Much like other playoff best ball formats, the goal to keep in mind when drafting is to show up to the finals with the ability to field a complete roster. The best way to do this is stacking. This can be done in a number of ways, but the easiest would be to stack a single team. For example, if you are able to draft Duke’s starting 5, you advance your way through the tournament rounds, and Duke is in the championship - then you would have a full roster for the championship. However, sometimes you are unable to draft a full best-ball roster that consists of only one team (try drafting Michigan’s started 5… you can’t). Say you are only able to draft 3 of Michigan’s players and are really building this best-ball team for a Michigan vs “Whoever” championship, then you will really want to get two players from Whoever on the opposite side of the bracket - say 2 Houston or 2 Florida players. This strategy sets you up to show up to the championship game with a full roster, but obviously you have to get there first! The rankings below can help with advancement - just keep in mind the best-ball rounds consist of R64 & R32 for the qualifiers and S16 & E8 for the quarterfinals. I would look to add a strong 1-off from a team you feel can win their opening round matchup to help you advance out of the qualifiers, then the other pieces of your roster should be made up from players from teams that you feel can make the E8, so they can help you advance out of the quarterfinals.

Keep in mind that the $10 contest, The Championship Run, has round advancement of 1/6 - 1/5 -1/5 - 112 seat final. This means hitting on your strong 1-off or secondary team stacks is crucial for advancement. On the other hand, the $3 contest, The Little Championship Run, has round advancement of 2/6 -1/5 - 1/5 - 100 seat final. With a more friendly advancement structure out of the qualifiers, I think it opens up the door to heavily stack 6 or even 7 players from one team. Obviously, you really need your 3 or 4 players from the other teams to help with advancing, but showing up to the championship with 6 or 7 players from one team would be a huge advantage.

The rankings below are simply a players average Underdog points per game multiplied by the expected number of games in the tournament to get a total points projections. Obviously, there is going to be some major differences from the rankings and the ADP. With that said, it is not the intention to use these rankings completely, but use them along with the ADP. For example, if you were given the first pick and took Cameron Boozer, and when it is your turn again at the R2/R3 turn, the rankings would not suggest Patrick Ngongba II and Isaiah Evans, but those are probably the better options due to the importance of stackings. So, use the rankings to help find those advancement pieces once you have your stack, or use the rankings to help figure out what stack you want to start with or turn to during a draft.