Busting Brackets
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March Madness: Best bets to win the 2018 NCAA National Championship

By Layton Goforth

DURHAM, NC - MARCH 03: Joel Berry II
DURHAM, NC - MARCH 03: Joel Berry II /
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GLENDALE, AZ – APRIL 03: The North Carolina Tar Heels celebrate after defeating the Gonzaga Bulldogs during the 2017 NCAA Men’s Final Four National Championship game at University of Phoenix Stadium on April 3, 2017 in Glendale, Arizona. The Tar Heels defeated the Bulldogs 71-65. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
GLENDALE, AZ – APRIL 03: The North Carolina Tar Heels celebrate after defeating the Gonzaga Bulldogs during the 2017 NCAA Men’s Final Four National Championship game at University of Phoenix Stadium on April 3, 2017 in Glendale, Arizona. The Tar Heels defeated the Bulldogs 71-65. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) /

A little research can go a long way towards you winning your bracket challenge. Researching past national champions, you will find that most of them have a few things in common.

There is no perfect blueprint for predicting which of the sixty-eight teams will be crowned national champions, but according to Joe Boozell of NCAA.com looking at the last ten title winners will give you some guidelines on which to base your choice.

In his article, Boozell lists the following five elements that make the criteria of a national champion:

  • “They’ve had top-seven offenses…. Or their name is Connecticut”
  •  “They’ve had a top-20 defense”
  • “They’ve had at least one senior who was a valuable contributor (but usually more)”
  • “They had a really good point guard”
  • “They had an awesome crunch-time scorer”

As Boozell mentions, in the two years that Connecticut was crowned champions their offenses were ranked 19th and 39th, respectively.

Scouring this year’s bracket and you will only find one that meets all five elements of this criteria.

However, it’s never a smart idea to put all of your eggs in one basket, and if you are in a bracket challenge with a small number of people, making a contrarian selection can set you apart from the rest of the participants.

For those reasons, we will look just outside of the offensive,

and defensive rankings mentioned to examine four teams that are the closest to meeting all five standards.

*Spoiler Alert* Only one of the four teams is a number one seed.

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