Thursday - Round of 64 Tournament Discussion

[Udaman]

Rather than having all of these inside each thread....thought we could talk about all the games going on today across all the regions.

Some thoughts:

Michigan State is....Michigan State. Big guys down low and guards that can give them the ball. It's amazing how all of their teams just seem the same with different people. Valpo got abused on the boards, but boy did they miss a ton of wide open shots. In one stretch they were down 14, and got intentionally fouled with just over 6 minutes left. The guy missed both free throws then they threw up a brick, then Michigan State missed, then Valpo threw up another brick. That was the game right there. Was also surprised that Valpo just seemed content to let the clock run out at the end - say the last 4 minutes instead of fouling and putting Michigan State on the line....and yet they were still playing like they were trying to win on offense. Very odd.

St. Louis looks great. This is just confirming that our bracket is by far the hardest (in my opinion).

The Big East is not having a good start with Pittsburgh getting embarrased. I think I might have taken the bait and actually picked them to beat Gonzaga in one of my brackets. Boy was that a dumb pick.

Go Davidson!!!! (yeah, I know, it's early)

[mr. synellinden]

Rather than having all of these inside each thread....thought we could talk about all the games going on today across all the regions.

Some thoughts:

Michigan State is....Michigan State. Big guys down low and guards that can give them the ball. It's amazing how all of their teams just seem the same with different people. Valpo got abused on the boards, but boy did they miss a ton of wide open shots. In one stretch they were down 14, and got intentionally fouled with just over 6 minutes left. The guy missed both free throws then they threw up a brick, then Michigan State missed, then Valpo threw up another brick. That was the game right there. Was also surprised that Valpo just seemed content to let the clock run out at the end - say the last 4 minutes instead of fouling and putting Michigan State on the line....and yet they were still playing like they were trying to win on offense. Very odd.

St. Louis looks great. This is just confirming that our bracket is by far the hardest (in my opinion).

The Big East is not having a good start with Pittsburgh getting embarrased. I think I might have taken the bait and actually picked them to beat Gonzaga in one of my brackets. Boy was that a dumb pick.

Go Davidson!!!! (yeah, I know, it's early)

Yeah, I did too - picked Pitt to the Final 8. Not making KenPom look so good - he had Pitt rated 8th in the country.

[jv001]

One thing that I've noticed today and also this year. Points are hard to come by. The physical play is making it hard to score. St. Louis and Wichita State look really good defensively. GoDuke!

[Gmadaduke]

One thing that I've noticed today and also this year. Points are hard to come by. The physical play is making it hard to score. St. Louis and Wichita State look really good defensively. GoDuke!

I was literally about to make the same comment. So many commentators have mentioned how college basketball has grown similar to college football in grind 'em out, low scoring games. I guess in our lovely conference (while it lasts), we're spoiled by teams like Duke and the fellas down the road who can actually score the ball and put on a show. This Memphis game is u-g-l-y.

[BlueDevilBrowns]

If Memphis holds on against St Mary's, I think they'll give MSU a serious run on Saturday. They're not huge, but they're crazy athletic and have a quick PG, too.

The only problem is Pastnor. Pastnor vs. Izzo is a little bit of a mismatch.

[jv001]

I was literally about to make the same comment. So many commentators have mentioned how college basketball has grown similar to college football in grind 'em out, low scoring games. I guess in our lovely conference (while it lasts), we're spoiled by teams like Duke and the fellas down the road who can actually score the ball and put on a show. This Memphis game is u-g-l-y.

I hate to root for Memphis but I have them on most all of my brackets to win this game. But not to beat Mich. State. GoDuke!

[pfrduke]

Yeah, I did too - picked Pitt to the Final 8. Not making KenPom look so good - he had Pitt rated 8th in the country.

Pitt was a 73% favorite, meaning even according to that ranking system they lose that game 1 out of every 4 times it's played. Results in a single game are not an indictment of a ranking system. No one says the AP is fatally flawed just because an unranked team beats the #8 team - why is a rating system fatally flawed just because the #34 team beats the #8 team in one game on a neutral floor.*

*please don't take this as an argument that Pomeroy's system is infallible or even the best. I don't happen to agree that Pitt is the 8th best team in the country. But it doesn't "look bad" just because a highly ranked team loses.

[Udaman]

Could we have our first #1 seed fall? Gonzaga only up by 3 at the half.....

[Frobisher]

Pitt was a 73% favorite, meaning even according to that ranking system they lose that game 1 out of every 4 times it's played. Results in a single game are not an indictment of a ranking system. No one says the AP is fatally flawed just because an unranked team beats the #8 team - why is a rating system fatally flawed just because the #34 team beats the #8 team in one game on a neutral floor.*

*please don't take this as an argument that Pomeroy's system is infallible or even the best. I don't happen to agree that Pitt is the 8th best team in the country. But it doesn't "look bad" just because a highly ranked team loses.

The score of the game, the dominance, and the eye test show that it looked a lot more like Pitt was a 27% favorite and would win 1 of four, if that. And it wasn't just cold shooting that resulted in the 20 point margin.

[sporthenry]

Pitt was a 73% favorite, meaning even according to that ranking system they lose that game 1 out of every 4 times it's played. Results in a single game are not an indictment of a ranking system. No one says the AP is fatally flawed just because an unranked team beats the #8 team - why is a rating system fatally flawed just because the #34 team beats the #8 team in one game on a neutral floor.*

*please don't take this as an argument that Pomeroy's system is infallible or even the best. I don't happen to agree that Pitt is the 8th best team in the country. But it doesn't "look bad" just because a highly ranked team loses.

Agreed. Conversely, he had Marquette rated as the worst 3 seed and only a 66% favorite which makes his system look good. The individual game isn't an indictment of his system but it does seem that a lot of the time when the eye test and the numbers diverge with the top teams, those teams aren't nearly as good as the numbers suggest i.e. Pittsburgh or Wisconsin.

[mr. synellinden]

Pitt was a 73% favorite, meaning even according to that ranking system they lose that game 1 out of every 4 times it's played. Results in a single game are not an indictment of a ranking system. No one says the AP is fatally flawed just because an unranked team beats the #8 team - why is a rating system fatally flawed just because the #34 team beats the #8 team in one game on a neutral floor.*

*please don't take this as an argument that Pomeroy's system is infallible or even the best. I don't happen to agree that Pitt is the 8th best team in the country. But it doesn't "look bad" just because a highly ranked team loses.

Agreed on the one game is not an indictment notion - it was just that they lost so badly. I never said anything about fatally flawed - just that it such a bad loss by the 8th rated team doesn't make it look good.
I am a huge fan of KenPom and generally believe in its predictive abilities.

Speaking of not looking so good - Marquette is on the ropes right now. A loss would be another blow to the Big East, and I think they've been very overrated as a conference all season. It's why I'm not as big a believer in Louisville as most others seem to be.

[vick]

The score of the game, the dominance, and the eye test show that it looked a lot more like Pitt was a 27% favorite and would win 1 of four, if that. And it wasn't just cold shooting that resulted in the 20 point margin.

Pomeroy's system may overrate slow-paced teams with large efficiency margins, but I think you exaggerate how meaningful a 20 point margin is--we don't really have evidence from rematches on neutral courts, since those are relatively rare, but when a team wins a home game by 20 they win barely half of rematches (http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/entry/evidence_that_scoring_margin_matters). People really overestimate how much they can read into a single game in basketball.

[gwlaw99]

Wow. Did Davidson blow it.

[Udaman]

That was stunning (Davidson, that is). And I had them in several brackets. How did they choke that badly? Unbelievable.

[Bluedog]

Davidson made their free throws down the stretch, so it wasn't a typical "choke." But they had a terrible terrible turnover with 6 seconds left and Marquette kept kitting prayer 3s. Darn, I had them winning.

[burnspbesq]

That was stunning (Davidson, that is). And I had them in several brackets. How did they choke that badly? Unbelievable.

That was absolutely the farthest thing imaginable from a choke. Davidson did exactly what you do down the stretch against a bad three-point shooting team: dare them to beat you by shooting threes. Marquette probably hasn't made three threes in a row all season. Until today. Stuff happens.

[wallyman]

That was absolutely the farthest thing imaginable from a choke. Davidson did exactly what you do down the stretch against a bad three-point shooting team: dare them to beat you by shooting threes. Marquette probably hasn't made three threes in a row all season. Until today. Stuff happens.

Yeah, but that final turnover was what lost the game...

[davekay1971]

Southern ain't going away, are they?

[uh_no]

Southern ain't going away, are they?

:(

Can we say that gonzaga has been exposed?

[Frobisher]

:(

Can we say that gonzaga has been exposed?

Ha.
Seriously, though, doesn't it seem like there have been many teams in the past who have had that scare game the first weekend, get it out of their system, and then start winning handily for a few rounds? I'd say that's more likely here than Gonzaga losing on Saturday.

Hated that Davidson loss. Prayer threes and one bad turnover erased 38 minutes of winning ball. The Marquette players even tried to grab a foul before the pass, but whiffed on it...had the foul been called, more than likely that's game over.

[sporthenry]

Ha.
Seriously, though, doesn't it seem like there have been many teams in the past who have had that scare game the first weekend, get it out of their system, and then start winning handily for a few rounds? I'd say that's more likely here than Gonzaga losing on Saturday.

I thought DBR had some stat where it was the other way around. A close first game usually signaled an early exit.

[sagegrouse]

I thought DBR had some stat where it was the other way around. A close first game usually signaled an early exit.

In the 12 Sweet Sixteens games since 1998, Duke has five wins and seven losses.

For the wins the average winning margin in the rounds of 64 and 32 was 28.7 points (36.8, 20.6).

For the losses the average winning margin was 11.3 points less: 17.4 points (25.3, 9.4).

Based on suggestive, although maybe not statistically significant, data, victory margin is linked to success.

I'll now look at correlation. The correlation coefficient between the victory margin in the Sweet Sixteen (positive or negative) with the sum of the victory margins in the rounds of 64 and 32 is a very healthy +0.71.

sagegrouse

[loran16]

Ha.
Seriously, though, doesn't it seem like there have been many teams in the past who have had that scare game the first weekend, get it out of their system, and then start winning handily for a few rounds? I'd say that's more likely here than Gonzaga losing on Saturday.

Hated that Davidson loss. Prayer threes and one bad turnover erased 38 minutes of winning ball. The Marquette players even tried to grab a foul before the pass, but whiffed on it...had the foul been called, more than likely that's game over.

In 06, UConn was down 10 to Albany with 10 to play. Made Elite 8.

Not worried about the Zags.

[gofurman]

I thought DBR had some stat where it was the other way around. A close first game usually signaled an early exit.

Anecdotally this has happened on occasion. Florida hit a last second shot to win back in 2001 in the first game and then went all he way through to the final before losing to msu. The winning shot came vs ? Some team named Butler

[sporthenry]

In 06, UConn was down 10 to Albany with 10 to play. Made Elite 8.

Not worried about the Zags.

Just looking back. In the last 10 or so years, the only other 1 seed to win single digits was last year's Syracuse team who went to the E8. But 2 seeds like Villnova against RMU or Duke against Belmont who had similar single digit wins ended up losing in the next round.

[sporthenry]

Anecdotally this has happened on occasion. Florida hit a last second shot to win back in 2001 in the first game and then went all he way through to the final before losing to msu. The winning shot came vs ? Some team named Butler

They were a 5 seed though and playing a 12 seed which I would argue is much different than a 15/16 seed.

[Reilly]

26 years, 1 day ago:

http://goduke.statsgeek.com/basketball-m/games/boxscore.php?gameid=19870320

Tonight's game pretty close, too.

[BlueDevilBrowns]

In 06, UConn was down 10 to Albany with 10 to play. Made Elite 8.

Not worried about the Zags.

True, but something like 20 of the last 24 champs have won their 1st 2 games by at least double digits. I looked it up last year but too tired to do so now at the moment.

Stats like this don't really mean anything as far as predictive value, but interesting nonetheless.

[cato]

Florida hit a last second shot to win back in 2001 in the first game and then went all he way through to the final before losing to msu.

Wait.

What?

[chaosmage]

Is Akron that bad or are they that good? Dear gods above, that looked like a 1 beating up a 16!

Enjoying the Harvard/NM game. When NM went up (just now), I get the feeling that Harvard NEEDS to keep the lead. Not sure why.

Go Devils! Have to work through the game, but as someone mentioned, I have PTSD from last year, so I'll be a lot less stressed after tomorrow.

Side note: Wife bought me a 39" Sharp Aquos for the man-cave -- AWESOME!

[ice-9]

Rather than having all of these inside each thread....thought we could talk about all the games going on today across all the regions.

Some thoughts:

Michigan State is....Michigan State. Big guys down low and guards that can give them the ball. It's amazing how all of their teams just seem the same with different people. Valpo got abused on the boards, but boy did they miss a ton of wide open shots. In one stretch they were down 14, and got intentionally fouled with just over 6 minutes left. The guy missed both free throws then they threw up a brick, then Michigan State missed, then Valpo threw up another brick. That was the game right there. Was also surprised that Valpo just seemed content to let the clock run out at the end - say the last 4 minutes instead of fouling and putting Michigan State on the line....and yet they were still playing like they were trying to win on offense. Very odd.

St. Louis looks great. This is just confirming that our bracket is by far the hardest (in my opinion).

The Big East is not having a good start with Pittsburgh getting embarrased. I think I might have taken the bait and actually picked them to beat Gonzaga in one of my brackets. Boy was that a dumb pick.

Go Davidson!!!! (yeah, I know, it's early)



Point of process...

If we're going to have an aggregate thread, then what's the individual region discussion threads for? Doesn't it further fragment the conversation?

[sporthenry]

Wait.

What?

He meant in 2000, when Florida knocked Duke out in the S16, they had a 1 point win over Butler.

[cato]

He meant in 2000, when Florida knocked Duke out in the S16, they had a 1 point win over Butler.

Ah, yes. Forgot about that Florida team. Now I wish I hadn't asked.

[TexHawk]

Is Akron that bad or are they that good? Dear gods above, that looked like a 1 beating up a 16!

Akron was missing two starters due to the flu, and one reserve from a back injury incurred in warmups. Throw that on top of their all-conference PG who was suspended for allegedly dealing drugs a couple weeks ago. A #16 seed would have beaten them pretty badly tonight.

[BigZ]

Those Harvard dorks just ruined my bracket.

[brevity]

Point of process...

If we're going to have an aggregate thread, then what's the individual region discussion threads for? Doesn't it further fragment the conversation?

Not a moderator, but the aggregate thread for Thursday worked because anyone who wants to comment on Akron/VCU shouldn't be bothered to figure out what region that is.

I imagine that the region threads continue to be useful in evaluating matchups for the next known round, and the West thread will be primed for Selection Committee conspiracy theories as the results lack predictable form. (My way of suggesting that Ohio State, Kansas State, and Wisconsin might all be gone by this weekend.)

[ice-9]

Not a moderator, but the aggregate thread for Thursday worked because anyone who wants to comment on Akron/VCU shouldn't be bothered to figure out what region that is.

I imagine that the region threads continue to be useful in evaluating matchups for the next known round, and the West thread will be primed for Selection Committee conspiracy theories as the results lack predictable form. (My way of suggesting that Ohio State, Kansas State, and Wisconsin might all be gone by this weekend.)


I hear what you're saying, but the other conclusion is that those regional threads are obsolete with this one around. Now I'm not sure where to post my thoughts on the Arizona-Belmont game...here or in the West regional thread?

[ArtVandelay]

In 06, UConn was down 10 to Albany with 10 to play. Made Elite 8.

Not worried about the Zags.
I'm worried about the Zags (and by worried I mean picking against them) not because of their margin of victory yesterday (although that can't be good for the confidence of Gonzaga fans) but because they really haven't beaten all that many good teams this year. As Jay Bilas would say, what they have shown is the ability to lose to good teams -- beat by Butler and soundly beaten by Illinois. I'm not buying the Gonzaga hype. Could be proven wrong due to the weak bracket...