NCAA March Madness 2019 Recap ATS

Official Godiva toy boy and fiancé Archibald organizes a friendly, non-profit office pool for the NCAA men's tourney. Instead of picking bracket winners, players in dearest Arch's pool pick winners against the spread (ATS) each and every day as the tournament unfolds. The winner of his winner-take-all pool is the contestant who picks the most winners against the spread over 67 matches including the first 4 play-in games. All matches are weighted equally. 

I rely on economists' studies showing that heavy underdogs win more than their fair share of college basketball games against the point spread, while "non-heavy" overdogs win slightly more than 50% (although this particular result is not statistically significant).

I finished 31-36 = 24-29 "light" overdog favourites, 7-6 heavy underdogs with more than 12 points and 0-1 taking light underdog Texas Tech +1 over Viriginia in the final based on adapting Professor Leavitt's advice about picking the underdog in the Super Bowl when that is the only match on the board.   

After 12 years since 2008 of swimming naked (of roundball knowledge) in Archibald's pool, I am below even-steven at 374-386-15. Clearly, no evidence that I have a good system for picking March madness winners ATS.

By picking all overdogs in every NCAA tournament game for the past decade, you would be sporting a 380-380-15 record ATS. The point spreads have done the job designed by the oddsmakers anticipating the bettors.

Lady G vs. Baracketer-in-Chief
Former President Obama picks winners straight-up with no point line for each bracket and round.

Obama got UNC right as the 2009 and 2017 winner. After a tough time in 2010 and 2011 with none of his final 4 picks coming through, he correctly picked 5 of the elite 8 in 2013 and 2014 as well as 6 of 8 in 2012 and 2015. Not too shabby. In 2017, he picked 10 of the sweet 16. In 2018, the Baracketer was way off along almost everyone else. This year, he got 12 right of the sweet 16 and 4 right of the elite 8. But, the Baracketer was wrong along with many others with his pick that Duke would win the title  

When he picks upsets in the early rounds, I can identify games where Lady Godiva and the Baracketer-in-Chief disagree. In 11 years through 2019, I am 39-42-1 womano-a-mano against the Baracketer. I was a lowly 3-6 vs. the Baracketer this year.

Speaking of mano-a-womano, kudos to the former President for also picking the women's NCAA brackets.