Sometime Thursday morning, wedged in your inbox between that really great sports newsletter and an HR email on the latest round of compliance training, there will materialize a critical missive from your NCAA Tournament office pool maestro.
“Reminder,” it will chide the tardy. “Brackets lock when the tournament tips off at noon ET.”
That’s when the cold sweat begins, and adrenaline surges through your body: You forgot to fill out your bracket.
By the time Gael from Marketing approaches your desk for your usual $7 craft coffee break, you’re yelling at him like Jack Bauer making threats on “24”: “Caramel macchiatos, Gael??? There’s no time!”
You don’t need caffeine. You need bracket advice. Fast. Fear not. We’ve got you covered. Here’s how to fill out your bracket in five minutes flat and look smart in the process using The Athletic’s trove of tourney tips. (Heck, if you want, just scroll to the bottom and crib our picks from the bracket. We won’t tell.)
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Pick your champ by following the crowd … only so far
For the single most important pick you’ll make for any standard-scoring pools, focus on four teams that most resemble the nine most recent NCAA tournament champions: Auburn, Houston and moneyline co-favorites Florida and Duke. The Blue Devils are favored by The Athletic’s Austin Mock’s model, which simulates the outcome of possible tournament games 200,000 times. But don’t dance with the Devils just yet.
- By bypassing the Blue Devils for the title, you can differentiate your entry. Duke’s prowess has made it the most popular title pick in ESPN’s bracket contest (25 percent of entries as of Tuesday) as well as CBS’s. Not going with Duke to win is a smart pool strategy Mock outlines here — while still collecting points by riding Duke to the finals.
- Gator Bait: Accounting for a few key metrics among the four No. 1 seeds, and a bum wheel for Duke phenom Cooper Flagg, analyst Brett Koremenos IDs SEC Tournament champion Florida as the most likely team to win it all. Pencil ‘em in, and hope April 7 is indeed a great day to be a Florida Gator.
- Deeper pool? Scan further down the seedings for your champ. It doesn’t matter if you finish sixth or 60th if you don’t finish in the money. Mock recommends Houston (picked in around 8 percent of ESPN and CBS brackets) if you still want to target a No. 1 seed, but in his March Madness best bets, he’s backing Tennessee to buck the Rick Barnes-team trend of tournament disappointments and cut down the nets.
Don’t go crazy though: No team lower than a No. 8 seed has ever won the championship. If you think picking a No. 9 seed or lower is smart, you probably also think it’s fine to reheat fish in the office microwave. It’s not. Don’t be that person. Yeah, I’m looking at you, Sammy.
It’s good to fade at least one favorite for the Final Four
A bracket of straight chalk/No. 1 picks has proven correct just once (2008). So which favorite is most likely to fall short this year?
- Koremenos sees Houston’s pace as problematic, along with its penchant for giving up a lot of 3-point attempts. Combined, a hot-shooting team from deep — like, say, potential Sweet 16 foe Purdue or Kentucky in the Elite Eight — could take the Cougars down.
- Given our discussion around the national title pick, a mix of Florida, Duke, Tennessee (or a more risky alternative we’ll discuss later) and either likely South Region finalist, Auburn or Michigan State, makes sense.
Mock has all of their Final Four odds at 19 percent or better. A combo of these five is unique but sane.
Use a smart lens to spot Cinderellas
Even that dude from accounting who hates the unexpected — what’s his name again? Pete? — would appreciate the spreadsheets of The Athletic’s Bracket Breaker team of Jordan Brenner and Peter Keating.
- By studying historical NCAA tournament upsets, they’ve produced an upset predictor (codename: Slingshot). In 2025, it spies seven first-round games with at least a 30 percent chance of victory for teams seeded five slots lower than the favorite. (You can read more about the process here, but like Keanu Reeves on mass transit, we’ve gotta keep this thing moving.)
In the interest of, ahem, speed, welcome to Round 2:
- UC San Diego, North Carolina, Liberty, VCU, McNeese, Colorado State and Drake.
Likewise, it’s onward for unbowed favorites:
- Texas A&M, Iowa State, Maryland, Texas Tech, St. John’s, Arizona, Wisconsin, Purdue, Illinois and Kentucky.
Bracket Breakers Regional Breakdowns
West | South | Midwest | East
Numbers are your friends for fast, informed picks
Clock’s ticking, and you’ve got an 11:30 Zoom with corporate about the latest TPS reports. We need some lightning-round action for teams we’re not picking to go deep.
- So, choose the rest of the second-round teams based on Mock’s projections. Say what you want about the tenets of using projections instead of your gut, but at least it’s an ethos. And your boss does love data-backed solutions. March on: Louisville, Marquette, UConn, Kansas, Baylor (barely, at 51 percent), St. Mary’s, Gonzaga, Purdue and UCLA.
Apply all those lessons to fill in the blanks
To fill in the final slots, apply a combo platter of the key insights from above: ID the weaknesses for favorites, use projections to guide your general thinking and, when teams are reasonably comparable, side with the underdog.
- Koremenos’ breakdown of fallible favorites provides reasons why four teams will fall short of seed-line expectations. His list includes Houston, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Texas A&M. The latter two resolve easily enough, carving out space for two sexy second-round upsets by VCU (44.3 percent upset projection vs. Wisconsin!) and UC San Diego, respectively.
- Houston and Tennessee, however, are tricky. And this is where it’s worth considering some of those longer shots we mentioned earlier. No other seed in the Midwest has better than an 8 percent chance to reach the Final Four (Gonzaga and Clemson), by Mock’s projections. But in deep pools, this is the region to swing big with either the Zags, Clemson or Illinois. (Kentucky features several traits that often lead to upsets, per Bracket Breakers research.) Smaller pools: Stick with the Vols over Houston in the Elite Eight. Round out that Midwest by advancing Illinois past Kentucky and McNeese (and their 29.6 percent upset chance) over Purdue.
- If you want to roll the dice in the South without actually rolling the dice, take (favored) No. 11 North Carolina over a banged-up No. 3 Iowa State (27.6 percent upset percentage). That gives you four double-digit seeds in the Sweet 16. Bold, but not crazy, based on history.
- Texas Tech vs. St. John’s is essentially a toss-up (37 percent odds for the Johnnies to reach Elite Eight vs. 36 percent for Texas Tech). Stand out like Rick Pitino in a white suit by tapping the Red Raiders over his Red Storm.
Resume normal respiratory patterns
Slot the remaining favorites to their ultimate endpoints — Arizona (Sweet 16), Alabama (Elite Eight), Maryland (Sweet 16) — and voila. May your five-minute-or-less masterpiece bring you victory so you can treat Gael to one of those $7 frapps you skipped. In the meantime, exhale, mop up that residual flop sweat and soak in the following bracket, filled out with the more conservative picks outlined in the advice above.
(Photo of Johni Broome and Walter Clayton Jr.: Todd Kirkland, James Gilbert / Getty Images; Illustration: Will Tullos / The Athletic)
