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ANATOMY OF A GIANT KILLER
Want to finally win your office pool? Over the next two pages, we tell you everything you need to know to forecast tourney upsets.
By Jordan Brenner


You may not know precisely where lightning will strike next, but you can make a pretty good guess. That's the theory behind our annual Giant Killers package. It's not that we want to steal the Final Four's thunder, but let's face it: March comes in like a lion because of first-weekend upsets. That's why you jump into the office pool: for the chance to pick a shocker as your personal One Shining Moment. So for the third straight year, we've tried to forecast those surprising storms generated by undermanned teams. We think we're on to something.

In case you missed our first two versions (and shame on you if that's the case), here's a quick lesson. A Giant Killer is a team that beats an opponent that is seeded at least five spots higher. Teams from the six BCS conferences are excluded, as are Memphis, Xavier, Gonzaga, Butler, Drake and BYU, based on recent success.

The last five Tourneys produced 20 GKs. We studied their stats for trends, then compared our findings to Tourney counterparts that failed to slay Goliath (that control group is this year's big addition). The result: eight categories to Kill for.* One is so important that we count it twice (see The Magic Bullet, below) in a team's score.

We also examined another favored bracket strategy of picking against paper tigers. Our research was stunning in its insignificance: We found few differences between the Giants that fell and those that survived. So stick to the Killers, and keep track of the carnage on espnthemag.com. We'll update the numbers right up until the Tourney tips off. Pay attention, because plenty of candidates are ready to fire a bolt through a Giant's heart.

*Check our math
So what are those eight categories? Glad you asked. To earn points, a potential Giant Killer must:

>Win at least 70% of its games.
>Outscore foes by an average of at least 7.5 ppg.
>Outshoot opponents by at least two percentage points from three-point range.
>Have an A/TO ratio greater than one.
>Start at least two seniors.
>Have a leading scorer who averages fewer than 22% of his team's points.
>Win at least three games by five points or fewer, or in OT.
>Post a Magic Bullet score of less than 51%, with a bonus point given to teams below 25%.

THE MAGIC BULLET
By Elena Bergeron (Theory by Peter Keating)

Calculators down. Now that the numbers are crunched, a single stat stands out as the one that cuts to the heart more than any other. It's a Magic Bullet Theory so powerful that it separates not just Giant Killers from wannabes, but also safe Giants from losers.

Simply put, avoid teams that are overreliant on free throws. We calculated the percentage of a team's scoring margin that came from the differential of free throws made. If that percentage was less than 51%, teams earned a point; if it fell below 25%, they picked up a bonus. The theory is rooted in common sense. In a one-and-done scenario, a few bad calls, a packed-in defense or a mid-major star who has to hack to stay with a more athletic foe can kill extra trips to the stripe.

And that spells trouble for a team like Austin Peay. The Governors might look like an upsetter, but their we-make-more-than-they-take philosophy at the line (131% Bullet mark) looks like a bubble burster. "We are much less successful if we don't get to the line a significant number of times," says Govs coach Dave Loos. "We'd have to shoot a very high percentage from the field to make up for it."

Try that with a Giant standing in their way.

WE DO WHAT WE DO
By Ian Gordon

It happens every March. An underdog veers off course, abandoning its 40-minutes-of-hell philosophy to slog through a half-court muckfest against Big State. Or maybe it packs into a zone out of fear, when man-to-man is its bread and butter. As the trio of mid-major coaches below say (and the first knows from experience, having beaten teams with four different styles en route to the 2006 Final Four), the little guy always has a fighting chance—as long as it remembers what got it there in the first place.

Jim Larranaga, George Mason
(GK Score: 4) "If you're the one making changes, you're probably going to lose. If what you do best is not good enough, what you're trying to change is not likely to work. In 2006 we were ninth in the nation in field goal percentage defense and 14th in field goal percentage offense. We weren't going to change for anybody."


Tom Penders, Houston (GK Score: 8)
"It's important to stick to what you do. I think the common thread among upset teams is that all are a little different; I don't think you can be conservative. The power teams face conventional styles all year, so you're probably not going to grind out a win over a Big East team. We want to face a team that plays half-court ball; we have trouble with teams that get up and down the floor like us."


Bobby Braswell, Cal State Northridge (GK Score: 7)
"The advantages we have are athleticism, speed and quickness. We're not big, so we have to take advantage of what we have by mixing defenses up and pressuring people. We can't afford to let big guys come down and run their offense comfortably. We've got to go into it playing the way we play."

EIGHT IS ENOUGH
The stats will be in flux through Selection Sunday (reminder: espnthemag.com will keep you updated). But we can't help but look ahead. Nine teams scored at least eight points in our rankings, including one perfect squad, Akron. (It was two, until once-Flawless Robert Morris fell short in the NEC tourney). If history is an indicator, likely Giant Killers are lurking in this bunch—but don't count out any team with a score of five or better. -J.B.

Akron - 9
Kent State gets most of the MAC love, but the Zips and their three senior starters are built to battle the big boys.

Cornell - 8
The Big Red carry the Ivy League's brightest torch in years. But with only one senior starter, they may be a year away from true GK status.

Houston - 8
The Cougars have a strong résumé, but beware if Robert McKiver (23.1 ppg; 29.3% of Houston's output) has an
off night.

Illinois State - 8
ISU's impressive score won't mean a thing unless the selection committee rewards the Redbirds with an at-large bid.

Lamar - 8
What's holding the Cardinals down? They don't win enough! Their .655 winning percentage keeps them from perfection.

New Mexico - 8
The Lobos start only one senior, J.R. Giddens, but he was once good enough to crack Kansas' lineup.

Portland State - 8
If the Vikings plow through the Big Sky tourney, they could raise their 6.3 ppg differential and earn a perfect score.

Saint Mary's - 8
Ranked for much of the season, the Gaels are almost too good to be a GK. But they also have only one senior starter.

Sam Houston State - 8
The toughest test might be surviving the Southland, where Lamar (eight points) and top-seeded Stephen F. Austin (seven) are waiting in the weeds.

RED ALERT
You'd think everyone would be on the same page in the Cornell locker room following the Big Red's ransacking of the Ivy League (140), which ended a 19-year Princeton/Penn stranglehold. Well, pretty much. The lone difference of opinion concerns the type of opponent Cornell would prefer to face in the first round of the Tourney. "I'd like to stay away from teams that are physical on defense," says coach Steve Donahue.

"Nah, that wouldn't bother us," counters sophomore forward Ryan Wittman, lead sniper (46.6% 3FG) for the nation's sixth-ranked three-point team. "Another good-shooting team that got up and down, that would be a game to watch."

Either way, Cornell is a near-perfect (eight on our scale) pick to pull an upset. Why? Because it can play both styles. After a three-game skid in December, Donahue realized that speed wasn't enough to rip through the prickly Ivy. So he shifted to a D-first attitude in practices to fortify Cornell against bullies, aided by the addition of seven-foot transfer Jeff Foote (1.4 bpg). The squad still runs, but no longer presses after made buckets. That versatility might just have the Big Red's first-round foe looking twice at the final score.
-E.B.

TOO GOOD FOR THEIR OWN GOOD
Giant Killers tend to be equal-opportunity assassins; their leading scorer rarely averages more than 22% of his team's points. So if these teams falter, blame it on a one-man show.

Stephen Curry:
25.1 ppg; 31.8 % of Davidson's points.

Robert Vaden:
21.8 ppg; 29.3 % of UAB's points.

Gary Forbes:
20.3 ppg; 24.6 % of UMass' points.

KEEPING SCORE
We can't expect you to trust us just because we say so. So check our résumé. We might keep tweaking our formula, but we're proud of our results.

In 2006, we picked our Giant Killers based on a few statistical thresholds; the last team bounced in our process of elimination was Final Four-bound George Mason. Our calculations identified five Flawless teams; one missed the Tourney, two were seeded too high to face a Giant and two fell in close games. Three of our One-Flaw Wonders, though, did major damage (Mason, Montana, Wichita State).

Last season, armed with a more refined formula, we told you to watch VCU and Winthrop, and they toppled Duke and Notre Dame, respectively. Granted, we also told you to avoid UNLV, which upset Wisconsin in Round 2. Still, if two of our Flawless teams (Xavier and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi) hadn't blown big leads, you'd be bowing before us right now.

To make sure that happens this season, we went back to the drawing board. We got it right this time. Really.

UNRANKED = UNWORTHY?
Our numbers from the past five years indicate little difference between Giants who fall to Giant Killers and those who advance, with a notable exception: 44% of the toppled Giants started the season unranked, while only 28.4% of the survivors didn't earn preseason love. So if picking against teams is your thing, start with these potential high seeds that weren't in last fall's first Top 25:

Butler, UConn, Clemson, Drake, Notre Dame, Purdue, Vanderbilt, Xavier, Wisconsin

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