Sweet 16 Power Rankings

A nice bonus from the way I do this analysis is that it also gives me a power rating for each team. Here are the Sweet 16 participants in order of team strength. Louisville is only the 4th best team remaining, but due to match-ups, has the 2nd best odds of winning.

Sweet 16 Update

In case you missed the explanation from last week, I've taken the Vegas odds for various events (odds for each team to win the title, odds for each team to advance to the Final 4, and odds for the Sweet 16 match-ups) and used them to determine the strength of each team. This allows me to then calculate the probabilities for each team in each round.

The Vegas lines are generally incredibly accurate because even the slightest mistake can cost the sportsbooks millions of dollars from savvy bettors. Here are the updated numbers for the second weekend:



Not much to analyze here as the numbers really speak for themselves and there aren't really any surprises in the numbers like we saw in some of the earlier rounds. Kansas has about a 47% chance of advancing to their 6th Elite 8 in the past 8 seasons. All but one of the 2 vs 3 match-ups look like near toss-ups. The Tarheels and Cardinals should advance fairly easily into the next round, and UNC is still the clear favorite.

Bracket update - Right side

I've taken the projections from earlier in the week that were based on Vegas odds and updated them for the results thus far. Here's the right side...





Gonzaga benefits from the Illini upset, though they're still looking at a probable UNC match-up in the Sweet 16. No upsets of any kind thus far in the East.

Bracket update - Left side

I've taken the projections from earlier in the week that were based on Vegas odds and updated them for the results thus far. Here's the left side...





The only significant upset on this whole half of the bracket so far is Dayton over West Virginia. It's good to be Kansas.

Calculating what to watch

Thanks to CBS's March Madness on Demand we now have the power to watch any game we want and I intend to make the most of it. I've made a simple formula using the strength of each team, closeness of the match-up, strength of the offenses, and upset chances to calculate the "games to watch" today. It's more an art than a science, but it's a start. 100% represents the "ideal" game.

Morning Games
12:20 EDT (9) Butler vs (8) LSU (56.8%) This game will at least be close and is a bit better than the other 8 vs 9.
12:25 EDT (15) CSU Northridge vs (2) Memphis (36.7%)
12:30 EDT (9) Texas A&M vs (8) BYU (59.3)

Afternoon Games
2:30 EDT (12) Northern Iowa vs (5) Purdue (52.6%)
2:50 EDT (16) Radford vs (1) UNC (26.6%)
2:55 EDT (10) Maryland vs (7) California (54.9%) I'll pass on the 1 vs 16 blowouts, solid evenly-matched game here.
3:00 EDT (16) Chattanooga vs (1) Conecticut (23.1%)

Evening Games
4:55 EDT (13) Mississippi St. vs (4) Washington (53.9%)
7:10 EDT (10) Minnesota vs (7) Texas (57.3%) This is a game I was already looking forward to, should go down to the wire.
7:10 EDT (10) Michigan vs (7) Clemson (54.3%)
7:20 EDT (14) American vs (3) Villanova (33.8%)
7:25 EDT (13) Akron vs (4) Gonzaga (40.0%)

Night Games
9:40 EDT (15) Binghamton vs (2) Duke (25.4%)
9:40 EDT (15) Morgan St. vs (2) Oklahoma (26.9%)
9:50 EDT (11) VCU vs (6) UCLA (66.6%) Possible upset, both teams are underrated. WKU vs UI shouldn't be too close.
9:55 EDT (12) Western Kentucky vs (5) Illinois (37.4%).

Of course, the beauty of MMOD is you can alway switch over for an upset in the making. I'll do this again early tomorrow morning for day 2 of the tournament. I'll also post some fresh NCAA tournament bracket calculations after the first two days of games

Bracket secret #1

March Madness Bracket Secret #1 - Be contrarian
In the previous post I established that you generally want to pick the best team in any given match-up. Now we can talk about the other side of that argument. There is an advantage to be gained by going against the grain with a pick.

Here's a super simplified example. Let's say 10 people are tied coming into the championship game. UNC is playing Memphis and is 60% to win. Which team do you hope you've picked in your bracket? The answer is it depends on the other 9 people. For example, let's say 7 of them picked UNC and 2 picked Memphis:

If you picked UNC
60% of the time they win, you are now in an 8 way tie and have a 1 in 8 shot of winning the tiebreaker (60% * 1/8 = 7.5% chance of winning)
40% of the time UNC loses, and you lose

But, if you picked Memphis
60% of the time they lose, and you lose
40% of the time they win, you are in a 3 way tie and have a 1 in 3 shot (40% * 1/3 = 13.3%)

As you can see picking the less likely result has actually nearly doubled your chances of winning. Of course, your real bracket situation is not nearly this simple, but the same principles apply. Try to identify underrated teams to select, especially in the Final 4 and beyond. I'm not talking about trying to pick the next George Mason, the odds just don't justify it, but considering looking for an unpopular 2 or 3 seed (or even a 1 seed) with a good shot.

This year UNC is a huge favorite, but they're also an extremely popular pick. A team like UConn on the other hand has a really difficult path (thanks mostly to Memphis), but still has a great shot. If you're in a pool that is likely to lean a certain way (a pool full of Pitt fans, or UNC-haters, or whatever else) use that information to your advantage because it is a big advantage. Another great resource is the National Bracket on ESPN that shows the popular picks through out the NCAA basketball tournament.

That's all for now, I'd love to hear your feedback on this, and suggestions for teams that are flying under the radar this year that can help you differentiate from the field.

Bracket fallacy #1

I wanted to take a quick few minutes to point out 1 common bracket fallacy and also give you a positive piece of advice to go with it. I'll have a couple more posts in the vein this week.

Bracket Fallacy #1 - Upsets happen, so you have to pick upsets to win
There are valid reasons to pick upsets, but this isn't one of them. Inevitably you'll hear someone tell you something like "typically at least one 12-seed beats a 5-seed during each tournament" (12s have won 32% of the time against 4s), so you'd better pick a 12 in there somewhere!" If you look at those numbers though, you're twice as likely to be right when picking a 5 as you are when picking a 12. 5s are usually just flat out better basketball teams.

We can actually calculate some odds on this:

Your odds of being right picking all #5s: 68% * 68% * 68% * 68% = 21.4%
Your odds of picking 3 #5s right AND a #12 right: 68% * 68% * 68% * 32% = 10.1%

The reality it's more likely the 5s will sweep this year than it is that you'll pick just the right 12 seed. In fact, what often happens is your 12-seed pick loses while another one wins meaning you've now lost 2 of the 5/12 match-ups. Now there are plenty of cases where a 12 is a valid pick on it's own (see Wisconsin and Arizona), but never pick an upset just for the sake of picking an upset. I see it all the time and you're really shooting yourself in the foot. Predicting that upsets will happen during March Madness and predicting which upsets will happen are completely different things.