Toughest region

[OldPhiKap]

Which is toughest?

[hurleyfor3]

Kansas isn't even the best team in its "prong", much less its region.

[pamtar]

South is definitely the toughest as far as scare factor goes. VCU, NOVA, UNC, KU looks like a final four - much less a "prong" as HF3 stated. I can imagine all four of those team's knees are knocking. I'm pissed at our draw but if I'm a UNC fan I've already made alternate plans for next weekend. As for the bottom of that region: Gtown, UF, Tubby, and Los Angeles. Dayum.

[jipops]

The South even has Tubby as an 11 seed. It's not even close.

I think the West may be the weakest, 1st impression wise. Could argue the East.

[Deslok]

seeds.jpg
This is just a little something I threw together after the bracket was announced. Its basically looking at the KenPom rating for each of the top 10 seeds in each region. I then took the average rating for all of the 1s, 2s, 3s, etc. Finally I took the differences for each region from the average seed rating to get an idea of how things stack up.
As you can see, the Midwest looks pretty stacked, with only 2 of the top 10 seeds "overseeded" per the average, St. Louis and Colorado St, and neither is a team that is on Duke's half of the bracket. The South is weirdest, with the top 2 seeds well overseeded, and the 3 and 4 seeds well underseeded. Could be a 3 vs 4 in the regional final instead of a 1 vs 2. For top seeds, Gonzaga is the biggest loser, as they got a ridiculously hard 8 seed in Pitt(as in, an 8 seed rated higher than a 1 seed!), and Louisville got a bit of a bum draw, getting the next two best teams in the 8/9 seeds as their matchup. Indiana got the nicest of the 8/9 draws. The Midwest seems to be pretty much slightly underseeded across the board, without anything too ridiculously out of whack. While the West has a way underseeded Wisconsin at the 5 and Pitt at the 8, and Kansas St well overseed at 4. The South is kind of a mirror of the MidWest, with most of the teams being just slightly overseeded, with the significant exception of Florida and Syracuse at the 3 and 4 spots. And the east, the east is a bunch of well overseeded teams, particularly in the 6-10 bracket, where the 3 most overseeded teams in the bracket all are found(Temple at +28, Butler at +19.5, and NC St at +16.25).

Anyway, there's a lot of numbers to start poring through, but that's a quick first look.

[sporthenry]

seeds.jpg
This is just a little something I threw together after the bracket was announced. Its basically looking at the KenPom rating for each of the top 10 seeds in each region. I then took the average rating for all of the 1s, 2s, 3s, etc. Finally I took the differences for each region from the average seed rating to get an idea of how things stack up.
As you can see, the Midwest looks pretty stacked, with only 2 of the top 10 seeds "overseeded" per the average, St. Louis and Colorado St, and neither is a team that is on Duke's half of the bracket. The South is weirdest, with the top 2 seeds well overseeded, and the 3 and 4 seeds well underseeded. Could be a 3 vs 4 in the regional final instead of a 1 vs 2. For top seeds, Gonzaga is the biggest loser, as they got a ridiculously hard 8 seed in Pitt(as in, an 8 seed rated higher than a 1 seed!), and Louisville got a bit of a bum draw, getting the next two best teams in the 8/9 seeds as their matchup. Indiana got the nicest of the 8/9 draws. The Midwest seems to be pretty much slightly underseeded across the board, without anything too ridiculously out of whack. While the West has a way underseeded Wisconsin at the 5 and Pitt at the 8, and Kansas St well overseed at 4. The South is kind of a mirror of the MidWest, with most of the teams being just slightly overseeded, with the significant exception of Florida and Syracuse at the 3 and 4 spots. And the east, the east is a bunch of well overseeded teams, particularly in the 6-10 bracket, where the 3 most overseeded teams in the bracket all are found(Temple at +28, Butler at +19.5, and NC St at +16.25).

Anyway, there's a lot of numbers to start poring through, but that's a quick first look.

Kenpom is down for me. Not sure why you stopped at 10 but the obvious problem seems to be a few teams like Pitt/Creighton who are more than likely overrated according to Kenpom throwing everything else off.

I usually look at the top 4 seeds and by that metric, the South looks easily much more difficult.

[ice-9]

Posted this in the West thread, but will paraphrase here as it fits the subject:

The two ingredients that make a region difficult are
1) Good teams for each seed line (e.g. Florida at 3-seed is strong)
2) Match-ups that minimize chances of upsets (e.g. no team like Pittsburgh beating Gonzaga and opening up the bracket)

By that metric, the Midwest is tough and the West is easy.

The Midwest will probably play to seed. The probability of upsets opening up the bracket for everyone else seems lower. Louisville and Duke are above average teams for their seed; Michigan State is Michigan State.

Out West on the other hand, there's a not-insignificant chance Pittsburgh can upset Gonzaga, Arizona doing damage out West, Big 10 champ Wisconsin posing problems, etc. In fact, the West looks great for Ohio State, except they're far away from Columbus playing against a bunch of teams from the west. There could be upsets galore in this region -- I wouldn't be surprised to see a 6-seed get into the Final Four from here.

[DU82]

By definition, the toughest region is the one with Duke in it.

[ice-9]

South is definitely the toughest as far as scare factor goes. VCU, NOVA, UNC, KU looks like a final four - much less a "prong" as HF3 stated. I can imagine all four of those team's knees are knocking. I'm pissed at our draw but if I'm a UNC fan I've already made alternate plans for next weekend. As for the bottom of that region: Gtown, UF, Tubby, and Los Angeles. Dayum.

I know my view maybe a little contrarian, but to me, the more upset potential there is in a bracket, the easier it is.

Yes, UNC as an 8-seed might be scary...but only for Kansas. It's awesome for everyone else. Who would you rather play against, Kansas or UNC? That's right, Kansas. So the higher probability that Kansas is upset, the higher the probability everyone else has for winning the region. UNC makes the region easier, not harder.

[pamtar]

OK, i totally overlooked UofM in the top of the South bracket. If that doesn't say how tough that bracket is then i just dunno...

[FerryFor50]

I know my view maybe a little contrarian, but to me, the more upset potential there is in a bracket, the easier it is.

Yes, UNC as an 8-seed might be scary...but only for Kansas. It's awesome for everyone else. Who would you rather play against, Kansas or UNC? That's right, Kansas. So the higher probability that Kansas is upset, the higher the probability everyone else has for winning the region. UNC makes the region easier, not harder.

I don't think UNC as an 8 against Kansas is that scary. I think KU wins that game easily.

[devildeac]

I don't think UNC as an 8 against Kansas is that scary. I think KU wins that game easily.

Unless Roy uses timeouts early and often.

[sporthenry]

OK, i totally overlooked UofM in the top of the South bracket. If that doesn't say how tough that bracket is then i just dunno...

I agree. 1-4, the South is the most difficult. From Duke's perspective though, they have just about as hard of a 3 as the South. And since their 4 is weaker, it actually makes it tougher b/c theoretically, Louisville will have an easier game than they would if they had to play Michigan.

I think as a fan, you actually want to be in a very difficult bracket but in an easier side. That is why I like Miami's draw.

[pamtar]

I don't think UNC as an 8 against Kansas is that scary. I think KU wins that game easily.

Depends on which UNC team shows up. If its the UNC @ Cameron or ACCT then I'd be worried if I was KU. Still, Bill Self knows he's a better coach than Roy, and Roy is just dying to prove him wrong. If it does end up being KU/UNC then I'll bet many doll hairs that Roy chokes his team back to chapel hill.

Personally, I'd be more worried about Nova. They've got nothing to lose.

[ice-9]

I don't think UNC as an 8 against Kansas is that scary. I think KU wins that game easily.

Yeah actually agree with that. I just can't see UNC generating enough points vs. Kansas' elite defense. They couldn't penetrate at all against Miami, and if not for some hot shooting would have lost by much more.

My real point though is that the higher the probability that a high seed can be upset, the easier the bracket is overall.

I've always been amused when people take the average rating of a region as evidence of it's strength. I think a better metric is the probability that the top four seeds advance to the second weekend; the higher, the more difficult.

[pamtar]

I agree. 1-4, the South is the most difficult. From Duke's perspective though, they have just about as hard of a 3 as the South. And since their 4 is weaker, it actually makes it tougher b/c theoretically, Louisville will have an easier game than they would if they had to play Michigan.

I think as a fan, you actually want to be in a very difficult bracket but in an easier side. That is why I like Miami's draw.

Agreed. If Miami doesn't make it to the elite 8 then they have grossly underachieved.

[FerryFor50]

Agreed. If Miami doesn't make it to the elite 8 then they have grossly underachieved.

I think it's a very real possibility. Miami hasn't been great in the later part of the season (ACCT notwithstanding).

I could see the 7/10 winner taking them out.

[pamtar]

I dunno. They played 3 really good games against desperate teams in the tourney. BC played them great for 35minutes until Miami's D pressure finallly cracked them. The State win was about the most impressive win they've had since beating us. And being able to survive UNC's offensive output today (although I think UNC derived much of that output from game pace) cannot be taken lightly. Plus, I'd argue that Larkin has gotten much better in the past two weeks. Watching him today I feel obligated to say that he's the best true PG in the country...

[FerryFor50]

I dunno. They played 3 really good games against desperate teams in the tourney. BC played them great for 35minutes until Miami's D pressure finallly cracked them. The State win was about the most impressive win they've had since beating us. And being able to survive UNC's offensive output today (although I think UNC derived much of that output from game pace) cannot be taken lightly. Plus, I'd argue that Larkin has gotten much better in the past two weeks. Watching him today I feel obligated to say that he's the best true PG in the country...

I think Trey Burke is better than Larkin...

[Deslok]

Just in case you don't have a love for Pomeroy ratings, here's the same data crunched for Massey Ratings, yielding similar results, though the variances are tempered down a bit, but the strength of the MidWest shows through again, the strength of the top of the South shows, along with the weakness of the bottom, and the reverse in the West, with the top weak and the bottom strong(potential for many upsets?) and the East is just weak all around.

masseySeeds.jpg

Two small details from the Pomeroy ratings, I had switched the regions of Michigan and Syracuse(East and South #4s) the net effect is minimal on the stats, but I was inaccurate on that account, and I was apparently loading on old source of the kenpom site, so the data was valid through March 10th, but not including the conference tourneys, so some of the rankings may be different now. My apologies for trying to rush and not noting the discrepancy.