Picking A Bracket

Upsets Don't Matter
A lot of people spend a lot of time looking for those 5/12, 6/11 games where an upset could happen.  They study up on 13 and 14-seeds to see if any of them have a chance at the crazy big upset.  It's pretty cool to see a first round upset that you picked actually go down the way you said.  It's even cooler when you pull the same magic out and your Cinderella makes it to the Sweet 16.  In most bracket groups, you are awarded 3 points for taking that risk and picking correctly (1 point for 1st round, 2 points for 2nd) and 0 points if your Cinderella stayed out after Midnight in Round 1.  Picking a single Elite Eight team correct is typically worth more getting your Cinderella into the Sweet 16.  Picking a Final Four team is worth even more than that.  Picking Cinderellas is a lot of fun.  I have 4 or 5 of them in the Sweet 16 in my bracket every year.  I love doing it.  But it isn't going to win your bracket challenge.  Trust me!

Final Four is Crucial
The person that wins usually does three things: picks the Champion, gets 2 or 3 Final Four teams correct (usually 3, but can get away with 2 if they have a less popular champion that actually pulls it off), and gets 5-7 of the Elite Eight teams correct.  Rare is the league where the person who got the most winners right actually gets the most points.  In fact, last season I participated in a group where the person with the most winners picked finished behind 25% of the group.  Picking well in the first round only helps to break ties with people that picked the same Final Four grouping as you.  So don't spend too much time researching who the next Davidson is.  Don't worry if there is going to be a George Mason this year that might mess your bracket up (nobody picks that team anyway so you'll miss the points along with everyone else).  You are more likely to guess wrong if you go too far out on a limb.  Your best bet for the Final Four is to stick with the proven choices: 1-5 seeds.  The Elite Eight can expand out a little bit, perhaps as high as an 8-seed, with an occasional 10 or 11 seed.  Not a good chance with 9-seeds though historically...they may beat the 8's more than half the time, but they beat the 1's with very limited frequency, much less so than the 8's do.

Conference Tourneys Don't Matter
Do not put much stock into Conference Tournaments (the Selection Committee obviously doesn't, unless it HELPS Big Ten teams).  Very frequently teams from Big 6 conferences that did well in conference tourneys are the first to get upset by upstarts from smaller schools in early rounds.  On occasion, the teams that get bounced early in their tournaments make sustained runs in the NCAA Tournament.  I'm not saying sell on UConn or buy into Pitt or Purdue.  I'm just saying conference tournaments are not good estimators of the NCAA Tournament.  In a conference tournament, you know your opponent intimately and have prepared for them in recruiting and in the off-season.  The NCAA Tournament is much more neutral than conference tournaments and are more impacted by motivation, location, time zone, tip-off time, match-ups, distractions, and travel distances.

Eliminate Long Shots
East
In the East, anybody seeded below 5 is a long shot.  If you picked Xavier or Washington, you might be the smartest person on the planet and in rare company if it happens.  But you might miss out on the points that everyone else is getting for correctly picking Ohio State, North Carolina, or Kentucky.  I do not believe Syracuse or West Virginia are serious threats here.
West
In the West, it probably boils down to Duke, SDSU, and Texas.  I don't buy into SDSU's ability to score enough to go through to the Final Four, but given that they will probably have what should be a simple path to the Elite Eight, all they need to do is beat Duke or Texas.  Arizona has to survive Memphis, Texas, and Duke?  No chance.  Connecticut is prime for a letdown, and if it doesn't happen against Bucknell, it very well may in the next round.  Besides, they overachieved all year, faltered down the stretch, before overachieving again in the Big East Tourney.  Time to for another falter, if Kemba Walker is capable of faltering with all the marbles on the line.
Southwest
In the Southwest, Kansas, Notre Dame, Purdue, and Louisville are all legitimate contenders.  Vandy and Georgetown will be lucky to get out of the first round.  A&M is a bit of a dark horse, being so under-seeded, but they'd have to get through Notre Dame, Purdue, and then Kansas or Louisville?  They aren't THAT under-seeded.
Southeast
The Southeast is by far the most wide open bracket.  Pitt is the most over-rated of the 1-seeds.  [Many will argue and say Duke, but I disagree.  For a Committee that punished Colorado for its lousy non-conference schedule, they sure didn't let that deter them from giving Pitt a 1-seed (not comparing Pitt and Colorado's non-conference schedule, just saying that neither team REALLY challenged itself).]  Florida is over-seeded at 2, BYU without Davies is not a 3-seed even with The Jimmer, Wisconsin lost its last game after scoring only 33 points, Kansas State looked like they might miss the field a month ago and lost to an NIT team THREE TIMES this season, St. John's best wins came at home and they still racked up 11 losses, UCLA's only good wins came in Southern California, Butler had 5 conference losses in a 1-bid league, and Michigan State was dead in the water just 3 weeks ago and still lost 14 games, including a double-digit loss to (14-loss) Penn State just a few days ago, even with an amazing run down the stretch.  All of them have flaws that could keep them out of the Final Four.  It also means all of them are capable of getting there.

To counter the flaws of the 1-10 seeds (Old Dominion was omitted on purpose as I have no faith in 9 seeds past Round 1), they have one of the most battle-tested 11 seeds in Gonzaga, who also comes in with the most dominant Center in the Region.  They have a 12 and 13 seed that both won 30 games and have tournament experience in Utah State and Belmont.  So any flawed team could beat any other flawed team and get to the Final Four.  Or any of them (excluding Pitt and Florida) could lose their first round game.  Really, I don't know which longshots to eliminate here.  Could Butler beat Pitt in a one-game situation?  Yes.  Could Kansas State take down the Beast from the Big East as well?  The Beard says so, and I fear the beard.  Could Wisconsin defend their way through anybody on their half of the bracket?  Absolutely.  Same with St. John's, Gonzaga, BYU, UCLA, and Michigan State (though with most of that particular group it would be 'outscore' instead of 'defend').  But they could also all lose in the first round!  Pitt is the "safest" choice.  But in a Region where everybody is a long shot, it means that no one is a sure thing.