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 30-37 in 2018. After 11 years since 2008 of swimming naked (of roundball knowledge) in Archibald's pool, I am below ephen-stephen at 343-350-15. 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 349-344-15 record ATS.
In the final, I was wrong picking underdog Michigan +6.5 over Villanova based on Freakanomics Professor Steven Leavitt's surmise that bettors systematically overvalue the overdog and gaming houses do not adjust for this knowledge in championship finals.
Lady G vs. Baracketer-in-Chief
Former President Obama picks winners straight-up with no point line for each bracket and round.
Like almost everyone else, the former President was way off this year picking only 1 of the final 4 and 2 of the elite 8 and with his winner pick MSU out in round 2. Howvever, 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.
When he picks upsets in the early rounds, I can identify games where Lady Godiva and the Baracketer-in-Chief disagree. This year, I finished 4-3 against Obama's picks. In 10 years through 2018, I am 36-36-1 womano-a-mano against the Baracketer.
Speaking of mano-a-womano, kudos to the former President and hopefully future Speaker of the House for also picking the women's NCAA brackets.
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