How should I fill out a bracket?

When filling out a bracket, there are many things to keep in mind. I certainly can't claim to be perfect - no one is - but I can help give some of the information that might be useful.

Ten Things To Look At

1. Overall Performance The best measure of overall performance is definitely the Power Ratings page. Power Ratings take everything into account: home, away, margin of victory, won/lost, recent games more heavily, and are a great measurement of how good a team is.

2. Recent Play Some teams were lousy and great in February. Other teams were great in February but lousy in November. If you're picking a team to go far, the first is probably a lot better than the second. The best way to look at this is to check out the Last Ten Ratings, which give a good indication of who's playing the best ball right now. Certainly, this isn't the ONLY factor - sometimes teams turn things around for the NCAA Tournament - but it's a big one.

3. Home-Away-Neutral There are a handful of teams in the field that have played very well at home, but poorly on the road. Some teams seem to do well at neutral sites. Usually, only being good at home is a bad sign for the NCAA Tournament. To see how teams have played at home and on the road, check out the Away Ratings and the Home Ratings. The Neutral Ratings, probably the best indicator. A warning here, though: many teams have only played two or three games at neutral sites. If that's the case, don't overestimate the importance of those games

4. Consistency Some teams tend to beat the teams they're supposed to, and lose to the teams they're supposed to. Others might beat anyone, but might also lose to anyone. One measure for this is a team's Consistency Rating. If a team has a high consistency rating, they're less likely to knock off a team ahead of them, but they're also less likely to get upset.

5. Overall Odds If you want to win your pool, I wouldn't advise putting Northwestern State in the Final Four. By looking at the Overall Tournament Odds, you can get a sense of just how likely it is that your team will make it to a certain spot. As we saw with the conference tournaments and the NCAAs last year, there are always upsets. But by picking those that are at least moderately likely, the odds of you completely striking out are not as large.

6. Individual Matchups Rankings certainly can't express everything in a basketball game. Every team has opponents that it matches up well with, and others that it just doesn't play well against. For this, I suggest you check out each team's page, and click on Results&Scores to see how they've fared against different sorts of teams. One problem here is that most people haven't seen much of the field of 64, so it's tough to know about individual matchups

7. Conference vs. Non-Conference Play How has a team played inside its league? Outside its league? It's a tough call as to which is more important, but to compare, look at League Ratings and Non-League Ratings

8. Individual Game Odds To see how each team measures up against a potential opponent, click on each team's link from the Overall Odds Page.

9. Wins and Points Some teams have been exceptionally good in terms of margin of victory; others especially good in close games. Usually, the Points Ratings are the best measure of which teams are actually the most skilled, but Wins Ratings can give a good idea as to which teams tend to fare best in close games.

10. Good Wins and Bad Losses To see how teams have fared against strong teams and weak teams, look in the vs. Top 25, vs 26-50 columns on each of the power ratings pages. For a futher breakdown, look at their individual opponents. Has a lowly seeded team played any strong opponents? Do they have a big upset win?

Three Things That Are Overrated

1. RPI The RPI was definitely not designed to pick winners of games. It may help to decide who's going to get into the tournament, but beyond that it's pretty much useless.

2. Conference Champions The media likes to make a big deal about conference champions being "hot" going into the tournament, but in many cases, they're tired and have accomplished many of their goals for the season.

3. Seeds Obviously, a #1 is better than a #16. But the NCAA has a flawed seeding system, and it doesn't necessarily follow that a #7 seed is better than a #10. Look at the individual teams and their results, and make an informed decision.