DBR Podcast Episode #75: Tourney Time

[Dev11]

It's a big one this week!

Links:

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Timestamps:

Welcome to Podcast #75, Donald enjoys the fact that Duke is the ACC champion
2:00 ACC tournament thoughts – Jason is very impressed with Duke at crunch time, especially the way Tatum takes over games.
4:45 Kennard or Tatum, who was the best player in the ACC tourney?
6:40 Donald says the Louisville game set the tone for Duke’s success in the ACC tourney. This is a team that will not give up!
10:25 Sam was impressed with Duke’s defense and our depth
12:10 Time to talk about Harry Giles’ miracle minute against UNC
16:10 Donald pulls out a huge stat about… wait for it… Duke’s zone defense!
18:00 Jason wraps up the ACC tourney talk with a comment on versatility
21:30 NCAA Bracket chatter, starting with our thoughts on Duke’s seed and where we are playing
25:30 Jason previews the Troy Trojans, our first round opponent. Troy’s best player is the son/nephew of a pair of very famous NBA stars
32:00 Sam tries to figure out why Duke didn’t get a #1 seed which sends Jason off on a rant
36:50 Sam previews one potential 2nd round opponent, South Carolina
43:40 Donald previews the other potential 2nd round opponent, the Marquette fighting Wojos
50:25 We venture outside the East region to look at the rest of the bracket… and we make our upset picks.
1:03:50 Sam’s Final Four picks: Duke, Oregon, Gonzaga, and Wichita St
1:05:50 We pimp the DBR bracket challenge, you all need to join!!
1:06:45 Donald’s Final Four picks: Duke, Kansas, Arizona, and UCLA
1:07:45 Jason’s Final Four picks: Duke, Louisville, Gonzaga, and UNC
1:09:45 Player of the week, 2 obvious choices and a big surprise!
1:12:50 Parting Shot – Jason gives us a history lesson about Duke’s dominance over UNC in the ACC Tourney
1:14:25 Parting Shot – Donald on Michigan and the trouble with their airplane
1:16:20 Parting Shot – Sam thinks that stealing the internet helped Duke win the ACC
1:18:20 Goodbye and Duke band

[JasonEvans]

iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dbr-podcast/id954964236?mt=2)
Google Play (https://goo.gl/app/playmusic?ibi=com.google.PlayMusic&isi=691797987&ius=googleplaymusic&link=https://play.google.com/music/m/Ikxgkr6wboxnehrbaoqd47vw4gq?t%3DDuke_Basketball_Re port)
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1:16:20 Parting Shot – Sam thinks that stealing the internet helped Duke win the ACC

I'm not sure if the XFinity police are listening, but I want to assure them that Sam did not intentionally steal the internet.

[DukeDevil]

Jason, never say insurmountable 4 point lead in under a minute left again. J-Will would multiply that by 2.5, laugh, and beg to differ.

[JasonEvans]

Jason, never say insurmountable 4 point lead in under a minute left again. J-Will would multiply that by 2.5, laugh, and beg to differ.

As Mike Brey looked down his bench, there was no JWill sitting there ;)

[blazindw]

As Mike Brey looked down his bench, there was no JWill sitting there ;)

He should have looked further up, as J-Will was sitting at the top of the 100 level, Duke Blue sportcoat on, ready to talk about the winners on ESPN.

His eligibility is all gone though. :)

[Mal]

Was having a chat with someone elsewhere today, and it came to my attention that since 2004 12 seeds in the tourney are OVER .500 against the 5 seeds. Going all the way back to 1985 and expansion of the bracket, they've won exactly the same number of games as 11 seeds have, and there's a far greater discrepancy between their win percentage and that of the 13's than one would expect. With 128 game sample sizes we've got some significant data here, and the 12 seeds look like a clear outlier.

Would love to hear thoughts on theories as to why. I've got a couple, both conspiratorial and otherwise:

- overreliance on RPI and its overreliance on strength of schedule keeps leading crummy bubble teams to take 10 and 11 seeds despite being worse teams than the upset alert Bucknell/Harvard/Cornell/Western Kentucky types who have garbage s.o.s. compared to Power 5 teams;
- quality dropoff from 4 to 5 may be as large as it is from 5 to 7 or even 8. Drop below top 15 in the country and it means you were likely never a serious factor in your conference race, and there's little to differentiate you from your third place Big 12 finish and the team who finished 4th or 5th there (in fact, you probably tied with them in conference standings);
- there's a ton of tape out there on the numerous ways one can beat USC or whoever finished 7th or 8th in the B1G to get an 11 seed, but there's not much of a book on Middle Tennessee;
- the NCAA is so enamored of this 5/12 magic and the fact that it's become a thing that it, subconsciously or not, sets up for upsets.

[brevity]

Was having a chat with someone elsewhere today...

Yeah, that's not mysterious at all.

Under the 68-team format, the last at-large teams from multiple bid conferences fill up the 11-seed line. So 12 seeds are generally the best of the teams from one-bid conferences. (Ignore for a moment a team like 10-seed Wichita State, which would probably have taken an at-large bid had they not won their conference tournament.) At the same time 5 seeds generally are placed in a pod out of their control, with no geographical preference.

This year, the 5/12 matchups are Virginia/UNCW (in Orlando), Notre Dame/Princeton (in Buffalo), Iowa State/Nevada (in Milwaukee), and Minnesota/MTSU (also in Milwaukee). That last one looks manufactured by the Selection Committee for a few reasons, but the other three? They just look like potentially good games.

I discovered I enjoy the tournament more if I don't fill out a bracket, but if I had to guess, I would be mildly surprised if more than one 12 seed advanced, and stunned if more than two 5/12 upsets happened.

It's a worthy topic, but I'm not sure what else can be said about the phenomenon.

[Mal]

Yeah, that's not mysterious at all.

Not meant to be mysterious. I was just having lunch with a friend, we were discussing brackets, and he claimed picking 12 seeds isn't really an "upset" pick anymore since they win so often and it's all anyone talks about, so we checked the stats through our phones. 'Cause that's what we do in 2017, when immediate access to the entire universe of human knowledge is available through a little device in your pocket at all times, and we've taken all the fun out of barstool arguments.

In any event, it's pretty amazing that over the last 42 5/12 games the 12's have won 22 of them.

The reasons why those last bid from multiple bid conferences get those 11 line spots is the issue. They probably shouldn't in many cases, and should give way to the Ivy League champs who keep winning as 12's.

Agree with you re: this year, however. UVa and ND should be pretty bulletproof as 5's. Maybe we're blinkered as ACC followers, but UVa's smothering defense is something Wilmington's not used to, and Notre Dame's a danged good team for a 5 seed, as we saw last weekend. Minnesota's overseeded and MTSU underseeded and of course took down Michigan State last year in the biggest first round upset, so naturally all the experts have penciled that one in as the upset special. I think once you break down the matchups and styles, though, the Gophers should win nonetheless. Their interior defense is a strength, they've got height and size down low that MTSU hasn't faced all year, and MTSU's offense is geared around two 6'8" guys scoring from inside the arc (they're top 30 in the country in 2 pt. FG%). On the other end of the court, Minnesota's not a 3-ball team and likes to pound it inside and/or penetrate and dish to their large guys, and I'm not sure MTSU has the right bodies to stop them from doing that at will. In other words, they do roughly the same things, but one's been doing it in the B1G all year and the other in Conference USA. MTSU shot 11-19 from 3 and over 50% overall against MSU last year, then went and got shellacked by Syracuse, so it's up for debate which performance was the real them.

I know nothing about either Iowa State or Nevada, though.

[Mal]

Forgot to add that I needed to amend one statement from my post last night due to faulty math. The 12's actually have a 42% success rate since '04, not a better than .500 record against the 5's. Still abnormally high, of course, but not quite as absurd as I'd stated. That's what one gets for adding up things on their phone and then doing math in their head - they use the wrong denominator.