It is that time of year, March Madness which is by far my favorite sporting event!  Not just because I played college basketball, or filled out a bracket for over 30 strait years but because of all the possibilities and the fact that NO ONE has ever filled out an entire bracket 100% correctly.  Are you in a office pool or betting on who will win this years 2016 NCAA Basketball Championship?

The top seeded Kansas Jayhawks are favorite to win listed at 9-2 odds, followed by Michigan State and North Carolina at 5-1. Virginia and Villanova are next at 12-1, and Kentucky and Oregon are both 15-1. Oklahoma is 20-1, followed by Xavier, West Virginia and defending champion Duke, which are each listed at 25-1.

Eight teams — Holy Cross, Southern, Fairleigh Dickinson, Florida Gulf Coast, Hampton, Austin Peay, Weber State and UNC Asheville — are the biggest long shots to win this years NCAA mens basketball championship at 9,999-1.

I’m going to show you how competitive intelligence for internet marketing applies to your march madness picks in this years bracket. In internet marketing we look at competitors in terms of their product, company size, market share, budget, and unique value proposition.  Sports Center discussed “Analytics in Basketball” this week which proves more people are using data to fill out their bracket.

When filling out your bracket, you need to look at basketball data including the team’s rank, strength of schedule, and how they perform on a neutral court.  Remember, games during the regular season are usually HOME or AWAY but the tournament is 100% neutral court.  Although when you look at where they are playing, some teams may be closer to “home” then others and get more fans at the game.

Have they played each other recently?

The first place to look is how did they do head to head?  If they played each other already, who won?  By how many points? High scoring or low scoring?  If the teams have not played each other in the last two years, look at the strength of the conference they are in.  How does the competition compare, how many team in their conference are in the top 25 during the season this year?

Go Vermont! Oh wait, they lost to Stony Brook, who I used to play against back in division II when I was at Keene State College.  Congratulations on your first school NCAA division I experience.  I’ll be rooting for you to be the first BIG upset this year.

Good luck and have fun in this year best sporting event, NCAA March Madness basketball championship.  Anyone want to go to Houston for the final 4?

Please share how you pick which team will win below in the comments.

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