I don’t care how skilled you are at analyzing college basketball metrics: you probably aren’t going to be able to build the perfect March Madness bracket this year.
You know what though? That’s okay! You could use this knowledge to spare yourself the stress & inevitable heartbreak of your bracket getting busted during the first weekend. Now is your chance to rest easy knowing that no amount of research you do will help you perform any better than a monkey throwing darts at the wall.
Of course, we all know it’s not that simple.
One does not simply give up on the insanity that is March Madness bracket building. No, we toil away every March out looking for any edge to win our office pool and beat that douchenozzle supervisor who thinks they are smarter than everyone else.
My problem is that I am a sucker for a good Cinderella story. Every year, I fill up my Sweet Sixteen with a mix of homer picks and schools with double-digit seedings. Bad things happen when you bet with your heart instead of your brain, and my streak of busted brackets proves it.
This year, I took a scientific approach to the 2021 NCAAM tournament with only one goal in mind: build my bracket based on a single rule.
But what would that rule be?
A wise man once said that there is always an aviation angle, and I took that to heart this year. For 2021, I decided to go full avgeek by basing my March Madness picks on which schools had access to the best airports.
How do you determine which team has the better airport?
There are endless ways to rate airports, but I needed to find a methodology rooted in hard data so my personal feelings towards each airport wouldn’t cloud my judgment.
Where can you find boring old facts & figures? Government websites, of course!
I began poking around on the DOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics website until I found the perfect metric for my bracket: airport on-time arrival performance.
Next, I assigned each college to the closest airport with regular airline service:
| School | Closest Airport | Seed | Region | OTA Performance (2020) |
| Michigan | DTW | 1 | East | 88.03% |
| Alabama | BHM | 2 | East | 82.25% |
| Texas | AUS | 3 | East | 83.55% |
| Florida State | TLH | 4 | East | 83.60% |
| Colorado | DEN | 5 | East | 85.23% |
| BYU | SLC | 6 | East | 87.37% |
| UConn | BDL | 7 | East | 83.80% |
| LSU | BTR | 8 | East | 83.69% |
| St. Bonaventure | BFD | 9 | East | unavailable |
| Maryland | DCA | 10 | East | 83.20% |
| UCLA | LAX | 11 | East | 86.43% |
| Michigan State | LAN | 11 | East | 82.21% |
| Georgetown | DCA | 12 | East | 83.20% |
| UNC Greensboro | GSO | 13 | East | 81.92% |
| Abilene Christian | ABI | 14 | East | 86.14% |
| Iona | LGA | 15 | East | 81.14% |
| Texas Southern | HOU | 16 | East | 85.51% |
| Mount St. Mary’s | MDT | 16 | East | 81.68% |
| Illinois | CMI | 1 | Midwest | 78.95% |
| Houston | HOU | 2 | Midwest | 85.51% |
| West Virgina | MGW | 3 | Midwest | unavailable |
| Oklahoma State | SWO | 4 | Midwest | 85.84% |
| Tennessee | TYS | 5 | Midwest | 81.32% |
| San Diego State | SAN | 6 | Midwest | 85.77% |
| Clemson | GSP | 7 | Midwest | 82.89% |
| Loyola Chicago | ORD | 8 | Midwest | 84.66% |
| Georgia Tech | ATL | 9 | Midwest | 87.41% |
| Rutgers | EWR | 10 | Midwest | 81.39% |
| Syracuse | SYR | 11 | Midwest | 81.05% |
| Oregon State | EUG | 12 | Midwest | 84.90% |
| Liberty | LYH | 13 | Midwest | 78.55% |
| Morehead State | HTS | 14 | Midwest | 78.98% |
| Cleveland State | CLE | 15 | Midwest | 85.00% |
| Drexel | PHL | 16 | Midwest | 84.40% |
| Baylor | ACT | 1 | South | 80.31% |
| Ohio State | CMH | 2 | South | 85.38% |
| Arkansas | XNA | 3 | South | 82.59% |
| Purdue | IND | 4 | South | 84.05% |
| Colgate | SYR | 4 | South | 81.05% |
| Villanova | PHL | 5 | South | 84.40% |
| Texas Tech | LBB | 6 | South | 81.86% |
| Florida | GNV | 7 | South | 82.96% |
| North Carolina | RDU | 8 | South | 85.06% |
| Wisconsin | MSN | 9 | South | 83.18% |
| Virginia Tech | ROA | 10 | South | 84.60% |
| Utah State | OGD | 11 | South | 76.77% |
| Winthrop | CLT | 12 | South | 83.96% |
| North Texas | DFW | 13 | South | 80.90% |
| Oral Roberts | TUL | 15 | South | 84.33% |
| Hartford | BDL | 16 | South | 83.80% |
| Gonzaga | GEG | 1 | West | 86.95% |
| Iowa | CID | 2 | West | 81.89% |
| Kansas | LWC | 3 | West | unavailable |
| Virginia | CHO | 4 | West | 82.25% |
| Creighton | OMA | 5 | West | 84.92% |
| USC | LAX | 6 | West | 86.43% |
| Oregon | EUG | 7 | West | 84.90% |
| Oklahoma | OKC | 8 | West | 83.99% |
| Mizzou | COU | 9 | West | 80.99% |
| VCU | RIC | 10 | West | 83.51% |
| Drake | DSM | 11 | West | 84.03% |
| Wichita State | ICT | 11 | West | 83.64% |
| UC Santa Barbara | SBA | 12 | West | 85.10% |
| Ohio | PKB | 13 | West | unavailable |
| Eastern Washington | GEG | 14 | West | 86.95% |
| Grand Canyon | PHX | 15 | West | 85.82% |
| Appalachian State | TRI | 16 | West | 86.24% |
| Norfolk State | ORF | 16 | West | 83.27% |
Standby With Me’s 2021 March Madness Bracket
Armed with the DOT/BTS on-time arrival performance data, the team with the higher on-time arrival data in each matchup advanced to the next round (schools with “unavailable” data were automatically disqualified).
Using this logic, we predict that the Michigan Wolverines will triumph over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets to win this year’s tournament thanks to some stellar on-time performance at DTW!
Here is a snapshot of what our full bracket looks like:
Key Observations:
- All things considered, the Final Four doesn’t actually look too shabby. Two top-seeded teams made it (Gonzaga & Michigan) as well as a #2 seed (Ohio State). #9 seed Georgia Tech got a nice boost from ATL’s on-time performance, but they may have a hard time getting past a tough Loyola Chicago team in their first round matchup.
- Illinois (CMI) and Baylor (ACT), the other #1 seeds in the bracket, were immediately eliminated by Drexel (PHL) and Hartford (BDL)
- The OTA rule worked flawlessly to populate the bracket with one notable exception: Gonzaga met Eastern Washington in an Elite 8 matchup, but : both schools’ closest airport is Spokane (GEG). We gave the tiebreaker to Gonzaga because their campus is physically located closer to GEG than EWU’s campus.
- The South bracket was easily the weakest of the bunch in regards to airport metrics. CMH’s on-time arrival performance placed Ohio State behind 14 other schools with better airports.
- The award for Closest College To An Airport goes to UC Santa Barbara (Google Maps says the trip is less than a mile).
Final Thoughts
Eliminating two #1 seeds in the first round may be a bit unconventional & may put me at a disadvantage, but crazier things have happened! I have officially submitted this bracket to the pool we have at work. If anyone on my team ends up losing to this, I promise you that I will never let them hear the end of it.
What would be your aviation-related March Madness methodology?
