Big 10: Tips from press row on filling out your March Madness bracket

From left, Kylan Boswell, Will Riley, Morez Johnson Jr., Kasparas Jakucionis and the rest of the Illini will find out their NCAA tournament assignment during CBS 5 p.m.

Selection Sunday special.

Before you go filling out the March Madness bracket in Mondays News-Gazette, we asked press row regulars from NCAA mens basketball tournaments present and past for their best bit of advice.

Seth Davis A lot of it depends on how your pool is constructed.

A lot of the bracket pools give extra weight to the seeds, so you are rewarded for taking chances on the lower seeds.

But lets be honest, the smartest strategy is usually to go heavy on the chalk.

I will say this: one hard and fast rule is dont use my picks.

I like to pick upsets, so no blaming.

Also, generally speaking, there is at least No.

12 seed that wins a game each year and youve got four to choose from.

Id make sure you pick at least one 12 and one 13 to win a first-round game.

Other than that, there are no bankable strategies, so you might as well throw darts and have fun.

Mike DeCourcy My biggest piece of advice about filling out a bracket is to try to get the champion right.

If you do, that pick is going to work for you all the way through the tournament instead of just on opening day.

Picking that 5/12 upset is going to be great around the office if you get it right, but if youre wrong and that 5 seed makes the Final Four, well ...

Getting the champion right means looking past names to seeing whether a team has significant pro prospects no team has won it since 1987 without a first-round pick; whether theres a top-notch point guard in charge; and whether its effective on both offense and defense.

Only one champion in the KenPom.com database was outside the top 20 in either category over a full season.

There arent many teams that fit every category this year.

Duke is one.

Auburn might not be.

Ken Pomeroy My advice would be dont do it, LOL.

Just enjoy the tournament for what it is and root for whomever you want without having to worry about who you picked.

Myron Medcalf My advice is simple: all of the advice youll receive is wrong.

Ive been an expert for almost 20 years as a college basketball reporter at the local and national levels.

My greatest bracket? My sophomore year of college when I was nationally ranked in a Yahoo competition.

I was no expert then, just a teenager looking for a party on a Friday night in Mankato, Minnesota.

Since then, Ive been bested in bracket pools by fifth-graders, people who havent watched a college basketball game in a decade and random cousins who only call each year after Selection Sunday.

My best advice is to ignore the advice and just have fun.

Its better that way, and youll probably have a better shot at victory.

Brad Evans First and foremost, bury the bias and try to look at teams through an objective lens.

I love U of IPAs as much as the next imbiber, but Illinois is never an auto pick.

Take a step back and assess the matchups.

Remember, draw is everything.

Ultimately, winning pools boils down to zigging while others zag.

Yes, avoid picking too many upsets, but straight chalk also isnt recommended.

Go with a blended approach.

Do so and maybe this is the year your one in 9.2 quintillion chance of scoring a perfect bracket hits.

Merry March Madness.

Pete Thamel Pick a league you love, and ride a majority of their teams.

Pick a league you are skeptical of, and pick against most of their teams.

That puts some method to the madness.

John Akers Dont go crazy or get too conservative with your upsets.

Find middle ground.

Three-quarters of your winners from each round should be the higher-seeded team.

Find eight upsets no more, no less among the first weeks 32 Thursday and Friday games.

Then four upsets in the Saturday/Sunday games.

Then two upsets in the eight Sweet 16 games and one in the Elite Eight.

The trick, of course, is getting them right.

This is coming from a guy who wrote about 10 years ago that, because of conference expansion and the transfer boom, the 12-over-5 upset was going away.

I still think thats going to be true and that I was just way, way, way ahead of my time.

Alexander Wolff If forced to choose between two teams I dont really know, I tend to go with the one with experienced guards.

Or the most seniors.

And if its specifically upsets youre looking for, pick teams lucky enough to be facing a higher seed that had to travel east across a few time zones especially if the game is a Thursday afternoon tip.

Enjoy the Madness.

Bob Ryan Ive never been good at filling out brackets.

I just prefer to watch the games and let nature take its course.

However, my big thing is there is no such thing as an upset until you get to the 4-13 juncture.

Up to then, anything can happen.

And anyone who refers to a 9 beating an 8 as an upset is a bleepin moron.

Mike Lopresti Study the metrics thoroughly, pore over the statistics deeply then forget it all and go with your gut.

Because in March, nobody is an expert.

I did a story a few years ago on a girl who filled out did a bracket for her high school class and picked teams solely on her favorite colors or how much she liked the nickname.

She missed three games.

Gary Parrish "I don't think there's a perfect formula to use or, at least, I've never found one.

But one thing I'd note is that while there's a lot of difference, typically, between a No.

1 seed and a No.

3 seed, there really isn't much difference, in terms of quality, between, say, a No.

4 seed and a No.

8 seed.

"So don't be afraid to pick Round of 32 upsets.

One team will always be seeded higher than the other, obviously.

But there won't be much difference between any of the teams seeded in that 4-to-8 range." Matt Norlander "You need to get comfortable with picking a Final Four that looks uncomfortable.

Every NCAA Tournament since 2013 has had a No.

5 seed or lower reach the Final Four.

"Does it mean it's guaranteed this year? No.

But the volatile nature of the bracket and given how deep/old the sport is suggests it's probably going to happen again.".

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