Perfect March Madness Bracket: Small Pools (2025)

Call me lucky because we finally have a 2025 March Madness bracket. It’s the most wonderful time of year, as brackets can finally be filled out. My favorite part every year is doing hours and hours of research just to have your co-worker’s nine-year-old be perfect after day one while your champion lost in the first round. What a time to be alive.

This article covers tips for small tournament pools. These are your pools with friends, co-workers or any group with 25 or fewer people. The basic strategy for these pools is to keep it simple. You will miss upsets and some Cinderella teams, but you should choose a high-floor bracket. There are so many ways to fill out a bracket that even if you go all chalk, it would be quite rare to have someone fill out the exact one as you. Here’s more to help you build the Perfect March Madness Bracket for Small Pools.

2025 NCAA Tournament March Madness Bracket Strategy & Betting Picks

Perfect March Madness Bracket for Small Pools

It’s that time of year again, March Madness has finally returned. One of the most exciting aspects is this week leading up to the tip-off of the games when you have to fill out your bracket. If you’re like me, you will stress over every little decision. If you aren’t like me, you will trust my advice and use this article to build your brackets.

Pick Duke, Florida or Auburn to Win it All

I understand these are the three favorites but as Will Warren pointed out, these are the best No. 1 seeds in the history of the tournament with an average adjusted efficiency margin (AdjEM) of 36.12.

Duke is tied for the fifth-highest odds to reach the Final Four of only one seed since at least 2022. Cooper Flagg’s health is a major factor in their success but he should at least be fully healthy by the second weekend, if he isn’t already. I expect Duke to be just fine until then. Florida in the meantime is dominating teams left and right while Auburn may have gotten bored playing with their food in March, locking up the No. 1 overall seed before March even got here.

My money is clearly on one of these teams to win. I’d take one of the three over the field if you’re offering. Houston might be the weakest No. 1 seed, and they’re still amazing. Don’t be afraid to put all four in the Final Four. If there is any year for that to happen, I’d expect it to be this year.

Do Some Research

This feels like a simple strategy, but there truly have never been more resources available to research college basketball matchups. Websites that do a spectacular job of showing information are KenPom, Haslametrics, EvanMiya and Bart Torvik.

They each highlight and rank different quirks of the sport and have fun stats, analytics and trends that are valuable in their own way. Doing your own research allows you to take a different approach to filling out your bracket. If you Google ‘best bracket’ and follow that, odds are you will do what others will follow as well.

Pick Some Upsets But Keep it Simple

There are almost always upsets in the first round, especially between 11 vs. 6 and 12 vs. 5. matchups Don’t be afraid to pick a few upsets here and there, but in the long run, they’re really only tie-breakers.

In the tournament, it’s exciting to follow the Cinderella teams, but usually, there are only a few double-digit seeds that make it to the Sweet 16. Predicting those teams is quite difficult, so keep it simple. Chalky brackets may be boring, but in the end, the cream rises to the top and chalk wins your bracket.

If you are inexperienced, I have a bracket you can copy and paste into your pool for your liking. I think it is pretty chalky, but keeps it simple and should give a solid floor for winning your bracket pool.