WSJ on NCAA tourney performance

[MChambers]

For those of you who have access to the Wall Street Journal, there is an interesting article today about NCAA tournament performance, which includes this gem:

"Here's something to make North Carolina fans spit out their coffee: Since 1985, Duke has played more than 60 tournament games as a No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3 seed and in those games, it has beaten its expected performance by an average of three points. In other words, Duke isn't as coddled and overrated as some people think and -- for the purpose of filling out a good bracket -- they're a pretty good bet to live up to their seeding."

[Mike Corey]

Here's a link to the story.

There's some great stuff in here, in addition to the above excerpt about Duke:

The data show that the most overrated schools are second-tier teams from top conferences. Exhibit A is Wake Forest, which has probably burned more brackets than any other team in three decades. Since 1985, the Demon Deacons have ranked between a No. 1 and No. 4 seed six different times, and only once, in 1996, did they advance beyond the third round. That year, Wake got blown out by 20 points in its quarterfinal matchup against Kentucky. In all those games Wake played 5.5 points below the average and never beat a higher-seeded team. "I'm glad we're number one in something," says Ron Wellman, Wake's athletic director. Mr. Wellman says the school has probably benefited from playing in the rugged Atlantic Coast Conference.

[bdh21]

For those of you who have access to the Wall Street Journal, there is an interesting article today about NCAA tournament performance, which includes this gem:

"Here's something to make North Carolina fans spit out their coffee: Since 1985, Duke has played more than 60 tournament games as a No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3 seed and in those games, it has beaten its expected performance by an average of three points. In other words, Duke isn't as coddled and overrated as some people think and -- for the purpose of filling out a good bracket -- they're a pretty good bet to live up to their seeding."

That analysis is highly dependent on the time frame you observe. From 1985-1994 Duke's tournament results greatly exceeded historical results based on seed. But from 1996-2007 I believe Duke has slightly underperformed their expected results based on seeding.

That is not too surprising though. I think it will be a looooooong time before anyone matches Duke's 1986-1994 run: 7 final fours in 9 years.