feelgood stat

[sys]

taken from a poster on ouhoops.  makes me feel really good (confident and happy).

Last year 14 of the top 16 teams made it to the sweet sixteen (Arizona as a 12 seed, and Purdue as a 5 seed was the only exceptions).

2008 was a little crazier, with only 11 of the top 16 making it to the 2nd week. You had two 12 seeds and a 10 seed make it to the round of 16.

2007, 11 of the 16 made it as well.

[fatty fat fat]

it makes sense, you know?

"Cinderella" is overrated. good teams advance.

[Pete]

Cinderella is "memorable."  I can't remember any seeds from the past, but I remember "Cinderellas."

[JMart]

K-State will be a No. 2. Only four No. 2s have ever lost - Syracuse to Richmond in 1991, Arizona to Santa Clara in 1993, South Carolina to Coppin State in 1997 and Iowa State to Hampton in 2001.

Just sayin'.

[purplefreak42]

Love the Sig pic JMart, I worked there in high school.

[Duncan]

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/11505741

Round 1:

2v15 (92-4) Scoring margin +16.6 ppg

Round 2:

2v7 (42-17) scoring margin +5.8 ppg
tidbits:
"on average, 1-1/2 7 or 10 seeds per tourney will take the place of 2 seeds"
"despite being the closer competitor by seed position, 7 seeds are surprisingly more prone to getting beat by 2nd seeders than 10 seeds are"
"Steer clear of 2 seeds whose coach has made no more than one elite eight appearance (just 17-14 against 7 seeds.)

2v10 (18-15) scoring margin +5.7 ppg
tidbits:
"10 seeds nearly break even with 2 seeds in the 2nd round" . . but . ."odds of 10 seed winning it's 1st 2 games are just 19 percent"
"look for 10 seeds that score more than 72 points and beat opp. by more than 5 ppg (these teams are 12-10 compared to others 3-8)"

Sweet Sixteen

"more 1 seeds advance to the qtr finals than 2 seeds get to the sweet 16"
"2 seeds claim 46% of elite eight positions" . . but . ."the likelihood is that some other seed will advance"
"2 seeds are the only seed on the second seed s16 bracket side with a winning record"

2v3 (19-10) scoring margin +3.3 ppg
tidbits:
"of all the matchups with a single seed position difference, this one is the 2nd most lopsided, behind only 12v13 (6-1)"
"teams that get imbalanced scoring - more than 60% of their points from either backcourt or frontcourt - are 14-3 (more balanced are 5-7)"
"3 seeds whose coach is not a rookie but has fewer than 10 trips to the dance are 7-8, while counterparts are just 3-11"

2v6 (18-5) scoring margin +5.6 ppg
tidbits:
"this matchup happens almost as frequently as 2v3"
"16 of the last 17 have gone to the 2 seed"

2v11 (7-1) scoring margin +6.4 ppg
tidbits:
"comes around about once every 3 years and is nearly always won by the 2 seed"

Elite Eight

"the 1v2 battle happens only about 1/3rd of the time" . . with . . "the top seed doing their part, appearing in 72% of the qtr final games"
"1 seeds get to the final four as many times (42) as the 2, 3, and 4 seeds combined"

2v1 (16-17) scoring margin -1.0 ppg
tidbits:
"more 1 seeds have their tourney run ended by 2 seeds in the elite eight than by any other opponent in any other round"
"2 seeds with fewer than 4 straight tourney trips or coaches who've been to the dance less than 4 times are 3-13, with the more tested 2 seeds being 13-4" . . but . . "the three 2 seeds to buck the trend did so in the last two tourneys"

2v4 (2-3) scoring margin -0.6 ppg
tidbits:
"outcome of the game usually hinges on pre-tourney momentum" . . with . . "the team that's won more of their last 10 games entering the dance is 4-1"
"the 4 seed has won the last three games against 2 seeds in the elite eight"

2v5 (0-2) scoring margin -8.0 ppg

2v8 (2-1) scoring margin +4.0 ppg
tidbits:
"Villanova only 8 seed to win, and their coach had been to the elite eight before"

2v12 (1-0) scoring margin +6.0 ppg

Final Four/Finals

"the semifinals mark the point in the tourney where seeding offers virtually no guidance to the outcome of matchups"
"in general, for like seeded matchups, big six conference teams with lesser records playing closer to their campus prevail"
"for toss-up games, where the seed difference between teams is 1 or 2 positions, frontcourt scoring accurately predicts the outcome in 15 of 22 matchups"

2v1 (3-5) scoring margin -2.1 ppg
tidbits:
"the team that gets a higher percentage of points from forwards and centers is 6-2"

2v2 (1-1) scoring margin +7.0 ppg
tidbits:
"proximity to campus is a reliable guide in predicting the outcome"

2v3 (3-2) scoring margin +2.8 ppg
tidbits:
"occurs almost as often as the 1v2 matchup"
"if you took the 2 seed in every situation except when the 3 seed was from the ACC or Big East, you would be a perfect 5-0"

2v4 (1-0) scoring margin +14.0 ppg

2v5 (0-1) scoring margin -9.0 ppg

2v6 (1-1) scoring margin +3.5 ppg

2v8 (0-1) scoring margin -7.0 ppg

2v11 (1-0) scoring margin +11.0 ppg

Championship

"higher seed has won 12 of the 18 games with teams being a different seed"
"since 1990, higher seeds are 11-3 against lower seeds"

2v1 (1-4) scoring margin -4.6 ppg
tidbits:
"1 seeds win 80% of the time" . . with . . "backcourt scoring a reliable indicator, the squad that gets a higher % of points from guards is 5-0"

2v3 (3-2) scoring margin +1.2 ppg
tidbits:
"key to matchup is scoring balance, the squad with the smallest percentage gap between frontcourt and backcourt has won all 5 games"

[Duncan]

goddammit.  found the html version after I typed (not copy/pasted) that.

 

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/12999385/bracket-science-your-guide-to-every-seed-matchup?tag=pageRow;pageContainer

[Duncan]

Would also be interesting to see how we do against these attributes:

    
Bracket Science: Picking your Final 4 and champion
March 5, 2010
By Peter Tiernan
Bracketscience.com    
   

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the HTML version of a rich-media feature. Find the original Flash feature here .

Bracket picking time is nearly upon us, and if you're like me, a tiny part of you is thinking, "Maybe -- just maybe -- this year I can build the perfect bracket."

Don't listen to that part of you. It has an extremely tiny hold on reality. Try one nine-quintillionth of your sanity. Or to be more specific, one in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808, two to the 63rd power. Those are the odds of picking up a bracket sheet, dashing off your picks and having everything fall perfectly into place.

Of course, these are just the theoretical odds of picking a perfect bracket, since 16 seeds are virtually assured of losing out of the gate, 15 seeds are 96 percent likely to lose, etc. Still, the odds are astronomical. Let's just assume for the sake of argument we want to be absolutely 100 percent sure we achieve perfection; we'll still have to fill out all those nine quintillion brackets.

It goes without saying that nine quintillion is a big number. How big? Consider this:

There are, according to various sources, 134,548 schools in America, from pre-K through college, both public and private. Let's say that they all had a standard 94- by 50-foot college-sized basketball court (a stretch, I know). Let's assume further that you had the time, gas mileage and payload capacity to cart all these brackets to each school and evenly paper their courts. Every school would get 9.4 billion brackets -- and that would create stacks all around the country 591 miles high. That's the distance from St. Louis to New Orleans ... or, for West Coast fans, the distance between San Francisco and San Diego.

Bottom line: You're not going to fill out a perfect bracket. If you're like me, though, you'll happily take solace in winning your pool. In this case, the challenge is a tad easier. Depending on the number of people you're up against and your round-by-round scoring method, you'll need to make somewhere between 48 and 54 correct picks out of the 63 tourney games to come out on top. This works out to a more manageable 76 to 85 percent accuracy rate.

Forecasting the Final Four

Considering that most pools give greater weight to correct picks in later rounds, you're probably going to need to correctly identify at least three of the Final Four contenders. Simple, eh? In fact, picking all four semifinalists is 141 trillion times easier than building the perfect bracket. That's the good news: the bad news is that the odds of nailing the Final Four are still 1 in 65,536 (16 to the fourth power).

This assumes, of course, that every team has an even chance of advancing to the semifinals. And we know that's not true. Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams, only five squads seeded lower than six have reached the Final Four (eight seed Villanova in 1985, 11 seed LSU in 1986, eight seeds Wisconsin and North Carolina in 2000, and 11 seed George Mason in 2006.) By just eliminating the seven through 16 seeds, you improve your odds to about 1 in 1,296, allowing for 95 percent accuracy.

So what's the best strategy to boost your odds of getting the Final Four right? Well, you could play it safe and advance all the top seeds to the semifinals. 24 of the 25 tourneys in the 64-team era have had at least one top seed in the Final Four (11 have had two, three have had three and 2008 was the only dance to have all four). That's comforting -- until you realize that the only exception happened just four years ago in 2006 (UCLA was a two, Florida was a three, LSU was a four and George Mason was an 11).

Besides, a "top-seed" strategy would almost certainly doom your chances of winning a pool -- unless we have another "by-the-numbers" upset-free March Madness like we've had in the past two years. I don't see that happening this year. The fact is, fewer than two top seeds reach the semis on average. In the 25 tourneys of the 64-team era, 44 of the 100 Final Four contenders (or 1.76 per year) have been one seeds. The trick is to figure out how to identify the 56 top-seeded pretenders -- and replace them with the right mix of lower seeds.

That's a pretty neat trick. Unfortunately, there's no single factor that separates Final Four teams from the pack. But semifinal squads do share common attributes. If you know what they are, you can significantly improve your odds of forecasting the right Final Four teams.

The anatomy of a Final Four contender

The 100 Final Four teams of the modern era are made up of:

    * 44 one seeds
    * 22 two seeds
    * 13 three seeds
    * Nine four seeds
    * Four five seeds
    * Three six seeds
    * Three eight seeds
    * Two 11 seeds

If you separate the teams at every seed position that make the Final Four from those that don't, you'll find that the winners tend to share attributes that the losers don't possess. Let's take a look at each of the top six seeds (we're dropping all seeds lower than six and conceding five lost Final Four predictions) and identify the factors that separate Final Four contenders from pretenders.


Two seeds: There are also 11 attributes that mark second-seeded pretenders. Avoid any two seed with one or more of these characteristics:

1. They've won fewer than six of their past 10 pre-tourney games. (No, 7 of last 10)

2. Their coach has been to the dance fewer than four times. (Yes)

3. Their winning percentage is lower than .765 or higher than .900. (No, .788)

4. They have an SOS rating weaker than 40. (No, 2)

5. They give up 56.8 points per game or less, suggesting a slow-tempo style of play. (No, 69.4 ppg)

6. Their scoring margin is less than 8.7 or more than 18.5 points per game. (No, 10.2 margin)

7. They rely on guards for more than 77 percent of their points. (No, 55%)

8. They have more than one freshman starter or more than three senior starters. (No)

9. They get outrebounded. (No)

10. They shoot less than .450 from the floor. (We are at .450 for all games, .432 for conference games)

11. Their assist-to-field goal percentage is less than .500. (No, 56% I think?)

Two seeds that possess any of these qualities are an astounding 0-52 in their quest for the Final Four. Meanwhile, second-seeded teams without any of these attributes are 22-48 in reaching the final weekend. That's 45.8 percent reliability, much lower than the exclusion rules for top seeds. But here's the deal: It's more than twice as good as the typical 22 percent success rate of two seeds in getting to the Final Four. Not only that, but the rules accommodate every single two seed that has reached the semifinals.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/13014160/bracket-science-picking-your-final-4-and-champion?tag=pageRow;pageContainer

[Trim]

Love the Sig pic JMart, I worked there in high school.

Pic was taken by a board elite.

[purplefreak42]

Love the Sig pic JMart, I worked there in high school.

Pic was taken by a board elite.

Did the board elite in question grow up around town that said store is located in?

[Trim]

Love the Sig pic JMart, I worked there in high school.

Pic was taken by a board elite.

Did the board elite in question grow up around town that said store is located in?

That wouldn't be very elite, would it?