Bracketology: March Madness, College Basketball, and the Creation of a National Obsession

by Joe Lunardi, David Smale, Mark Few (Foreword by)

Overview

Lunardi delves into the early days of Bracketology, details its growth, and dispels the myths of the process. 

The NCAA Tournament has become one of the most popular sports events in the country, consuming fans for weeks with the run to the Final Four and ultimately the crowning of the champion of college hoops. Each March, millions of Americans fill out their bracket in the hopes of correctly predicting the future.

Yet, there is no true Madness without the oft-debated question about what teams should be seeded where—from the Power-5 Blue Blood with some early season stumbles on their resume to the mid-major that rampaged through their less competitive conference season—and the inventor of Bracketology himself, Joe Lunardi, now reveals the mystery and science behind the legend.  

While going in depth on his ever-evolving predictive formula, Lunardi compares great teams from different eras with intriguing results, talks to the biggest names in college basketball about their perception of Bracketology (both good and bad), and looks ahead to the future of the sport and how Bracketology will help shape the conversation. 

This fascinating book is a must-read for college hoops fans and anyone who has aspired to win their yearly office pool.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781629379791
Publisher:	Triumph Books
Publication date:	03/08/2022
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	596,182
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Joe Lunardi is a college basketball analyst for ESPN. The foremost expert in predicting NCAA tournament results, he hosts The Bracketology Show weekly on ESPN+.
David Smale has been writing about college and professional sports for more than 40 years. He is the author of several books, including The Ahearn Tradition and Pauley Pavilion: College Basketball's Showplace.
Mark Few has been the head men's basketball coach at Gonzaga University since 1999.

Table of Contents

Foreword Mark Few vii

Introduction David Smale xiii

1 The Greatest Tournament of All 1

2 The Birth of Bracketology 2 7

3 ESPN and College Basketball 47

4 More Than a Hobby 71

5 The Not-So-Secret Formula 107

6 Debunking the Myths 131

7 A Language All Its Own 153

8 Joey Brackets 177

9 Bracketology: The Insiders' Take 205

10 My Crystal Ball 233

Acknowledgments 261

Editorial Reviews

02/05/2021

ESPN analyst Lunardi and sportswriter Smale provide insight on how teams are selected and seeded into the Men's NCAA Basketball Tournament. The tournament was initially configured geographically without any regard for seeding and has expanded from 25 teams in 1975 to 68 teams today. College basketball and the NCAA Tournament rose in popularity as ESPN televised games. Fans have embraced bracketology as entertainment, while coaches use it to prepare competitive schedules. Lunardi explains how the 10-member selection committee has moved away from RPI, which focuses on strength of schedule, to a new metric which emphasizes team efficiency and scoring margins. When seeding teams, the committee places no priority on rivalries or coaches playing former teams. Lunardi expresses concerns about the power dynamics in college basketball as conferences have realigned to feature football. In order to promote schools from mid-major conferences, he advocates for increasing the tournament size to 72 teams, while disqualifying teams with losing records within their own conference. VERDICT This reads as a self-promotional biography for Lunardi. The historical background is limited and there is no detailed comparative analysis highlighting differences between teams that make the tournament versus those that don't. Not recommended.—Chris Wilkes, Tazewell Cty. P.L., VA

Library Journal

2020-12-22
The doyen of college basketball prognostication tells all.

“When I talk to school groups,” writes ESPN analyst Lunardi, “I like to tell them that when I was their age I was the nerd who was too small to play. Coaches would hand me a clipboard to keep track of some stats.” Years later, bracketology—a term that made it into the Oxford English Dictionary—had become a highly followed form of basketball divination. Drawing up brackets is an elusive art, and it takes a lot of explaining. Suffice it to say that it requires constantly refreshing team statistics as the season progresses in order to predict the makeup of the NCAA playoffs. (Lunardi advocates expanding the field to 72 teams.) There’s money to be made in such learned guesswork. As Lunardi notes, when he published the predecessor volume to the current form of bracketing, “the first 500 copies we sold went to an address in Las Vegas.” Now it’s a matter of complex calculus done by computers augmented by the author’s unique intelligence, as he ponders, for example, what a squad might look like if 70% of its offense returns for another year of play. “What is a reasonable aggregate improvement based on the ages of the returning players?” he asks. “That depends.” Knowing the variables is an art based on a formidable body of data, one that involves studying “the transactions in college basketball from all available sources” and then piecing together the likely playing field. Lunardi admits that he guesses wrong a couple of times per season, and he can’t always foretell the future, but there’s an impressive science to the enterprise that will enthrall fans of Moneyball and other number-oriented sports books. In the foreword, Gonzaga head coach Mark Few rightly praises the author for a “breadth of knowledge” that “is beyond reproach.”

A treat for any fan of March Madness—and college basketball in general.

Kirkus Reviews