NCAA TOURNAMENT

BY COACH K

Well gentlemen, the Big Dance is almost upon us so I thought I’d write a little bit
on how I go about filling out a bracket. While there are obvious differences when choosing the outright winner of the game for bracket purposes and choosing which team is going to cover the posted #, you will find they are not that different.

Last year there were 20 games played in the first round that did not involve a 1, 2, or 8/9 seed. In all 20 of the games, the outright winner covered the spread. The favorites won 14 while the dogs took home 5. The last game was a pickem b/t St. Mary’s and Miami with the winner obviously covering the line. Of all 31 games with a line of 0.5 or more, the favorites went 21-10 ATS in the first round. The #1 seeds went 5-3 ATS in the first 2 rounds.

Just going on last year’s trend what can we learn? Clearly the favorites are being undervalued for some reason or another. Could it be that America is so caught up with Cinderella that they are looking to back the dogs at every chance they get? ESPN sure loves to try and predict where the upsets will come from. You’ll probably hear about 10 different teams that ESPN tells you can fit the glass slipper…Let me guess, already you’ve heard VCU, WKU, Portland St, Sienna, Arizona, Miss St, Cornell, Maryland, Temple… How about we just list all of the 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 seeds?! Will there be upsets, yes. Will there be surprises, yes. Will there be blowouts, yes. They don’t call it March Madness because it’s entirely predictable.

However, if we look at the past we can better predict the future (I think our government forgot this lesson we all learned in 7th grade US history when our teacher explained this concept). Here are some stats that may help you while filling out your brackets. These are simply wins and losses, ATS is not configured and I'm sure you've seen them before and will see them a few more times but anyways...

1ST ROUND (since 2000)
1/16- #1 seeds are 36-0
2/15- #2 seeds are 35-1
3/14- #3 seeds are 34-2
4/13- #4 seeds are 28-8
5/12- #5 seeds are 23-13
6/11- #6 seeds are 24-12
7/10- #7 seeds are 24-12
8/9- #8 seeds are 19-17

2ND ROUND:
#1 seeds move on 87% of the time

Any #10 or #12 seed that wins in the first round advances over 50% of the
time to the Sweet 16

Only 6/368 teams that have advanced past the 2nd round were #13 or above

SWEET 16
3 of the 4 #1 seeds will move on to the great 8 traditionally

Only 22 teams (since ’85) lower than an #11 seed have gone on to the Elite 8

ELITE 8
Only 2 of 96 Final Four teams have been seeded lower than #8.

Last year was the only year for all four of the #1 seeds to reach the Final 4

FINAL 4
No team below a #6 seed has ever reached the championship game

CHAMPIONSHIP
For 20 straight years the champ has been a #4 seed or higher

#1 seeds have won 14 times
#2 seeds have won 4 times
#3 seeds have won 3 times
#4 seeds have won 1 time (1997)
#6 seeds have won 1 time (1988)

Average # of wins by seed for the entire tourney:
#1- 13.7
#2- 9.6
#3- 7.3
#4- 6
#5- 4.6
#6- 5
#7- 3.5
#8- 2.7
#9- 2.3
#10- 2.5
#11- 2
#12- 2
#13- 1
#14- 0.7
#15- 0.2
#16- 0

Now, let’s talk about what everyone and their grandma wants to talk about…the sleeper teams or our Cinderella! There are a few key factors when trying to predict this year’s Cinderella and again, we look to the past to help us out. When we think of the George Mason’s, Gonzaga’s, Davidson’s, Southern Illinois or Butler’s; what do they all have in common? For the most part all of those teams dominated their conferences. When you look back at those teams they all won and won big. Davidson’s average score last year was 78-63. Any team winning by double digits is a safe team to back as your sleeper because it shows their wins are convincing. Last year the highest MOV looked like this: 1) KU 2) Memphis 3) NC 4) UCLA. Wasn’t that your Final 4 as well? Do ya think this statistic might be weighted fairly heavy when trying to predict the brackets? It is for me!!

Our second factor is ball security. This can be synonymous with guard play. Let’s look at Davidson last year. They ranked #11 in the country in turnover efficiency, yielding less than 12 per game. Of the 8 teams in the Elite 8 last year only Louisville (126) wasn’t ranked in the top 80 for TO efficiency. Teams that take care of the ball are going to win. Teams that don’t might out talent someone in the first round, but they’ll have a hard time making it much further. On a side note, be careful when backing teams that are guard oriented since they will most likely rely on being able to hit their shots from the outside. While they could easily rip off 2 wins in a row behind their hot shooting, a Final 4 berth is not as likely. An off night and the season is over. Look for teams that get a balance of their scoring from the post to help off-set a poor shooting night.

The third factor we need to look at is coaching. Are we dealing with a coach who hasn’t been to the dance before or have they been there a few times. The average number of appearances for coaches in the dance is about 5 times. When you look at the Final 4, these coaches average about 9 tournament appearances and the championship game coaches average about 11 tournament appearances. Clearly coaching experience matters when going deep into the tourney. Don’t overlook the 1st time head coach who has been there as an assistant or even a player though!

On a similar note to coaching experience is team experience, however I do not put much weight into this one because teams from the bigger conferences make the tourney year in and year out, but still fail to get out of the 1st round on a regular basis. It is obviously a plus if the team has been to the tourney and knows what to expect versus a team that has never been there before but again, I do not weigh this as heavily.

The last factor we need to look at is the superstar angle. Stephon Curry ring a bell? The vast majority of teams that make it to the Elite 8 and above have a player (if not 2) that can take over games. When things get rough, teams need to be able and climb on their superstar’s back and ride them to victory. Teams that do not have this element rarely move on past the sweet 16, but don’t think that just because a team has a superstar they are guaranteed to go deep…

Good luck with your brackets and hopefully I’ll be able to pull out some more ATS winners throughout the way!