[team222badbrad]

Well here are a few things I think are common in Alliance Picking:

Lower numbered teams usually pick lower numbered teams.
Rookies usually pick rookies.
Teams that know local teams or have "family" teams usually pick their local friends or local "family".
When I say family; I mean teams that have branched off of one certain team.
For example my team branched off of one team that had several high schools involved way back in the years of FIRST and now most of these high schools have their own team.
Family teams can also mean teams that have mentored a certain team for some time.

Remember that just because your team could have placed 8th does not mean that a team ranked lower than you could have placed 1st.

Our team has also been subject to not getting picked even though we thought we did well, however, this is not really the case for us anymore.