David Glidden's 2024 Men's March Madness Optimal Bracket
Pick Purdue to beat Arizona, fading crowd favorite UConn to get the best shot at distinguishing yourself from the pack to win your bracket pool.
Editor’s note: If any of the data changes between now and tip-off of the first Round of 64 game on Thursday at 12:15pm ET, I’ll send an update via this Substack, so make sure to subscribe! Brackets for future years will also be sent out via this Substack, so subscribe now to get my bracket automatically sent to you every year.
⚠️ Editor’s note #2: the data did change! Check out Wednesday’s update with a key change to my recommended picks for your bracket.
In 2018 I shared the in-depth method I used to fill out my NCAA basketball tournament bracket using optimal mathematical strategy to win or at least place highly in a March Madness pool. The results:
2018: I correctly picked Villanova as the tournament winner and ranked in the 94th percentile among the 17.3 million brackets in ESPN’s Tournament Challenge pool, roughly equivalent to 2nd place in a typical 20-person bracket pool.
2019: The same method correctly picked Virginia to win the tournament, placing in the 97th percentile among 17.2 million ESPN brackets, roughly equivalent to 1st place in a 20-person bracket pool.
2020: The tournament was canceled 😭 (I simulated it anyways).
2021: Although I didn’t pick the winner that year, my 2021 bracket still fared quite well, placing in the 87th percentile of all EPSN brackets, roughly equivalent to 3rd place in a 20-person bracket pool. I personally placed first in 3-entry, $300 prize-winning pool using one of the alternate brackets I had recommended (Baylor winning it all over Gonzaga).
2022: Another year where an alternate bracket won me money; I used my recommended bracket but switched out Gonzaga for Kansas in a pool that was heavily weighted toward Gonzaga fans, and it paid off when Kansas cut down the nets. My Gonzaga bracket still did well though, placing in the 85th percentile of all EPSN brackets, roughly equivalent to 4th place in a 20-person bracket pool.
2023: Despite no #1 seeds making it to the Final Four, my bracket still did well, placing in the 90th percentile of all ESPN brackets, roughly equivalent to 3rd place in a 20-person pool.
TL;DR How have my brackets performed in a standard pool of 20 brackets?
2018: 2nd 🥈
2019: 1st 🏆🥇
2021: 3rd 🥉
2022: 4th 😢
2023: 3rd 🥉
In this post, I’ve applied the same mathematical methodology to this year’s 2024 March Madness Optimal Bracket.
The 2024 Optimal Bracket
⚠️ Editor’s note: most recent data has changed the Optimal Bracket picks! Check out Wednesday’s update with a key change to my recommended picks for your bracket.
The bottom line? Pick #1 Purdue to win it all against #2 Arizona, with #1 Connecticut and #1 Houston rounding out the Final Four, and #2 Iowa St., #1 N. Carolina, #2 Tennessee, and #2 Marquette #3 Kentucky filling out the Elite Eight. The math this year produces a pretty chalky bracket. That said, picking Purdue and Arizona over crowd favorites Connecticut, N. Carolina and Houston should create sufficient variation to win out your pool if things go your way.
If you have the option to submit multiple brackets in a single pool, simply change your overall winner to one of the other teams that proceeds the furthest in the optimal bracket above. For example, for your second bracket, have Arizona beating Purdue in the title game. For your third bracket, have Purdue beating Connecticut in the title game. For your fourth bracket, have Arizona beating Houston, for your fifth bracket, Houston beating Arizona, and so on and so forth.
Don’t forget to re-read the original guide: The Ultimate Guide to Filling Out Your Bracket for March Madness. It implements optimal strategy as defined in Optimizing Your 2016 March Madness Bracket by Robby Greer:
Before You Go
If you liked this post, you may also like my other posts about sports and data:
Use This Mathematical Strategy to Fill Out Your 2023 March Madness Bracket
How I Correctly Picked Villanova to Win the 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament
The Ultimate Guide to Filling Out Your Bracket for March Madness
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Are you going to post the raw data again that you gathered from ESPN/538 etc in the past that you input to determine optimization this year?