Who can you trust?

Lost in the sea of brackets of The Bracket Matrix lies this question: who can I trust? Just because a national writer is making a bracket doesn't mean it's going to be right. At the same time, you shouldn't always disregard the opinion of a lowly blogger. Being the best at predicting a bracket in any given year is a crapshoot. However, if you consistently produce good brackets year after year, you build trust. After 3 full years of The Bracket Matrix, which sites fit the bill?

Using the final results from each year, every site had a Paymon score calculated. Then the variance was calculated to see how much better each site did compared to the average for that year.

17 sites have submitted a final bracket to the matrix in all three years. The results confirm that Bracketology 101 has been the best, most consistent site out there for the last three years, averaging 15 points higher than the average bracket produced. My site and March Madness All Season are tied for second. It's interesting to note that while 2007 was my best year, it was generally considered to be a poor year for the committee. I guess I just channeled them pretty well that year.

In addition, MAG, The Bracket Board, Bracketography, Bracket Predictions, and Warren Nolan are the other active sites that have, over the course of three years, produced better-than-average brackets.

Everybody's favorite bracketologist, ESPN's Joe Lunardi, comes in tied for 12th.

Of course, just because these sites may not perform well in the final exam doesn't mean they are not valuable sources of information throughout the season. Bracket Express, while 15th, was always a must-read for me. It's too bad it hasn't been updated this year. Plus, with only 3 years, it's a small sample size. Some of these guys have been doing this for a lot longer than 3 years.

The complete results, including sites with less than 3 years in the matrix, can be found in the link below.

http://bracketproject.50webs.com/rankings.html