How To Win Your NCAA Basketball Final Four Tournament Pool

In 2005 as the North Carolina Men’s Basketball team beat the University of Illinois in the NCAA Men's Final Four Championship game. As they were counting down the final seconds of the game on TV, I was in my living room jumping for joy and hugging my friends and family. When the final buzzer sounded I had just won $10,000 from a local radio station for winning its NCAA March Madness Final Four Tournament Pool.

While there is no guarantee that you'll be able to duplicate my success of a few years ago, following these simple strategies, you may be able to greatly increase your chance of walking out with some winnings from the many of NCAA tournament brackets that exist.

Do Your Research

If you want to ensure that you are celebrating Final Four weekend in April your fun really begins on selection Sunday in March when the tournament committee narrows down its field to the final 65 teams. However, many teams have already known for at least a week in advance that they have made the tournament by simply winning their conference tournament. For instance the Missouri Valley Conference is a conference that holds its tournament at least a week in advance of selection Sunday each year. Your first job is to do some basic research on these schools that have won these tournaments.

Some great websites to research the NCAA Tournament teams include ESPN's Men's College Basketball page and CBS Sports Men's College Basketball page

Find out what their overall record was on the year, have the beaten any quality teams throughout the year, where they upset by any teams they should have lost to. One of the most important things to look at when evaluating teams to pick for the NCAA Tournament is to look at if they are on a recent hot or cold streak. You want to pick teams that are peaking at the right moment. Not a team that racked up all of its wins early in the season and has been slumping entering the tournament.

Once you have fully researched the automatic qualifiers to the tournament, your next job is to watch the Selection Sunday Show on CBS. This show happens immediately following the conclusion of the Big 10 Tournament. From there you are looking at the match ups as they are announced, as well as paying attention to what bubble teams have made it into the tournament. You want to apply the same thorough research that you did for the automatic qualifiers with the bubbles teams. What was their record, who did the beat, who did they lose to, and are the on a hot streak.

Decide What NCAA Basketball Pools to Enter

If you are looking at entering tournaments to win some money or prizes you need to decide which tournaments to enter. There are many large pools, such as the ones hosted by ESPN or CBSSportsline that offer huge amounts of money. However, with that, your odds of winning also decrease. I believe the secret of success are finding smaller pools to enter. For instance I won the $10,000 by entering a local radio station. Many local newspapers, sports bars, or other local business will run their own pools. Millions of people also take part in informal pools put on by friends and co-workers. Enter as many as these as you can. The key to success is entering early and often. Remember you’ll only have a couple of days, typically from Monday to Thursday at noon, to complete your entries so be sure to get after it as soon as possible.

Pick Some Upsets

Once your research is complete the real fun begins. Typically late Sunday night or early Monday morning you will star to see the brackets open up for entries. When your begin making your picks be sure to pick some upsets. Every year, without fail, a lower rank seed makes a major upset of a higher ranked seed. In the history of the tournament there has never been a 16^th seed that has beaten a number 1 seed. However there have been 2’s that have beaten 15^th’s. Many people have success playing the 12 seed to upset the 5 seed. This happens on numerous occasions and if you can get one of these correct you can greatly increase your chances of success.

Pick Some Favorites

As well as picking some upsets you want to make sure that you pick some of the favorites to go all the way. While a number 1 seed is not guaranteed to make the Final Four their odds are much higher than the other seeds. My recommendation is to pick at least 1 of the number rank seeds and send them all the way through to the Final Four.

Vary Your Entries

Many NCAA Final Four Pools allow you to enter multiple times. If the pool rules allow you to do so be sure to enter but vary your entries each time. For instance if you picked a 12^th seed to upset a 5^th seed in your first entry, make sure in your next entry you pick it the opposite way. By varying your entries as much as possible you give yourself a great chance of success come the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship game.

Relax and Have Fun

The final step is the easiest, however, it can be the one people so caught up in March Madness can forget to do. The tournament is meant to be enjoyed. Now that the ball has been tipped and the games have started there is nothing that you can do but enjoy some quality basketball. So don’t be too hard on yourself when the team you picked to win it all on the majority of your brackets gets tossed in the first round. That’s part of what makes March Madness so great.

These are the steps that I have used over the years that have proved successful to me. There is no sure fire way to make sure that you come out on top after the Final Four, using some of the tips outlined here you can greatly increase your chance of winning cash or prizes come March Madness.