The NCAA tournament kicks off this week, so it's about that time to finalize your march madness brackets if you haven't already, and decide where to call the upsets. Iain MacMillan, senior editor at MacMillan, joins Cheddar News to discuss.

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Tips To Filling Out Your March Madness Bracket

Let's go. Welcome back selection sunday has come and gone. It means the selection committee has revealed the full NC double A tournament bracket, including all teams and seeds the tournament kicks off tomorrow. So it's just about that time to finalize your march madness brackets if you haven't done so already and decide where to call the upsets. At least the playing games are early. Can kind of get a few days here. The 2022 men's tournament will begin with the first four games in Dayton Ohio tomorrow, you won't see top seeds Gonzaga, Arizona Kansas or Baylor until later in the week. First round begins thursday continues friday with 32 games at eight different locations, including Buffalo, Milwaukee, Portland and Pittsburgh. And let's not forget the women's side. The NC double a tournament on that side will feature 68 teams for the first time ever that kicks off on Wednesday south Carolina, North Carolina state stanford and Louisville are the four number one seeds. There are no big surprises, especially for sc and stanford with fans roaring in the stands and announcers and production teams working to or returning to work in the broadcast in person. It's already set up to be an exciting tournament to watch. It's better than the holidays. This is the greatest time of year joining me now to discuss is Ian Mcmillan Ian is senior editor at Bet sided. Welcome. Nice to have you. Um, okay, I guess? Let's start on the men's side. Now? Let's start with both sides? Who do you like going all the way on the women's side. Do you like stanford repeating? I know it s c just lost but it's like it's tough to bet against south Carolina on the women's side. Who do you like though? Yeah, the women's side, I think I do I would have to go to south Carolina. I know that recent loss might scare some people a little bit, but I still think they are the team to beat on the women's side. Uh It is a little bit tempting to go with stanford back to back champions. But I think I think if you're gonna bet on a team to win it all this year, you got to take south Carolina on the women's side. Okay. And on the men's side you seem like a Baylor guy. I'm just guessing. I don't know. Who do you like? I'm actually on Arizona. I've been on Arizona since since december. When you look at the statistics. I mean they truly rank uh in my opinion, I think they're I think they're the best team in the entire country. Two big ones that I look at, look at offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency. There are two teams in the country That rank in the top 10 in both of those one is Gonzaga, the other is Arizona. But you do have to consider how much better the competition that Arizona has played so far this year. So a little bit more impressive seeing Arizona ranking in the top 10. Both those and they rank around seventh and rebounding as well. So I think Arizona or to the south region is my pick to win this year's March Madness tournament. I want to ask you about, uh, excuse me, upset. There we go. That's the word I'm looking for upsets, right? Because every year it seems like a two beats of 15. Obviously only once have we had a number one team go down to a number 16. It very, very rarely ever happens. But people are going to be looking at their brackets here in the next few days and saying, oh man, who kind of gets upset. Are there any potential upsets that you're circling? Yeah. Because like you said, you know, there's gonna be a couple. The one that I like the most is actually a 14 seed to upset the three seed and that is Colgate to upset Wisconsin in the first round. I've been anti Wisconsin this entire college basketball season. I don't think they're as good as the record indicates and a big reason why it's because of their shooting. Look at their shooting numbers 259th and a staff that's called Effective field goal percentage, which really measures how good of a shooting team these teams are and now they're facing a Colgate team where that's their strength, their 11th in the entire country and effective field goal percentage. And if you look at just over their past three games, they rank first. So not only there the good shooting team, but they're entering this tournament on a hot streak. So if it's tough to predict these big upsets, but my favorite one, I think the first round one that I definitely have my bracket, I'm gonna bet a couple of dollars on it as well Colgate to upset the number three seed Wisconsin badgers. The line that I saw there had Wisconsin favored by 7.5. I'm sure the line will change a little bit, but that kind of gives you a sense that maybe there's more than a few people kind of agree with you, right? Because it's not like that, that huge of a differential. Um, okay, let's talk about fans in the stands. It is, I mean, to me that's like the greatest part about college basketball. The momentum totally swings in favor. You know, you're, you're only ever just one rebound and one big shot away from changing the momentum of college basketball. What is that going to look like our our fans gonna be in attendance for all of the game's only key cities. What should we know as we start to watch play this week? Yeah, fans are gonna be in tenants. Finally, it's gonna be a nice change from last year where they just played in a bubble last year. So fans are finally back a big point of that, like you mentioned is momentum. If if if there's a team that's down by 10, 15, even 20 points three pointer here, a big dunk here, They get the crowd behind them, that momentum can shift quite a bit in college basketball and especially this season, I don't know if I've seen this many halftime leads being blown by teams this year. So that's an interesting note because fans certainly play a role in that momentum shift. So if you're looking at live bet on, on games, I know that's gonna be a popular option this year. You might want to take a shot on a, on a couple of teams that are down at halftime, but maybe they're a little bit of a higher seat because they can get rolling in that second half of the fans get behind them. A lot of people don't follow college basketball as closely as as we do, but they will be asked this week. Hey, the place where you work, maybe you're just back to the office, fill out an office bracket and they probably don't know where to start. They're gonna pick like some random school that, oh, I just, I just want to like, I know someone who went there so I'm gonna pick them to win all the way. What are the tips and tricks that you recommend people consider as they go to fill up their brackets on the men or the women's side the next few days. Yeah, a big one. And, and I'm a little bit biased here, but I think it is smart advice is to actually look at the betting odds now, maybe you're you don't want to place any bets and that's completely fine. But if you're filling out a bracket nobody knows how good these teams are more than the sports books who set the odds to win. So if you're trying to decide uh you know is it can this team upset this team? Can this team going to run and win it all? Go look at the betting odds if you're looking at a team to win it all but there are like 200-1 which is a huge underdog to win then maybe that's a sign to stay away. Or if there's some of these games where the point spread is a little bit closer than you might might expect, that might be a hint that that that the sports books think that underdog team, that high C team can win the game. That you know that that point earlier from Wisconsin and Colgate. If I just brought up that game, you probably wouldn't have guessed that the spread was only 7.5 points. That's a sign that these oddsmakers know that this Colgate team is good and that's the case for some other some other high c teams as well. So first I would say look at the odds, the other one is at the end of the day, the best teams are probably going to be the ones that are left. So as tempting as it is better to place, you know, a 12 seed to make all a run all the way to the final four. Very very very unlikely. There will be a couple of upsets the first weekend but when it's all said and done and there's you know, 48 teams left, I usually stick to teams that are seeded in the top 41 c two, c three seed and then maybe Sprinkle a four seed in there. So don't get too aggressive with with those high seeds, have them winning a game, a game or two but they're just not going to go all the way. There's a reason why they're seated where they are the talents just too big of a difference. It's too hard for them to win this many games in a row. Obligatory alma mater tip right here go Villanova Wildcats on both the men and the women's side. I'm incredibly biased when I say that I do it every year. Ian Mcmillan, I really appreciate respective here. My friend Ian is senior editor over at Bet cited. It's the greatest week of the year. We love this thursday and friday