Generally, if you're about to take a final in, say, biomedical engineering, you might want to review a little bit, just to make sure you know the material. The morning of the test maybe, or even the night before, if you can find the time. That same degree of rigorous preparation, believe it or not, will benefit you in just about any test of your knowledge—whether you're trying to pass the BAR, the Wonderlic or a bi-weekly reading quiz.
But if you're about to fill out your NCAA Tournament bracket—an application of knowledge that truly matters—here's my advice: wing it.
Do the opposite of prepare. The less you know about college basketball, the better your bracket will be. You've always wondered if you could drink a case in an hour, so the night before you fill out your bracket would be a good time to finally try. You'll lose a few brain cells, but hopefully those will be the ones that used to carry statistics like UAB's record against RPI Top 50. It's all useless anyway.
It sounds cynical, but how do you explain someone's eight-year-old brother putting Duke, Kansas, UConn and Kentucky in the Final Four every year and winning the family pool? Or a college basketball fanatic who watches his wife and daughter pick teams based solely on uniform design just to hear them determine that powder blue (i.e. Carolina) is in\ for spring of ‘05? Or the guy who never watches college basketball but takes the higher seeds and nails the Elite Eight.
Dan Goldstein, a psychologist at Columbia University, has an explanation for this. He did a study at an U.S. college asking the students which city was bigger—San Diego or San Antonio. Only about half knew the correct answer. He then asked the same question to students at a German college and they generally got the answer right. San Diego has a greater population. Presumably the German kids got it right simply because they had never heard of San Antonio.
Malcolm Gladwell recently cited this study to argue that he would be a better general manager than Isaiah Thomas by signing only players so good that the casual fan is aware of them—the logic being if the average Joe knows who he is (and not because of a felony that made headlines) how bad could he be? But I see a particular parallel to bracket success.
I have a tendency to over-think my picks. This means I will pick Villanova, George Washington, Texas and Charlotte to win until they have to start playing each other. Even though you could hand some stupid German kid a bracket and he'd put (what could unfortunately be correct) Duke, UConn, Memphis and Ohio State.
So even if you think you have a sleeper, suppress the urge to advance them past any school that a five-year-old can name. Obviously, picking a dark horse and seeing them make a run has its rewards—you have ""Remember when I called that?"" bragging rights for five years—or until your friends don't like you anymore for never shutting up about it, but maybe you should think about making safe picks and collecting the prize money.
Even though you'll be undermining the idea of analysis in college basketball, at least you will win your pool and put that smug German kid in his place. It's like Jon Stewart said in reference to the Germany's success in 2006 Olympics, ""It's as though the Germans are some sort of perfect beings. Almost genetically superior in some respects. But I'm sure they won't do anything with that knowledge.""
Though you can bet that Stewart will take the big-name programs, just to be on the safe side.
Contact Ben at bphubner@wisc.edu for advice on the NCAA tourney and Germans in general.
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