In theory, you should work on a bracket from start to finish, the same way you’d read a book. The ending to your favorite story makes a lot more sense when you go through the character development and let the plot play out. Why approach March Madness any differently?
It’s human nature because we think we know the most about the big teams, and we want to make that known. You want to take a stance on Duke, Houston, Alabama, or whoever because you enter the bracket process with a clear picture of who they are and want to support that profile. That’s fine, but it’s also wrong.
March Madness Final Four Rates
Let me be clear—that’s wrong from a process standpoint. You might well have the best ball-knowing takes in the world, but the path matters, and in working on your bracket backward, you’re ignoring that. And that’s a bad process.
The selection shows do big numbers on TV not because we love the banter or the takes but because we want to see who is playing who. That’s a good process—one that, for some reason, goes out the window the second you get a bracket in your hands.
Stay strong. Start at the beginning and build your story. Maybe it ends in the same place it would have. Maybe it doesn’t. At the very least, you’re making a more well-informed decision, and that’s the name of the game.
My top-16 teams in this field in terms of odds to reach the Final Four are at the bottom of this column, and they are going to look out of whack to you, and that’s OK. Until someone nails this thing and goes perfect, we are all fighting a losing battle in trying to project this tournament, so there are no right or wrong answers at this moment in time; there are only takes that you can or can’t defend.
In my case, I have my custom power ranks, which I’ve built in such a way that they provide betting lines for every game. I’ve tracked the accuracy of those lines over time and continuously tweaked things to adjust for the direction of the game, and I now have a solid enough sample size that I can back-test how my spreads correlate to winning.
I’ll cover the betting advice in another column, but for the sake of this piece, we are just worried about winning games outright. With the ability to curate a spread for any game, finding these Final Four probabilities is pretty straightforward – simply multiply their win percentage for every game prior to this stage, and there you go.
This process allows me to incorporate my ranking for the team into the path I expect them to take.
If there’s an upset along the way, great! As long as it’s not to my team, my team now has more expected value, as I had them penciled in as facing the most difficult opponent possible every round.
You’ll notice that these teams all rank inside my top 20 overall, and that tracks – if I assign them a high power rating, they are naturally going to advance far. Instead of getting hung up on the teams, focus on the regions.
By my metrics, the West has three teams with a greater chance of making the Final Four than the team with the second-best odds in the South. The Midwest is the only region with two teams owning at least a 16% share of the Final Four equity—things like that should point you to where I think the most chaos is likely to occur.
Duke men's basketball head coach Jon Scheyer says it’s “full steam ahead” for Cooper Flagg and the goal is to have him play in the tournament on Friday 💪 pic.twitter.com/vIRGFzljRy
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) March 17, 2025
That said, this is also where you can get some of your off-the-wall picks if you so choose. I’ve got a handful of the higher seeds ranked a bit lower than the public does, which is how you end up with six teams on this list sitting on the seven line or worse.
WHO WILL MAKE THE SWEET 16? BEST FUTURES BETS FOR EACH REGION’S CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
This is not to be used as the Gospel as much as it is a guide. I’ve given you my takes by region, and I’d personally start there. Read the book in order like we said earlier. But if you’re parachuting in and trying to reverse engineer your bracket, this information tells you that I prefer chalk in the East and West, with the Midwest and South being your spots for dart throws.
| Tourney Rank | School | Region | Final Four% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Duke | East (1-seed) | 56.15% |
| 6 | Texas Tech | West (3-seed) | 25.12% |
| 4 | Auburn | South (1-seed) | 23.08% |
| 3 | Kentucky | Midwest (3-seed) | 23.08% |
| 5 | Purdue | Midwest (4-seed) | 20.14% |
| 7 | Liberty | East (12-seed) | 15.44% |
| 17 | Kansas | West (7-seed) | 13.72% |
| 11 | Florida | West (1-seed) | 13.39% |
| 12 | UC San Diego | South (12-seed) | 13.11% |
| 8 | Alabama | East (2-seed) | 11.41% |
| 18 | Colorado State | West (12-seed) | 10.56% |
| 13 | Tennessee | Midwest (2-seed) | 10.56% |
| 10 | Creighton | South (9-seed) | 10.51% |
| 16 | Michigan | South (5-seed) | 7.61% |
| 15 | Arizona | East (4-seed) | 6.76% |
| 9 | Brigham Young | East (6-seed) | 5.20% |
| 20 | Connecticut | West (8-seed) | 4.43% |
Don’t miss a moment of March Madness! Download your 2025 NCAA Tournament printable bracket and stay on top of every game, matchup, and Cinderella story. Get yours now!
