WILL THE 2021 NCAA TOURNAMENT BRACKETS BE THE MOST CHALLENGING EVER?

With all of the postponements and outright cancellations over Covid it is difficult to feel that any of us have gotten the real feel of which teams truly are the hottest in the nation going into the 2021 NCAA Basketball Tournament.

Almost every team played games in which some of their best players had to sit out over a Covid diagnosis, or may have only performed well because the opposing team had some of their best players sitting out because of Covid.

In some cases multiple practices were canceled as well, and along with all the rescheduling of games none of the teams could really get into their true rhythm. Even when games were played as scheduled they were sometimes played with no spectators, which can itself be a disorienting factor for some of the players. Not even the Conference Tournaments were immune to such abrupt wrenches being thrown into the works.

With all of that said, it will be especially challenging to calculate the 2021 NCAA Tournament odds. Virtually everyone will need to pay extra attention to some of the expert opinions this year. An old joke says that no matter how carefully you strategize before submitting your brackets the person who wins the office pool winds up being someone who based their picks on the team colors or how appealing the team name is.

If ever there was a year when the team records may not really mean anything it’s THIS year, so stocking up on all manner of data will be even more important than it usually is when making your selections.