I'm currently in the midst of Coursera's Data Science Specialization, in which I learn how to apply statistical methods I've learned elsewhere to the R programming language. Because the individual course projects aren't always the most stimulating, and because I'm not really using R at work yet, I decided that I needed to start some sort of project to really force me to engage with and thus learn the language. With March Madness fast approaching, the choice of project was obvious: I was going to make a program to simulate the tournament.
Of course, there are already a lot of tournament simulations out there. Ken Pomeroy always does log5 analysis based off of his rating system. The team at FiveThirtyEight does a slightly more comprehensive look, accounting for many of my favorite rating systems, as well as a few other factors. These simulations are great, and provide a good overview of the proceedings. In order to make this whole exercise worthwhile and not just repeat what's already out there, I had to find a different angle. Here enters the concept of matchups. Every March, you hear commentators wax poetic about how the tournament is all about matchups, meaning certain underdogs are more equipped to beat the team at hand. While I think a lot of this is post-hoc rationalization of otherwise random events, I can also accept that there might be specific combinations of traits that can lead to unexpected outcomes. What I hope to achieve with this model is to use as much data as possible to find any nuances that other models may miss.
The question that arises then, is what do we mean when we talk about matchups? Well first, we need to identify specific aspects of team play that we can both ascribe to the overall quality of a team, and quantify. The best place to start with this is Dean Oliver's four factors, which are:
Shooting
Turnovers
Rebounding
Free Throws
These are typically measured through effective field goal %, turnover %, offensive rebound %, and FTA/FGA %. While those metrics serve their purpose from an evaluative standpoint, I needed to drill down a little further to be able to actually simulate a basketball game. After some trial and error, I ended up collecting the following metrics for each team (offensively and defensively):
Two-point shooting percentage
Three-point shooting percentage
Three-point attempt percentage (what percentage of shots taken are 3-pointers)
Free throw percentage*
Foul percentage (per "play")
Offensive rebound percentage (per opportunity)
Turnover percentage (per possesion)
Adjusted Pace (possessions per 40 minutes)
*Free throw percentage is the one metric not adjusted at all for defense.
As you might be able to tell, the denominator for many of these metrics is different. Specifically, the difference between "possesion" and "play" was something I needed to sort out. One possession can last several "plays." For example, a team can miss a shot, grab a rebound and then shoot again. Since the ball never changed hands, that would be considered one possession, but for the purposes of my sim, I need to think about this as two separate plays. I thus defined a play as the period of a time between when a team gets the ball, and when they give it up (through turnover, shot, or stoppage due to foul). In the prior example, the team with the ball could have turned it over before either of the shots, so I need to convert the possession-based metrics to play-based metrics, in order to account for the possibility of a turnover at all times.
As you can probably tell, a lot of this got fairly complicated. I was originally going to go more into depth about each part, but I won't for now. If you're hyper-curious about something, let me know and I'll show my work. As I work to clean up certain parts of the model in the coming months, I will probably make individual posts about my findings on a certain area, which will include my initial work on that subject.
For now, let's go to the results. I ran the sim 10000 times, which took about 3 hours to process. Each column represents the number of times that team reached the round in question (with the R1 column, representing the number of times each team won the title....I have ordered it by that column). Like me, you may be a little surprised at who's first on the list:
My ramshackle model projects Wisconsin as the most likely winner of the tourney, winning it all nearly 15% of the time. This of course, flies in the face of most other models that have Kentucky as the clear favorite (with 30-50% chance to win). What's most amazing is how Wisconsin (who would face Kentucky in the Final Four) won 2/3 of their semi-final games, suggesting that they have a bit of an advantage over the Wildcats. I don't necessarily think that's true, but it's at least fun to imagiene that it is. Now for a summarization of the rest of my feelings about how this turned out.
The Good
The top seven teams in reality are the top seven teams in my sim, winning the tournament about 55% of the time. This distribution shows that the model is at least figuring out which teams are the best, and assigning them wins more frequently. 55% is still probably lower than it should be*, but it's at least approaching the level where I would feel confident in it. Aside from those top teams, the model does a good job of picking out the under-seeded teams I would expect to do well, like Utah, Texas, and Ohio State.
*It's a very top-heavy year.
The Bad
Even if my model is correct in saying that Kentucky is overrated, it is highly unlikely that they're that overrated. The most glaring part of this (and this goes for other high seeds as well) is that every 15 and 16 seed has a 10-20% chance of pulling a major upset. If just one or two of those teams had an increased chance of winning, I wouldn't be taken aback, as I expect my model to find anomalies like that. But if the model is raising the likelihood of all the lower seeds winning, then I am guessing I need to make some adjustments to account for just how good the best teams are. Even though we've seen a lot of notable upsets in recent years, we still haven't seen anything to suggests a 16-seed should have a 10% chance to win.
I did do a little debugging of my code, and found one anomaly worth exploring: Each game had, on average, 10-15% more possessions than I would expect, based on the teams' adjusted tempos. I'm still not sure why this is happening, but it's odd that extra possessions seem to result in more parity rather than less. My theory is that the extra possessions lead to more fouls, which leads to more high-scoring possessions for the underdogs once they get into the bonus. This counteracts the disadvantage of having to play more possessions against a better team, and allows the underdog to win more often than it should. I imagine if I can fix my tempo issues, then this might solve a lot of my problems.
The Future
Due to time constraints, I wasn't able to make a perfect model. That didn't stop me from thinking long and hard about what changes and enhancements I would like to make in the future. Those future modifications can be grouped into three buckets.
1. Past Performance may not equal True Talent
This might be the biggest drawback to my current model. The inputs are all simply the given statistic for the 30 to 34 games each team has played this season. While it's certainly possible that many of these metrics have stabilized to the point where they largely reflect true talent, I don't really know that for sure.
2. Opponent adjustments
In my current model, I adjusted teams' raw metrics by opponent on two levels. One, I corrected their season-long metrics by the number of standard deviations the average opponent offense and/or defense was from the mean*. Two, for each game between teams I took the simple average of the offensive and defensive metrics to get each teams talent level for that game. While I believe these basic assumptions to be good start to adjusting for opponents, I also don't think of this as a final state for the model. There are likely subtleties to the metrics, such that they respond in different manners to defensive influence, both over the course of the season and within a game.
*I only regressed 3-point defense by 20% of the opponent two-point strength. It doesn't seem that 3-point shooting percentage is indicative of skill on it's own, but a team that closes out on twos also appears to use the same skill to close out on three-point shooters as well.
3. Special Circumstances
There are a number of special circumstances I did not account for. I did not include blocks, with the knowledge that this is included in 2-point field goal defense, and the assumption that the shooting team recovers about as many of them as they do offensive boards. I did not account for the fact that it's easier to grab offensive boards on three-point field goals, although this should be a relatively easy adjustment in the near future. I did not account for end-of-game theatrics. I didn't account for jump balls. I assumed all shooting fouls were on two-point buckets (and I didn't adjust two-point shooting percentage to account for and-ones, so team probably shoot slightly better than they should). I didn't account for a million other little subtleties that make the model (like all others) imperfect. If I'm being honest, correcting the deficiencies from parts #1 and #2 are more important, so I don't imagine many of these things will be improved upon in the near future. Still, there are a lot of ways I can make this model better and better. Hopefully, the results will be more in line with reality next season.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Bracket Thoughts 2015
After more than four months of anticipation, the NCAA men's basketball tournament is finally upon us. Let's talk about it.
Note: The majority of the stats referenced in this post come from kenpom.com. A few sections of this post were written before the conclusion of all the Sunday games, so they may not be 100% up-to-date, but you'll at least get the picture. I also pulled numbers from teamrankings.com, and rankings from ESPN's BPI, LRMC, and Jeff Sagarin.
Further Thoughts on the Nature of the Tournament
To begin, let's examine the state of the tournament, and of college hoops as whole. Hearing that, you may think I want to discuss the evolving debate over the NBA age limit and how it affects the college game. You may also think about how scoring is down again, and the various proposals to help ameliorate that. Finally, the debate of how to properly compensate the athletes that generate millions of dollars for their schools continues on, and should never be far from a college sports fan's mind. While these are all important matters, I don't want to talk about them now, because WE HAVE A SHINY NEW BRACKET! Let's focus on that for a week or two and then get back to the more weighty matters.
If we're going to limit ourselves to bracket talk, then the issue that most easily comes to mind is how the committee still uses RPI as the main basis for analysis. In an era where exciting advances in sports analytics are happening all the time, it's a little odd that the NCAA still primarily relies on a metric designed 35 years ago. If you are unfamiliar with the RPI's deficiencies, this site goes into great detail about the issues with the metric (that page is a little dated....for example, the RPI does account for home/road games now). If you don't want to read 10,000 words about it, here's the main points:
1. It doesn't account for margin of victory
2. It can be gamed (and because of this, benefits the existing powers)
The second point is probably the most damning point. By scheduling wisely in non-conference play, and by simply being in a power conference (where you likely won't have to play too many terrible teams), you're able to manipulate your rating to be higher than your true talent. Nowhere is this more obvious than with Kansas, which has an RPI ranking of 2 in spite of being a fringe top-ten squad. While instinct might lead you to chalk that up to luck, it is anything but. Kansas employs an RPI expert as its scheduler, and purposely crafts its schedule to be favorable to the RPI. In general, I'm happy that the top programs are motivated to play good schedules, but this passage from that article hints at some of the problems with this:
“Everybody can’t follow the pattern that we’re following, because there’s different reasons for your schedule,” Keating said. “If your program is down and you’re not very good and you’re building, you don’t want to play games that you’re going to pay money for that you can lose.”
Basically, because of their program history, Kansas is able to pick and choose their schedule as they wish. Aside from having this ability that other teams don't necessarily have, this makes it difficult for successful teams near them to schedule the nearby powerhouse. Since Kansas' scheduling philosophy leads it to target games against decent but ultimately beatable teams, strong squads like Wichita State get shut out, having to look for games to boost their resume elsewhere. It's true that most years this doesn't end up mattering too much: Kansas will usually just get seeded one or two lines higher than they should, and the majority of really good mid-majors win their auto-bids. That said, that reliance on a metric subject to manipulation like this could even occasionally lead to unfair results is troubling.
As bad as all that is, point #1 bugs an analytical mind like mine even more. I've written at length about how debates in college sports often boil down to the deserver vs. best argument, where deserverism represents the use of simple logic or heuristics to definitively declare a team more deserving of reward. While I certainly fall on the "best" side of the spectrum, I fully understand that no model is perfect, and that in light of such it can be good to use deserver arguments with high face validity (ie. team A won more games than team B) to effectively break ties. What's truly problematic though is that the committee consistently says it's trying to select the best teams, while then using a deserver tool like RPI that doesn't accomplish what they say it does. I suspect there will eventually come a day where analytics will be so commonplace in our everyday lives that the NCAA will finally snap out of its three decade long affair with an inadequate metric. In the meantime, continue to expect your typical doses of weirdness on Selection Sunday.
Note: I wrote most of this section on Saturday, before SBNation published this wonderful piece, which echoes some of what I wrote, and brings up some other good points as well.
Snubs and Such
Because of everything I wrote above, I was planning on writing a few paragraphs about the snubs that I've come to expect over the years. In spite of the requisite amounts of RPI-influence (ie. Kansas as a 2 above equal or better teams like Iowa State, Oklahoma, and Notre Dame), this is one of the best brackets I have seen in years. I honestly have no major complaints about any teams left in or out. Part of this may be because of the lack of quality teams on or around the cut line this year, but I think it's mostly because the committee might just be starting to value advanced metrics a little more. The highest ranked team at kenpom.com that was left out was all the way down at #45 (a sub-.500 Florida team that couldn't have made the bracket as an at-large anyway). Miami is probably the closest thing to a honest-to-God snub (they're ranked a little higher in other metrics: 34th in BPI and 40th in Sagarin), but I'm not crying too hard for a team that lost by four touchdowns to Eastern Kentucky.
While I am perfectly happy with the field of 68, the internet appears to be slightly incensed about one team: UCLA. I can see where the detractors are coming from, as the Bruins have no notable non-conference victories, and just two road wins in conference. That said, UCLA did beat Utah, and played Arizona tight twice in the past few weeks. If we turn to the advanced metrics, UCLA is right alongside most of the other bubble teams (41st Kenpom, 55th LRMC, 44th BPI, and 55th Sagarin), and is ahead of Colorado State* (the team most considered to be snubbed**) in all of those systems. Of course, the one prominent place where UCLA isn't ahead of the Rams is the RPI, where CSU was the highest ranked team left out (30th). What this all suggests is that maybe, just maybe, the committee is starting to get a little smarter about how it sets up the bracket. Here's hoping I am right.
*The Rams recently had a year where the RPI got them in the tourney, as they made the NCAAs in 2012 (Tim Miles' final year) as the 78th ranked team in Kenpom. Thus, I don't feel too bad for them.
**There was a bit of a groundswell for Murray State as well. While I gladly support smaller conference teams taking as many bids as they can, the Racers aren't quite the poster child for committee bias (2006 Missouri State and 2012 Drexel say hi). Almost no ratings have them in the top fifty, and losses to Portland and Houston (as well as a dearth of good wins) give them a pretty ugly resume. That just wasn't an at large team, no matter how good Cameron Payne is.
Mid-Major Report
One of the biggest draws of the tournament, to superfans and casual fans alike, is the opportunity that smaller schools get to take down the top teams in the opening round. The past few years have given us amazing stories, with teams like Mercer, Florida Gulf Coast, Lehigh, and Norfolk State outplaying far superior teams for a glorious 40 minutes. After a couple of upsets in the earlier championship games, it looked like we might have a light year for potential bracket busters. Luckily, the events of yesterday made up for that, with almost all of the top teams winning their respective conference title games. To summarize the proceedings, I've included all of the top-100 teams, as well as those that had separated from their conferences in one easy to digest chart:
While enough viable teams managed to survive, a number of formidable programs lost out to squads that aren't quite as good.* From a certain perspective this isn't a bad thing. Teams like Murray State and Iona have been pretty dominant in their leagues as of late, so it's nice to see others have their moment as well. At the same time, I fear the relatively watered-down 14-16 seeds might not put up as much of a fight as usual (especially since the 1 and 2 seeds are really strong this year). Of course I once said Norfolk State was the worst 15-seed ever and they beat Missouri, so who really knows.
*There were also a number of instances of potential first-time tournament teams losing out on their chance to go dancing against a more evenly matched opponent (William and Mary against Northeastern, St. Francis against Robert Morris, Stony Brook against Albany).
Quick Thoughts on "My" Teams
Last season, I devoted a whole post to reflecting on the teams I followed most closely. This year for efficiency's sake, I will see if I can do it in three paragraphs.
Last year, Notre Dame's season ended on a Wednesday afternoon in the first game of the ACC tournament. This year, things went a little better. The popular explanation for this swing focuses on the play of seniors Jerian Grant and Pat Connaughton. While they deserve every bit of praise heaped upon them, the play I linked to above shows that this team is far more than two guys. Indeed, the improvement of almost every underclassman* was just as big of a factor is ND's memorable season. Demetrius Jackson honed his skills and became as athletic of an all-around guard as the Irish have had. Zach Auguste still couldn't avoid foul trouble, but was able to shoot over 60% in a high-usage role. Steve Vasturia often guarded the other teams' best wing, and also became a legitimately dangerous slashing scorer. Bonzie Colson couldn't stop making twos up against people six inches taller, while VJ Beachem used his length to shoot over people on the perimeter. As much as the fantastic seniors deserve the praise they get, the success of this team truly came as a whole team effort. I am excited to see what they can do in the coming weeks.
*As always, Mike Brey may not be the world's greatest coach, but he is unquestionably great at getting the most out of his players.
While the Irish spent the season rebounding from their worst season in recent memory, Creighton flew in the exact opposite direction. After losing four seniors from a program-best 2014 campaign, the Bluejays fell all the way to the bottom of the Big East. Their last place finish wasn't fully indicative of their skill, as they rank a decent 7th in the conference in efficiency (a 3-8 record in one-score games was their undoing). That said, this was clearly not a great team. Austin Chatman performed admirably in his senior season, but the injury to fellow team MVP Isaiah Zierden and the mediocre play of Devin Brooks* was too much to overcome. I still think there is a solid foundation for future success, with improved recruiting and a continually expanding budget, but next season will be an interesting turning point for the Greg McDermott era.
* Brooks' combination of poor efficiency and high usage mirrors that of Garrick Sherman on last year's sub-.500 Irish team. I see those two in my nightmares.
Finally, I filled the St. Louis-sized* hole in my heart with a different up-and-coming team: the Runnin' Utes of Utah. Just as the Billikens were primed for success in 2012-2014, the 2015 Utes looked poised to complete their climb from the cellar of the Pac-12 (the 2012 squad was one of the worst major-conference teams in recent memory). This year's team features great balance and depth, with a number of freshman contributing alongside players with more experience, such as Brandon Taylor and Jordan Loveridge. In the end though, my love of this Utah team comes down to one thing: the super-human play of senior guard Delon Wright. You could probably tell I was enamored with him when I devoted the entirety of my basketball "preview" to him, and his performance this season did nothing to change that. Aside from being excellent in every phase of the game, his top similarity score on kenpom.com was none other than my other college hoops love, Jerian Grant:
Utah has stumbled a touch down the stretch, but most of that is a function of a cluster of road games against good teams and plain old bad luck. The team's overall success helps them to rate quite highly in almost every metric (8th in kenpom, 9th in LRMC, 12th in BPI, and 8th in Sagarin's predictor), so doubt them at your peril.
*The team I followed for the past three years graduated all five seniors (the last vestiges of the Majerus era), and left behind a smoldering caldera of terrible.
And now, I'll break the rest of my thoughts out by region:
EAST
The East is probably the least sexy of the regions this year, but even the most pedestrian bracket still contains multitudes. The top two seeds from last year's East bracket are back again, but this time they switch spots, with Villanova as the 1-seed and Virginia as the 2. Since neither of those teams actually made the regional final last year, they will be both be extra-hungry to advance far.
Of course, they'll both have a lot of great teams in their way. Michigan State isn't quite the best version of itself, but they'll have a real chance to knock off Virginia for the second straight year, especially if Justin Anderson is still not 100%. Oklahoma plays defense as well as anyone, and has more players named Buddy Hield than any other team (huge advantage there). UNI can slow the game down and slug it out with the best of them. Finally, NC State has a nice collection of big wins that suggest they should be expected to play whoever they meet quite well. If a lower seed does make it to the Final Four, I'm guessing it comes from the East.
Best First Round Matchup: Boise State vs. Dayton
The East features the least exciting group of mid-major teams by far, so I'll take the actual first-round matchup.* Dayton is probably under-seeded as a play-in team and they get to play in front of what should be a raucous crowd, while Boise has the best player in the matchup in Derrick Marks. This will be a fine game to have on your second TV while watching the season finale of Broad City.
*The NCAA will start calling the round of 64 the first round again next season, which proves that they do occasionally get things right.
Best Potential Matchup: Villanova vs. Northern Iowa
This game might seem like a clash of styles, but aside from Northern Iowa's glacial pace, these teams are surprisingly similar. Both teams do a little bit of everything well, except for crashing the boards. UNI is decent on the defensive glass, but they like to get back in transition so they've all but given up going for offensive boards. Both teams also like to lean on the three ball, so whoever shoots the rock better will probably end up winning (stunning insight, I know). Finally, both teams are veteran-laden*, and are fine examples of how everyone's hysteria over the the one-and-done "problem" is blown a bit out of proportion.
*I think Jayvaughn Pinkston has been playing so long that he's actually developed an "old-man" game of sorts over the course of his career.
The Pick: Villanova
As I said, this is probably the most wide open bracket. That's not necessarily a knock on the top teams, but I can see any number of teams winning the region with roughly equal chance. For now, I'll take Villanova, who honestly might have forgotten how to lose. I may change my mind on this a few times over the next few days.
MIDWEST
So, maybe you've heard that this here Kentucky team is pretty good. And wouldn't you know, they just happened to end up in the bracket where they won't have to travel more than a couple of hours to any of the game sites to win a championship. Furthermore, unlike recent seasons where the top overall seed drew a difficult bracket, the Midwest is probably the easiest bracket for its respective 1-seed to navigate. If the seeds hold, the Wildcats would draw both the easiest 4-seed (Maryland's ranks: 33rd Kenpom, 30th LRMC, 31st Sagarin, 26th BPI) and 2-seed (a Cliff-Alexander-less Kansas).
All that said, there are still a few land mines awaiting the undefeated team. Cincinnati isn't exactly under-seeded, but they do matchup well with Kentucky's one main weakness - the defensive glass - as the Bearcats rank top 20 nationally in offensive rebound rate. If West Virginia can navigate the first weekend, they profile well as an underdog that can pull off a big win, largely because they lead the nation in forcing turnovers. Finally, if Wichita or Notre Dame meets up with Kentucky in the regional final, we will be treated to a great team led by a swarm of veteran guards getting its chance at history.
Best First Round Matchup: Butler vs. Texas
It's difficult not to pick the 5-12 matchup, with the MAC's best team in a while (Buffalo) going up against the Mountaineers. In spite of that, I have to go with the coin flip between a strong Butler team and Myles Turner and company. Like most Longhorn teams of the past five years, Texas can still be quite inelegant on offense, but they still gobble up offensive boards and are the only team in the nation that blocks more shots than Kentucky (20.2%)*. Butler, on the other hand, is a more balanced team, that just might remind you of the 2010 squad, minus the star power of Gordon Heyward. This is about as much of a 50-50 proposition as your going to see in the first round, so have fun making money off of any friends who have strong opinions either way.
Best Potential Matchup: Wichita State vs. Notre Dame
Did I mention the guards earlier? Yes? Good. Jerian Grant, Ron Baker, Demetrius Jackson, Fred Van Vleet, Pat Connaughton (he's sort of a guard), and Tekele Cotton would combine to form the best sextet of perimeter players in perhaps any potential tournament matchup. Add in a little post play for garnish (Zach Auguste vs. Darius Carter should be lovely), and you have yourself one of the most attractive potential Sweet Sixteen games in the whole bracket. After the game, Gregg Marshall and Mike Brey can trade tips on where to find their favorite hair products.
The Pick: Kentucky
I do think that a few of the matchups in this region could prove more difficult for the Wildcats than the common perception dictates. That said, there isn't a Wisconsin or Arizona lurking in the bottom half of this bracket that could feasibly play at Kentucky's level for four straight games. Kentucky is deep, smart, and good. Don't get too cute with this.
SOUTH
The South features a healthy dose of offense, with the top three seeds all in the top seven in the nation in offensive efficiency. It also includes the Utah team I featured earlier, as probably the most mis-seeded team on the top six lines of the bracket. Finally, the South has the most intriguing set of double digit seeds. Davidson's offense and Stephen F. Austin's experience should make them both popular picks to pull upsets, while North Florida is as nice of a 16-seed as you'll see. I actually like their chances to at least scare Duke a bit, should they make it out of Dayton. Other regions may boast one or two more notable things than any of these facts, but I think the South has the most to offer in terms of potential overall excitement.
Best First Round Matchup: Utah vs. Stephen F. Austin
5 vs. 12 games are generally the most anticipated of the tournament. The 12-line often features the best that mid-majordom has to offer, which has lead to the 12-seed actually winning more first round games than the 11-seed since the expansion to 64 teams (44 wins to 41 wins). In this instance, we are seeing the best 5-seed (a Utah team that spent a good portion of the season in the top ten) and the best 12-seed (SFA, who returns two of their three best players - Jacob Parker and Thomas Walkup - from last year's Cinderella outfit). The Lumberjacks will clearly be outsized by Utah - the 6'6" Parker is their tallest primary player - but their ability to successfully push the tempo should give them a chance to make things interesting. I like Utah to advance, but not without a healthy test.
Best Potential Matchup: Gonzaga vs. Iowa State
It's tough to pick just one pairing, but if pressed I'll go with two of the nation's most fun teams to watch (meaning yes, there will actually be points scored in this game). Gonzaga will have the size advantage in the frontcourt (3rd in effective height), as well as an experience advantage in the backcourt (Pangos and Bell are both seniors). Iowa State can't come close to the Bulldogs in either of those areas, but they will be able to use their absurd pace to put the pressure on Gonzaga, and buttress themselves against any deficits.* You can also use this game to cherish what Fred Hoiberg has brought to the college game, as there's a decent chance he's coaching the Bulls or someone like that next year.
*They've come back from double digit deficits to win each of their past five games.
The Pick: Duke*
There's no obvious pick here, so I'll stick with the team with the most talent. Rasheed Sulaimon's dismissal made everyone worry for a second that depth would be an issue for Duke, but their current eight-man rotation is perfectly adequate, and actually deeper than many other highly seeded teams. Utah is the one elite defensive team in the bracket, so that could prove to be a significant roadblock if the Utes play to their potential, but for now I'll go with the streaking Blue Devils.
*I almost went with Davidson to get an all-Wildcat Final Four, but I am a coward.
WEST
The West has a lot going for it. D'Angelo Russell is a potential top pick in the draft. Rico Gathers is sublimely good at, well, gathering rebounds. And BYU is as good at both jump shooting and driving to the rim as any team in the country. But let's not kid ourselves: The potential for a re-match of last year's thrilling Elite Eight game between Wisconsin and Arizona is the main attraction here. If anything, both teams are actually better than they were last year, which could make for the best game of the tournament.
Best First Round Matchup: VCU vs. Ohio State
When in doubt, pick the Rams if you're looking for intrigue. Their reliance on pressuring the ball makes them the biggest boom-or-bust proposition of the last decade. The team isn't quite as deadly with three-time national leader in steals Briante Weber sidelined, but they did right the ship in time to win the Atlantic-10 tournament. On the other side, Ohio State never quite found the consistency they needed, but having a singular talent like D'Angelo Russell is all that is needed for a potentially deep run. Whichever team wins in apparently a quite tricky matchup for Arizona, so there's that as well.
Best Potential Matchup: Arizona vs. Wisconsin
Of course, that doesn't mean I think Arizona will lose that game. There are some potential traps for these teams, but I like their chances of meeting up in the regional final. When they do, it should be a lovely matchup between the #2 and #3 teams in the current Kenpom rankings. Both teams dominate the defensive boards, but both teams can also shoot fairly well, so there won't be a ton of misses in the first place. Presumed player of the year Frank Kaminsky is a matchup nightmare for most teams, but the Wildcats have a lot of options with enough size to handle the assignment, so it will be interesting to see which way they go. Perhaps the most fascinating battle though, will be in the foul column. Arizona's combination of driving to the rim and superb post play puts it at the line more than almost any other team. On the other side, Wisconsin commits the fewest fouls in the nation. If the Wildcats can enforce their will and get a shallow Wisconsin bench into play, that might swing the game in their favor.
The Pick: Arizona
As much as I love Bo Ryan's squad, the Wildcats have become a team possessed over the past month. No one is better poised to take down Kentucky, and I think they'll get their chance.
FINAL FOUR
Generally, there isn't more than a 30% or so chance that the best team in the field actually wins the tournament. ESPN's BPI currently has Kentucky at 48% to win the whole thing, so this is clearly a different animal than most years. While I do agree that Kentucky is the best team with the best chance to win the title, I don't think they're quite as dominant as that projection makes them out to be. Thus, if we're seeing popular opinion trending along the same line, I would be inclined to pick someone else, as that would provide me the best chance of winning whatever random thing PJ settles on as the prize this year. If we look at ESPN's bracket challenge, we currently get the following distribution of picks to win it all:
Kentucky - 50.3%
Duke - 10.3%
Wisconsin - 9.5%
Arizona - 5.3%
Virginia is a lovely bounce back candidate at 3.4% and Utah is a decent long shot option at 0.2%, but Arizona seems to be the optimal pick to me. Unless we see a big shift in popular opinion in the next couple of days, or other computer models sway me back towards Kentucky, I'm going to go with a different set of Wildcats.
On the dream result side, this year's pick is easy: Notre Dame over Utah. The Irish continue to be deficient on the defensive side, but the offense is so sublime at times that there is a real chance of something special happening. I can't wait.
Note: The majority of the stats referenced in this post come from kenpom.com. A few sections of this post were written before the conclusion of all the Sunday games, so they may not be 100% up-to-date, but you'll at least get the picture. I also pulled numbers from teamrankings.com, and rankings from ESPN's BPI, LRMC, and Jeff Sagarin.
Further Thoughts on the Nature of the Tournament
To begin, let's examine the state of the tournament, and of college hoops as whole. Hearing that, you may think I want to discuss the evolving debate over the NBA age limit and how it affects the college game. You may also think about how scoring is down again, and the various proposals to help ameliorate that. Finally, the debate of how to properly compensate the athletes that generate millions of dollars for their schools continues on, and should never be far from a college sports fan's mind. While these are all important matters, I don't want to talk about them now, because WE HAVE A SHINY NEW BRACKET! Let's focus on that for a week or two and then get back to the more weighty matters.
If we're going to limit ourselves to bracket talk, then the issue that most easily comes to mind is how the committee still uses RPI as the main basis for analysis. In an era where exciting advances in sports analytics are happening all the time, it's a little odd that the NCAA still primarily relies on a metric designed 35 years ago. If you are unfamiliar with the RPI's deficiencies, this site goes into great detail about the issues with the metric (that page is a little dated....for example, the RPI does account for home/road games now). If you don't want to read 10,000 words about it, here's the main points:
1. It doesn't account for margin of victory
2. It can be gamed (and because of this, benefits the existing powers)
The second point is probably the most damning point. By scheduling wisely in non-conference play, and by simply being in a power conference (where you likely won't have to play too many terrible teams), you're able to manipulate your rating to be higher than your true talent. Nowhere is this more obvious than with Kansas, which has an RPI ranking of 2 in spite of being a fringe top-ten squad. While instinct might lead you to chalk that up to luck, it is anything but. Kansas employs an RPI expert as its scheduler, and purposely crafts its schedule to be favorable to the RPI. In general, I'm happy that the top programs are motivated to play good schedules, but this passage from that article hints at some of the problems with this:
“Everybody can’t follow the pattern that we’re following, because there’s different reasons for your schedule,” Keating said. “If your program is down and you’re not very good and you’re building, you don’t want to play games that you’re going to pay money for that you can lose.”
Basically, because of their program history, Kansas is able to pick and choose their schedule as they wish. Aside from having this ability that other teams don't necessarily have, this makes it difficult for successful teams near them to schedule the nearby powerhouse. Since Kansas' scheduling philosophy leads it to target games against decent but ultimately beatable teams, strong squads like Wichita State get shut out, having to look for games to boost their resume elsewhere. It's true that most years this doesn't end up mattering too much: Kansas will usually just get seeded one or two lines higher than they should, and the majority of really good mid-majors win their auto-bids. That said, that reliance on a metric subject to manipulation like this could even occasionally lead to unfair results is troubling.
As bad as all that is, point #1 bugs an analytical mind like mine even more. I've written at length about how debates in college sports often boil down to the deserver vs. best argument, where deserverism represents the use of simple logic or heuristics to definitively declare a team more deserving of reward. While I certainly fall on the "best" side of the spectrum, I fully understand that no model is perfect, and that in light of such it can be good to use deserver arguments with high face validity (ie. team A won more games than team B) to effectively break ties. What's truly problematic though is that the committee consistently says it's trying to select the best teams, while then using a deserver tool like RPI that doesn't accomplish what they say it does. I suspect there will eventually come a day where analytics will be so commonplace in our everyday lives that the NCAA will finally snap out of its three decade long affair with an inadequate metric. In the meantime, continue to expect your typical doses of weirdness on Selection Sunday.
Note: I wrote most of this section on Saturday, before SBNation published this wonderful piece, which echoes some of what I wrote, and brings up some other good points as well.
Snubs and Such
Worth noting: Barnes has twice referenced teams not faring as well in "other metrics" used by committee. Temple 56th, CSU 68th in KenPom.
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) March 15, 2015
I for one can't believe that a homogenous committee asked to pick the best teams based on amorphous criteria made an unexpected choice.
— Kevin Pelton (@kpelton) March 15, 2015
Because of everything I wrote above, I was planning on writing a few paragraphs about the snubs that I've come to expect over the years. In spite of the requisite amounts of RPI-influence (ie. Kansas as a 2 above equal or better teams like Iowa State, Oklahoma, and Notre Dame), this is one of the best brackets I have seen in years. I honestly have no major complaints about any teams left in or out. Part of this may be because of the lack of quality teams on or around the cut line this year, but I think it's mostly because the committee might just be starting to value advanced metrics a little more. The highest ranked team at kenpom.com that was left out was all the way down at #45 (a sub-.500 Florida team that couldn't have made the bracket as an at-large anyway). Miami is probably the closest thing to a honest-to-God snub (they're ranked a little higher in other metrics: 34th in BPI and 40th in Sagarin), but I'm not crying too hard for a team that lost by four touchdowns to Eastern Kentucky.
While I am perfectly happy with the field of 68, the internet appears to be slightly incensed about one team: UCLA. I can see where the detractors are coming from, as the Bruins have no notable non-conference victories, and just two road wins in conference. That said, UCLA did beat Utah, and played Arizona tight twice in the past few weeks. If we turn to the advanced metrics, UCLA is right alongside most of the other bubble teams (41st Kenpom, 55th LRMC, 44th BPI, and 55th Sagarin), and is ahead of Colorado State* (the team most considered to be snubbed**) in all of those systems. Of course, the one prominent place where UCLA isn't ahead of the Rams is the RPI, where CSU was the highest ranked team left out (30th). What this all suggests is that maybe, just maybe, the committee is starting to get a little smarter about how it sets up the bracket. Here's hoping I am right.
*The Rams recently had a year where the RPI got them in the tourney, as they made the NCAAs in 2012 (Tim Miles' final year) as the 78th ranked team in Kenpom. Thus, I don't feel too bad for them.
**There was a bit of a groundswell for Murray State as well. While I gladly support smaller conference teams taking as many bids as they can, the Racers aren't quite the poster child for committee bias (2006 Missouri State and 2012 Drexel say hi). Almost no ratings have them in the top fifty, and losses to Portland and Houston (as well as a dearth of good wins) give them a pretty ugly resume. That just wasn't an at large team, no matter how good Cameron Payne is.
Mid-Major Report
One of the biggest draws of the tournament, to superfans and casual fans alike, is the opportunity that smaller schools get to take down the top teams in the opening round. The past few years have given us amazing stories, with teams like Mercer, Florida Gulf Coast, Lehigh, and Norfolk State outplaying far superior teams for a glorious 40 minutes. After a couple of upsets in the earlier championship games, it looked like we might have a light year for potential bracket busters. Luckily, the events of yesterday made up for that, with almost all of the top teams winning their respective conference title games. To summarize the proceedings, I've included all of the top-100 teams, as well as those that had separated from their conferences in one easy to digest chart:
While enough viable teams managed to survive, a number of formidable programs lost out to squads that aren't quite as good.* From a certain perspective this isn't a bad thing. Teams like Murray State and Iona have been pretty dominant in their leagues as of late, so it's nice to see others have their moment as well. At the same time, I fear the relatively watered-down 14-16 seeds might not put up as much of a fight as usual (especially since the 1 and 2 seeds are really strong this year). Of course I once said Norfolk State was the worst 15-seed ever and they beat Missouri, so who really knows.
*There were also a number of instances of potential first-time tournament teams losing out on their chance to go dancing against a more evenly matched opponent (William and Mary against Northeastern, St. Francis against Robert Morris, Stony Brook against Albany).
Quick Thoughts on "My" Teams
Last season, I devoted a whole post to reflecting on the teams I followed most closely. This year for efficiency's sake, I will see if I can do it in three paragraphs.
Last year, Notre Dame's season ended on a Wednesday afternoon in the first game of the ACC tournament. This year, things went a little better. The popular explanation for this swing focuses on the play of seniors Jerian Grant and Pat Connaughton. While they deserve every bit of praise heaped upon them, the play I linked to above shows that this team is far more than two guys. Indeed, the improvement of almost every underclassman* was just as big of a factor is ND's memorable season. Demetrius Jackson honed his skills and became as athletic of an all-around guard as the Irish have had. Zach Auguste still couldn't avoid foul trouble, but was able to shoot over 60% in a high-usage role. Steve Vasturia often guarded the other teams' best wing, and also became a legitimately dangerous slashing scorer. Bonzie Colson couldn't stop making twos up against people six inches taller, while VJ Beachem used his length to shoot over people on the perimeter. As much as the fantastic seniors deserve the praise they get, the success of this team truly came as a whole team effort. I am excited to see what they can do in the coming weeks.
*As always, Mike Brey may not be the world's greatest coach, but he is unquestionably great at getting the most out of his players.
While the Irish spent the season rebounding from their worst season in recent memory, Creighton flew in the exact opposite direction. After losing four seniors from a program-best 2014 campaign, the Bluejays fell all the way to the bottom of the Big East. Their last place finish wasn't fully indicative of their skill, as they rank a decent 7th in the conference in efficiency (a 3-8 record in one-score games was their undoing). That said, this was clearly not a great team. Austin Chatman performed admirably in his senior season, but the injury to fellow team MVP Isaiah Zierden and the mediocre play of Devin Brooks* was too much to overcome. I still think there is a solid foundation for future success, with improved recruiting and a continually expanding budget, but next season will be an interesting turning point for the Greg McDermott era.
* Brooks' combination of poor efficiency and high usage mirrors that of Garrick Sherman on last year's sub-.500 Irish team. I see those two in my nightmares.
Finally, I filled the St. Louis-sized* hole in my heart with a different up-and-coming team: the Runnin' Utes of Utah. Just as the Billikens were primed for success in 2012-2014, the 2015 Utes looked poised to complete their climb from the cellar of the Pac-12 (the 2012 squad was one of the worst major-conference teams in recent memory). This year's team features great balance and depth, with a number of freshman contributing alongside players with more experience, such as Brandon Taylor and Jordan Loveridge. In the end though, my love of this Utah team comes down to one thing: the super-human play of senior guard Delon Wright. You could probably tell I was enamored with him when I devoted the entirety of my basketball "preview" to him, and his performance this season did nothing to change that. Aside from being excellent in every phase of the game, his top similarity score on kenpom.com was none other than my other college hoops love, Jerian Grant:
Utah has stumbled a touch down the stretch, but most of that is a function of a cluster of road games against good teams and plain old bad luck. The team's overall success helps them to rate quite highly in almost every metric (8th in kenpom, 9th in LRMC, 12th in BPI, and 8th in Sagarin's predictor), so doubt them at your peril.
*The team I followed for the past three years graduated all five seniors (the last vestiges of the Majerus era), and left behind a smoldering caldera of terrible.
And now, I'll break the rest of my thoughts out by region:
EAST
The East is probably the least sexy of the regions this year, but even the most pedestrian bracket still contains multitudes. The top two seeds from last year's East bracket are back again, but this time they switch spots, with Villanova as the 1-seed and Virginia as the 2. Since neither of those teams actually made the regional final last year, they will be both be extra-hungry to advance far.
Of course, they'll both have a lot of great teams in their way. Michigan State isn't quite the best version of itself, but they'll have a real chance to knock off Virginia for the second straight year, especially if Justin Anderson is still not 100%. Oklahoma plays defense as well as anyone, and has more players named Buddy Hield than any other team (huge advantage there). UNI can slow the game down and slug it out with the best of them. Finally, NC State has a nice collection of big wins that suggest they should be expected to play whoever they meet quite well. If a lower seed does make it to the Final Four, I'm guessing it comes from the East.
Best First Round Matchup: Boise State vs. Dayton
The East features the least exciting group of mid-major teams by far, so I'll take the actual first-round matchup.* Dayton is probably under-seeded as a play-in team and they get to play in front of what should be a raucous crowd, while Boise has the best player in the matchup in Derrick Marks. This will be a fine game to have on your second TV while watching the season finale of Broad City.
*The NCAA will start calling the round of 64 the first round again next season, which proves that they do occasionally get things right.
Best Potential Matchup: Villanova vs. Northern Iowa
This game might seem like a clash of styles, but aside from Northern Iowa's glacial pace, these teams are surprisingly similar. Both teams do a little bit of everything well, except for crashing the boards. UNI is decent on the defensive glass, but they like to get back in transition so they've all but given up going for offensive boards. Both teams also like to lean on the three ball, so whoever shoots the rock better will probably end up winning (stunning insight, I know). Finally, both teams are veteran-laden*, and are fine examples of how everyone's hysteria over the the one-and-done "problem" is blown a bit out of proportion.
*I think Jayvaughn Pinkston has been playing so long that he's actually developed an "old-man" game of sorts over the course of his career.
The Pick: Villanova
As I said, this is probably the most wide open bracket. That's not necessarily a knock on the top teams, but I can see any number of teams winning the region with roughly equal chance. For now, I'll take Villanova, who honestly might have forgotten how to lose. I may change my mind on this a few times over the next few days.
MIDWEST
So, maybe you've heard that this here Kentucky team is pretty good. And wouldn't you know, they just happened to end up in the bracket where they won't have to travel more than a couple of hours to any of the game sites to win a championship. Furthermore, unlike recent seasons where the top overall seed drew a difficult bracket, the Midwest is probably the easiest bracket for its respective 1-seed to navigate. If the seeds hold, the Wildcats would draw both the easiest 4-seed (Maryland's ranks: 33rd Kenpom, 30th LRMC, 31st Sagarin, 26th BPI) and 2-seed (a Cliff-Alexander-less Kansas).
All that said, there are still a few land mines awaiting the undefeated team. Cincinnati isn't exactly under-seeded, but they do matchup well with Kentucky's one main weakness - the defensive glass - as the Bearcats rank top 20 nationally in offensive rebound rate. If West Virginia can navigate the first weekend, they profile well as an underdog that can pull off a big win, largely because they lead the nation in forcing turnovers. Finally, if Wichita or Notre Dame meets up with Kentucky in the regional final, we will be treated to a great team led by a swarm of veteran guards getting its chance at history.
Best First Round Matchup: Butler vs. Texas
It's difficult not to pick the 5-12 matchup, with the MAC's best team in a while (Buffalo) going up against the Mountaineers. In spite of that, I have to go with the coin flip between a strong Butler team and Myles Turner and company. Like most Longhorn teams of the past five years, Texas can still be quite inelegant on offense, but they still gobble up offensive boards and are the only team in the nation that blocks more shots than Kentucky (20.2%)*. Butler, on the other hand, is a more balanced team, that just might remind you of the 2010 squad, minus the star power of Gordon Heyward. This is about as much of a 50-50 proposition as your going to see in the first round, so have fun making money off of any friends who have strong opinions either way.
Best Potential Matchup: Wichita State vs. Notre Dame
Did I mention the guards earlier? Yes? Good. Jerian Grant, Ron Baker, Demetrius Jackson, Fred Van Vleet, Pat Connaughton (he's sort of a guard), and Tekele Cotton would combine to form the best sextet of perimeter players in perhaps any potential tournament matchup. Add in a little post play for garnish (Zach Auguste vs. Darius Carter should be lovely), and you have yourself one of the most attractive potential Sweet Sixteen games in the whole bracket. After the game, Gregg Marshall and Mike Brey can trade tips on where to find their favorite hair products.
The Pick: Kentucky
I do think that a few of the matchups in this region could prove more difficult for the Wildcats than the common perception dictates. That said, there isn't a Wisconsin or Arizona lurking in the bottom half of this bracket that could feasibly play at Kentucky's level for four straight games. Kentucky is deep, smart, and good. Don't get too cute with this.
SOUTH
The South features a healthy dose of offense, with the top three seeds all in the top seven in the nation in offensive efficiency. It also includes the Utah team I featured earlier, as probably the most mis-seeded team on the top six lines of the bracket. Finally, the South has the most intriguing set of double digit seeds. Davidson's offense and Stephen F. Austin's experience should make them both popular picks to pull upsets, while North Florida is as nice of a 16-seed as you'll see. I actually like their chances to at least scare Duke a bit, should they make it out of Dayton. Other regions may boast one or two more notable things than any of these facts, but I think the South has the most to offer in terms of potential overall excitement.
Best First Round Matchup: Utah vs. Stephen F. Austin
Not sure who should be less enthused about their opposite seed: Utah or SFA
— Eamonn Brennan (@eamonnbrennan) March 15, 2015
5 vs. 12 games are generally the most anticipated of the tournament. The 12-line often features the best that mid-majordom has to offer, which has lead to the 12-seed actually winning more first round games than the 11-seed since the expansion to 64 teams (44 wins to 41 wins). In this instance, we are seeing the best 5-seed (a Utah team that spent a good portion of the season in the top ten) and the best 12-seed (SFA, who returns two of their three best players - Jacob Parker and Thomas Walkup - from last year's Cinderella outfit). The Lumberjacks will clearly be outsized by Utah - the 6'6" Parker is their tallest primary player - but their ability to successfully push the tempo should give them a chance to make things interesting. I like Utah to advance, but not without a healthy test.
Best Potential Matchup: Gonzaga vs. Iowa State
It's tough to pick just one pairing, but if pressed I'll go with two of the nation's most fun teams to watch (meaning yes, there will actually be points scored in this game). Gonzaga will have the size advantage in the frontcourt (3rd in effective height), as well as an experience advantage in the backcourt (Pangos and Bell are both seniors). Iowa State can't come close to the Bulldogs in either of those areas, but they will be able to use their absurd pace to put the pressure on Gonzaga, and buttress themselves against any deficits.* You can also use this game to cherish what Fred Hoiberg has brought to the college game, as there's a decent chance he's coaching the Bulls or someone like that next year.
*They've come back from double digit deficits to win each of their past five games.
The Pick: Duke*
There's no obvious pick here, so I'll stick with the team with the most talent. Rasheed Sulaimon's dismissal made everyone worry for a second that depth would be an issue for Duke, but their current eight-man rotation is perfectly adequate, and actually deeper than many other highly seeded teams. Utah is the one elite defensive team in the bracket, so that could prove to be a significant roadblock if the Utes play to their potential, but for now I'll go with the streaking Blue Devils.
*I almost went with Davidson to get an all-Wildcat Final Four, but I am a coward.
WEST
The West has a lot going for it. D'Angelo Russell is a potential top pick in the draft. Rico Gathers is sublimely good at, well, gathering rebounds. And BYU is as good at both jump shooting and driving to the rim as any team in the country. But let's not kid ourselves: The potential for a re-match of last year's thrilling Elite Eight game between Wisconsin and Arizona is the main attraction here. If anything, both teams are actually better than they were last year, which could make for the best game of the tournament.
Best First Round Matchup: VCU vs. Ohio State
When in doubt, pick the Rams if you're looking for intrigue. Their reliance on pressuring the ball makes them the biggest boom-or-bust proposition of the last decade. The team isn't quite as deadly with three-time national leader in steals Briante Weber sidelined, but they did right the ship in time to win the Atlantic-10 tournament. On the other side, Ohio State never quite found the consistency they needed, but having a singular talent like D'Angelo Russell is all that is needed for a potentially deep run. Whichever team wins in apparently a quite tricky matchup for Arizona, so there's that as well.
Best Potential Matchup: Arizona vs. Wisconsin
Of course, that doesn't mean I think Arizona will lose that game. There are some potential traps for these teams, but I like their chances of meeting up in the regional final. When they do, it should be a lovely matchup between the #2 and #3 teams in the current Kenpom rankings. Both teams dominate the defensive boards, but both teams can also shoot fairly well, so there won't be a ton of misses in the first place. Presumed player of the year Frank Kaminsky is a matchup nightmare for most teams, but the Wildcats have a lot of options with enough size to handle the assignment, so it will be interesting to see which way they go. Perhaps the most fascinating battle though, will be in the foul column. Arizona's combination of driving to the rim and superb post play puts it at the line more than almost any other team. On the other side, Wisconsin commits the fewest fouls in the nation. If the Wildcats can enforce their will and get a shallow Wisconsin bench into play, that might swing the game in their favor.
The Pick: Arizona
As much as I love Bo Ryan's squad, the Wildcats have become a team possessed over the past month. No one is better poised to take down Kentucky, and I think they'll get their chance.
FINAL FOUR
Generally, there isn't more than a 30% or so chance that the best team in the field actually wins the tournament. ESPN's BPI currently has Kentucky at 48% to win the whole thing, so this is clearly a different animal than most years. While I do agree that Kentucky is the best team with the best chance to win the title, I don't think they're quite as dominant as that projection makes them out to be. Thus, if we're seeing popular opinion trending along the same line, I would be inclined to pick someone else, as that would provide me the best chance of winning whatever random thing PJ settles on as the prize this year. If we look at ESPN's bracket challenge, we currently get the following distribution of picks to win it all:
Kentucky - 50.3%
Duke - 10.3%
Wisconsin - 9.5%
Arizona - 5.3%
Virginia is a lovely bounce back candidate at 3.4% and Utah is a decent long shot option at 0.2%, but Arizona seems to be the optimal pick to me. Unless we see a big shift in popular opinion in the next couple of days, or other computer models sway me back towards Kentucky, I'm going to go with a different set of Wildcats.
On the dream result side, this year's pick is easy: Notre Dame over Utah. The Irish continue to be deficient on the defensive side, but the offense is so sublime at times that there is a real chance of something special happening. I can't wait.
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