Virginia is the only team with better than a 50/50 chance of making the Final Four at this point, and no team has even a 1 in 5 chance of winning it all. Interestingly, they are also the only team to see their odds improve from prior to the tournament. The chalkyness of results has left Duke, Carolina, and Gonzaga relatively unchanged. Even so, there is a 54% likelihood that one of the 1 seeds ends up winning it all.
Monday, March 25, 2019
Sweet 16 per the MDS Model (2019)
I caught some flack for my model being so chalky going into the tournament, and well, here we are:
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
"What are the odds?" Duke and Carolina Will Meet in the NCAA Tournament, and When
Duke/Carolina is arguably the fiercest rivalry in all of college sports. I can understand if you choose The Game (since they did fight an actual war at one point), but results this century don't encompass a compelling argument:
And between North Carolina and Duke, the two schools rank #3/#4 in all-time wins, have 48/42 NCAA tournament appearances, 20/16 Final Fours, and 11/11 championship game appearances (all figures are respective). So it's fairly surprising that we've never met in the NCAA tournament (we met once in the NIT, in 1971).
The committee never puts us in the same region, so the Final Four would be the earliest meeting. And even for the best teams, it's more likely than not that they won't make the Final Four. So this proposition is definitely a long shot, but not impossible; it almost happened in 1991 in the title game. So when is it expected to happen?
I started by gathering the seedings for both us and Dook over the past 20 seasons (we also missed the tournament 3 times...):
We've had more variance, but the most likely seed for both teams is a 2. We also have been on the same side of the bracket only 5 times in this period, or 25% of the time (in other words, 25% of the time we could have met in the Final Four, and the rest of the time would have been in the title game).
Next, I drew a fairly deep sample of the odds a generic 1 through 8 seed makes the Final Four using the past 5 seasons of my model:
Note: I threw out Kentucky's region from 2015. Talk about an outlier: 78.5% to make the Final Four!
So now for the math on an outcome I certainly hope to never see; I actually agree with Coach K, who stated in '91 "that he never wanted the two schools to play in the last game of the season because it would be too devastating for the loser." (Chansky, Blue Blood: Duke-Carolina)
And between North Carolina and Duke, the two schools rank #3/#4 in all-time wins, have 48/42 NCAA tournament appearances, 20/16 Final Fours, and 11/11 championship game appearances (all figures are respective). So it's fairly surprising that we've never met in the NCAA tournament (we met once in the NIT, in 1971).
The committee never puts us in the same region, so the Final Four would be the earliest meeting. And even for the best teams, it's more likely than not that they won't make the Final Four. So this proposition is definitely a long shot, but not impossible; it almost happened in 1991 in the title game. So when is it expected to happen?
I started by gathering the seedings for both us and Dook over the past 20 seasons (we also missed the tournament 3 times...):
We've had more variance, but the most likely seed for both teams is a 2. We also have been on the same side of the bracket only 5 times in this period, or 25% of the time (in other words, 25% of the time we could have met in the Final Four, and the rest of the time would have been in the title game).
Next, I drew a fairly deep sample of the odds a generic 1 through 8 seed makes the Final Four using the past 5 seasons of my model:
Note: I threw out Kentucky's region from 2015. Talk about an outlier: 78.5% to make the Final Four!
So now for the math on an outcome I certainly hope to never see; I actually agree with Coach K, who stated in '91 "that he never wanted the two schools to play in the last game of the season because it would be too devastating for the loser." (Chansky, Blue Blood: Duke-Carolina)
Monday, March 18, 2019
The Bump (or Lack Thereof) From Winning Your Conference Regular Season
Stemming from my earlier post on whether teams see a bump from winning their conference tournament, I have received demands to follow this up with the same analysis but for conference regular season titles.
I can now recreate the chart from the last post with both types of conference titles considered:
I can now recreate the chart from the last post with both types of conference titles considered:
8/17 won their conference tournament, 11/17 won their conference regular season, 15 /17 won at least 1 of these, and 4/17 won both.
I can see how far each team progressed similar to last time as well:
The Bump (or Lack Thereof) From Winning Your Conference Tournament
My friend/former "splash bro" intramural teammate submitted the following query: Do teams that win their conference tournaments go further in the NCAA tournament?
I looked at every power conference tournament champion since 2002 (chosen since it was the first year KenPom released ratings), which encompasses the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, SEC, and Pac 12.
I seriously considered leaving out the Pac 12, since the last time they won the whole thing was 1997 with Arizona. However, if I used that cutoff, I would have had to eliminate the Big 10 too, as they last won in 2000 with Michigan State... (no, Maryland does not count)
8 of the past 17 champions won their conference tournament, 8 more were at-large from power conferences, and the only non-power conference champion was Connecticut (AAC) in 2014.
There are anecdotal examples for each extreme: Connecticut going on their run in 2011, winning 11 consecutive games en route to the title, or Virginia, dominating the ACC all year last year and then losing to UMBC.
All in, this is how all conference tournament victors performed:
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