Category Archives: Bracketology

Is Oral Roberts a Cinderella?

IT’S HEEEEEEEEERE!!!

It’s March and the tournaments have started playing!  We held our team meeting at Buffalo Wild Wings eating saucy chicken and watching 35 big screen TVs with various games going on.  This is the greatest time of the year!

While chatting, we saw an interesting tweet put out by a fellow CBB aficionado, @EvanMiya about Oral Roberts and thought that his claim deserved a little deeper look. 

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Who’s your Bracket’s Daddy? Run a DNA Test!

Welcome to week 15 of the college basketball season. 15 is really not terribly significant, but two weeks ago was. So let’s go in the way back machine, speed it up to 86 mph and look at the AP standings from week 13. Then let’s figure out why this ranking is important.

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New Page – Compare Metrics for Projected Tournament Teams

Check out the new Projected NCAA Tournament Team Comparison page. It includes two tables showing a list of teams along with some of the metrics the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee will use as selection criteria, including NET, Kenpom, and Sagarin ranks, along with NET Quadrant records.

One table includes teams projected to make the tournament according to the Bracket Matrix, a compilation of bracketologists’ projections from across the internet.

The other table includes all NCAA Division 1 men’s basketball teams.

NCAA Team Quadrant Wins and Losses Tracker

The wonderful Team Quadrant Wins and Losses Tracker is back! (click here)

What is a Quadrant?

This is the third year the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee is using a quadrant classification system as one of their selection criteria.  The quadrant classification breaks down a team’s schedule and results in four quadrants with the purpose of placing greater emphasis on games played on neutral courts and in true road environments. The quadrant breakdown, based on NET rank and where the game is played, is as follows:

Q1 Wins Matter

Besides being a major decision criteria for the Selection Committee, the number of Q1 wins has shown to be a strong predictor of tournament success. We only have one season of NET rankings, so I’m talking Q1 wins based on the old RPI rankings. Click here to see what the magic number is and a little more on the subject (I’ll update soon with more data).

1-Seeds Have an Easier Path to the Elite 8 than 2-Seeds

As we head down the final stretch of the season, several teams are still in contention for receiving a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament on Selection Sunday.  One could reasonably argue that the difference in quality between 1-seeds and 2-seeds (the best 8 teams) isn’t very big.  In fact, 1-seeds have faced a 2-seed in their regional final (Elite 8 game) 45 times, and the series is split 23-22 with a slight advantage to the 1-seeds.  So does it really matter whether a team gets a 1-seed?  Yes it does!

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Championship Contender Watch – 2-12-2018

I have identified a set of traits commonly found in NCAA Tournament champions.  We’re far enough along in the season to start tracking the teams that fit the mold and those that are close.  Here are the teams currently exhibiting real contender characteristics.

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