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March Madness Picks

March 12, 2012 by · Comments Off on March Madness Picks 

March Madness Picks, In college basketball, it pays to pamper your players. Connecticut, Duke and North Carolina have each won the national championship recent years, and it’s no coincidence that the three are also among college basketball’s biggest spenders.

With thousands of NCAA tournament brackets being filled out this March, with reasons for team selections ranging from point differentials to favorite mascots, why not bet on the teams that invest the most in their on-court success?

We looked at last year’s NCAA tournament bracket and financial filings that each school makes with the Department of Education, and we found that operating expenses are a surprisingly strong predictor for tournament success.

Operating expenses are defined as “lodging, meals, transportation, uniforms, and equipment for coaches, team members, and support staff (including, but not limited to team managers and trainers).” Using operating expenses to predict on-court play makes sense in theory: the teams that eat better, travel better, sleep better and train better should, generally speaking, play better.

It’s the same rationale that Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, operated under when he purchased a private jet for his team’s travel.

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