, that is a great bracket value pick.

I hate that I'm picking against Arizona, but I think this is a good way to zag against what other people are doing here. So Purdue to the Final Four.

Now down to the Midwest region, I'm picking Michigan over Howard. Georgia, St. Louis, great game. I'm gonna pick St. Louis, I just think they're a more fun team, though Georgia could certainly win this game. This pod here, Texas Tech, Akron, Alabama, Hofstra, super, super interesting. Everything that I've been talking about and saying would make you think that I'm probably gonna pick Akron over Texas Tech here, but I'm gonna pick Texas Tech. And the reason why is I think Akron is a very popular upset pick.

I think a lot of people will probably be looking at that 12 matchup as the most likely one to be an upset. But according to my game predictions, Texas Tech favored by four and a half points, 67 % chance of winning. Again, that's adjusting for the top in injury, so they are more vulnerable. But I'm going to go with my gut here on this one. Grant McCaslin, especially with several days of prep.

Arguably one of the best coaching jobs in the country this year and the way that he has gotten his team to overcome adversity I keep mentioning this over and over again broken record, but I am just so impressed and I think there's a chance that they they run Akron out of the gym here again would not be surprised if Akron won this game, but I'm picking Texas Tech just kind of as a a backing of what they've been doing all season, so I'm picking Texas Tech

Alabama over Hofstra, this has obviously gotten more complicated because of Aiden Holloway being out due to being arrested. ⁓ But even with Holloway's injury, which is worth a 1.5 swing in Hofstra's favor, Bama still is favored by nine and a half points in this game. And additionally, I like Bama as a favorite against a mid-major because they are second in the country in tempo. They just get so many opportunities in a game to run away

against a less talented team. If they were a slow team, I might be more concerned, but the number of possessions in this game will be in their favor. I'm gonna take Alabama over Hofstra. Tennessee versus the winner of tonight's game between Miami, Ohio and SMU. Don't really care who wins that game. I'm taking Tennessee. I think they were very good team. Virginia over Wright State I'm picking. And then Kentucky, Santa Clara.

Really interesting game here. We didn't spend any time of this on Tuesday morning show, which was a shame. I think this is a great matchup. Santa Clara will cause problems for Kentucky. Ultimately, I think the talent of Kentucky wins this game. And I think that they, you know, they may not get past Iowa State. I will be not be picking them to get past Iowa State in the second round, but I think Kentucky wins this game over Santa Clara. And I have Iowa State over Tennessee State. Okay, back up to the top, Michigan.

Don't think they're gonna have any issues with St. Louis, so I'm picking them to the Sweet 16. Bama Texas Tech, I think this is where Texas Tech's depth becomes an issue. And even with Alabama not having Aiden Holloway, I think Alabama gets this one done here, so I'm picking Alabama. Tennessee, Virginia is a very good matchup. And if you look at the matchup preview on this game at evanmia.com, Virginia would be favored by just a half point.

So there's a 47 % chance to Tennessee would win this game. I feel very comfortable picking Tennessee here. I think they're stronger than their seed. think they give Virginia problems. I'm picking Tennessee. Then Kentucky, Iowa state. think Iowa state wins this game. So I'm picking Iowa state. So then we have Michigan, Alabama, Tennessee state, Iowa state in the sweet 16. Michigan. I still think they're a wagon. I think they overwhelm Alabama as they do most teams. I'm picking Michigan here.

And then Tennessee Iowa State. initially was leaning towards picking Iowa State here, but I'm actually going to pick Tennessee. And the reason why is in that game, I Tennessee is having a 32 % chance of beating Iowa State. So Iowa State obviously favored, but big picture in terms of the tournament odds. Tennessee has a 16 % chance of making an elite eight. That is the highest probability of any of the non one through three seats.

In addition, on Yahoo, just 9 % of people are picking Tennessee to make the Elite Eight. So that's 16 % versus 9 % gap. That's a bracket value play for me. So I'm picking Tennessee to the Elite Eight. And I think that will probably be the highest seed that I have in the Elite Eight. And then Michigan versus Tennessee, I think that's an easy matchup for Michigan. I'm picking Michigan to get into the Final Four.

All right, final region is the South region with Florida. I've got Florida winning in the first round. Clemson versus Iowa. I'm picking Iowa as the nine over Clemson. I think Bennett Sturge will be the best player on the floor. I think Iowa overall is a better team. Vanderbilt versus McNeese. Vanderbilt, I think, is one of the most under-seated teams in this tournament. So I think Vanderbilt will beat McNeese. Here's where things get interesting.

Four seed Nebraska versus 13 seed Troy. I mentioned that there was about a 50 % chance that we have one of the one through four seeds go down. This is not a likely ⁓ upset here. Troy has a 13 % chance of winning this game. So it's above my 10 % rule, but it's not great. However, I did not end up picking any 12 seed upsets in this bracket. So I'm going to, this is gonna be my biggest ⁓

my most outrageous pick here and I'm going to pick Troy over Nebraska. Do I actually want that to happen? I'm not sure. It would be so tragic if Nebraska put the season together that they have and then didn't win a tournament game and was not able to get over the line like they haven't been able to do for so many years. So I don't even like picking this, but one of the big factors in this game is

Troy has the best opponent strength adjustment of any team in all of March Madness in terms of how much better they play against the elite opponents on their schedule. And actually if you go look at the best teams that they've played here, let me pull this up on my site so I get these numbers right. The best two teams that they have played this year, San Diego State ranked 50th in the country, Troy went and beat them on the road. And then they played Akron.

62nd best in the country and they beat them at home. So they're 2-0 against the two top 100 teams. Small sample size obviously, but they have shown that they can really raise their performance level against good teams. Nebraska is the same and that's a problem. Nebraska has played really great against the best teams on their schedule, but they have struggled to beat the worst teams on their schedule, especially in non-conference play in the manner that you would expect for a team of their level. When you put all that in together,

there is a two point opponent strength adjustment in favor of Troy in this game, according to the matchup preview based on how both of these teams play up or down to competition. So I'm picking Troy as my biggest upset in the first round over Nebraska. We get to North Carolina versus VCU. I have VCU favored by one in this game. So I'm gonna go ahead and make this my second 11 seed over six seed upset in the bracket. I'm gonna pick Illinois over Penn.

I like St. Mary's over Texas A I just think St. Mary's style would overwhelm a lot of teams in this type of matchup. Texas A has not been playing well recently, so I'm picking St. Mary's. And I've got Houston over Idaho.

Back up to the top, have Florida versus Iowa. I don't think Florida struggles too much here, so I'm picking them over Iowa. And I'm going to take Vanderbilt over Troy to have a rematch against Florida in the Sweet 16. Illinois versus VCU. I think VCU, their run ends here and I pick Illinois. And I'm going to pick Houston over St. Mary's. So we have one Florida versus five Vanderbilt and three Illinois versus two Houston.

This is where a lot of my bracket value stuff comes into play. I've already picked Duke and Michigan as one seed to my final four, and I have all of the other three seeds making the Elite Eight. So I'm going to pick Vanderbilt here to beat Florida in a rematch of the SEC title game. They have split both their games this season. Vanderbilt just won against Florida by 17. Now Florida would be favored in this game. I would predict them to win this game. But in terms of my bracket, I'm taking Vanderbilt over Florida.

I think Vanderbilt is a strong team. They have played Florida twice, so it's a familiar opponent. I think they know how to play against them. They've looked good against them this last week. And big picture, Vanderbilt has a 15 % chance of making the Elite Eight. So that's above my 10 % threshold. And in addition, I really wanted to pick a one seed to lose before the Elite Eight. So I'm picking Florida to lose there.

I picked against Florida last year in last year's bracket. think I had them losing in the same spot and that didn't turn out well. So probably the same thing will happen this year, but that's my thought there. Illinois versus Houston. I love Houston and I really want to pick them to win in this spot, but I think more people are picking Houston than what the tournament probabilities on my side actually suggest. Illinois has a 38 % chance of making an elite eight. They are just being picked to the elite eight in 21 % of the brackets.

I think that is a massive bracket value play. So I'm picking Illinois over Houston in this game. And then between Vanderbilt and Illinois, I'm taking Illinois to the final four. Again, similar concept here. Illinois has a 17 % chance of making the final four according to my bracket simulations. And they're just being picked there 10 % of the time. So I'm picking Illinois over Vanderbilt.

So my final four is Duke versus Illinois and Purdue versus Michigan. Before we pick the rest of these games,

I now look at this and recognize that I have three Big Ten teams in the final four. No Big 12 teams, no SEC teams. I don't love that. I don't love that. I do not think it's likely that the Big Ten gets three teams. So not only have I not picked Arizona, but I've also not picked Houston. I've not picked Iowa State. Those would be the three biggest likely contenders from the Big 12 to get there.

I think one of those teams is probably getting there. That's just how my bracket shook out. I hate that. But this is what I've got and I'm gonna ride with it. Duke versus Illinois. I'm going to pick Duke to win this game. Purdue versus Michigan. I think Michigan gets revenge on Purdue. Michigan is also just the better team. And I think when they're dialed in, they're gonna win this game. Duke versus Michigan for my national title game. These are the two teams on my site that have the biggest odds of getting to the title game, biggest odds of winning the championship.

And I do think both of these teams are not that everyone recognizes that they're strong, but I think people don't recognize how strong both these teams are. think Duke will be fully healthy by this point. And so I think both of these teams get there and I'm going to pick Michigan to get a revenge win over Duke who beat them earlier in the season. I'm picking Michigan as my national champion. Shouldn't be a huge surprise. Michigan has been the best team for most of the season on my site.

Duke has been right there with them, so I'm picking Michigan to cut down the nets over Duke.

With that being said, I'm sure this will all blow up and smoke in my face very quickly, but wanted to fill this out for you guys and give you some insight into how I'm doing my picks. Hopefully you enjoyed this. And ⁓ as mentioned on the previous episode, we will be back next Tuesday to recap all of this action and assess just how poor my bracket is. So we're going to have some fun with it. Cannot wait for games, first round games to start tomorrow on Thursday. So until next week, I will see you guys later. Thanks for being here.