Four Tips From Mathematicians To Help Filling Out Your Bracket

The first round of the NCAA tournament begins tonight. Did you fill out your brackets yet?

If you haven't, then we have some good tips for you. And they come from mathematicians so you got uber-smarts on your side!

Here are four tips that mathematicians have come up with to help you fill out your bracket:

Don't let bias come into play. In other words, just because you went to a particular school, don't think they're going to win it all. If they're an 11 seed, chances are a championship isn't coming their way.
Don't pick Kentucky to lose just to be different. They're favorites because they're undefeated and really good. Nate Silver is the statistics guy who predicted almost everything right in the 2008 election. He has Kentucky as a 41% favorite to win it all.
Don't pick a team lower than a five seed to win it all. According to Silver, any team with a lower seed than that has less than a 1% chance of winning. And Utah is the only five seed that has at least a 1% chance.
Look at who's been winning recently. A math professor in North Carolina had a cheerleader fill out a bracket last year after looking at teams that won a bunch of games late in the season. She proceeded to do better than 96% of other folks on ESPN.com.

And if all that doesn't tickle your fancy, just pick the teams with the cute outfits.