Tuesday, March 18, 2014

2014 NCAA Tournament – Field Analysis



We are coming off projecting 67 of the Field of 68, just like Jerry Palm & Joe Lunardi; we missed SMU, which was one of our last four teams in the field (unlike those two who had them safely in) as we blogged & tweeted multiple times last week their resume wasn’t as strong as many led you to believe.  We also expected one surprise team to show up in the field, and it was NC State snagging that bid.  We also only missed 4 at-large teams that made final field from our original projection on January 31.

Now that the field is set here is some analysis using the SBPI on each region:





ADJ RATINGS
Team
NCAA Seed
REGION

RANK
Florida
1
SOUTH

1
Arizona
1
WEST

2
Virginia
1
EAST

7
Wichita State
1
MIDWEST

31
Villanova
2
EAST

3
Wisconsin
2
WEST

8
Michigan
2
MIDWEST

13
Kansas
2
SOUTH

17
Duke
3
MIDWEST

4
Syracuse
3
SOUTH

15
Iowa State
3
EAST

24
Creighton
3
WEST

30
Louisville
4
MIDWEST

9
San Diego State
4
WEST

12
Michigan State
4
EAST

14
UCLA
4
SOUTH

23
VCU
5
SOUTH

11
Cincinnati
5
EAST

19
Oklahoma
5
WEST

27
Saint Louis
5
MIDWEST

38
Ohio State
6
SOUTH

5
Baylor
6
WEST

16
North Carolina
6
EAST

22
Massachusetts
6
MIDWEST

36
Oregon
7
WEST

25
Connecticut
7
EAST

37
Texas
7
MIDWEST

43
New Mexico
7
SOUTH

59
Kentucky
8
MIDWEST

21
Memphis
8
EAST

34
Colorado
8
SOUTH

35
Gonzaga
8
WEST

55
Pittsburgh
9
SOUTH

10
Oklahoma State
9
WEST

29
Kansas State
9
MIDWEST

42
George Washington
9
EAST

45
Stanford
10
SOUTH

39
Arizona State
10
MIDWEST

46
Brigham Young
10
WEST

51
Saint Joseph's
10
EAST

54
Tennessee
11
MIDWEST

6
Iowa
11
MIDWEST

18
Providence
11
EAST

20
Dayton
11
SOUTH

47
Nebraska
11
WEST

56
Xavier
12
MIDWEST

40
Harvard
12
EAST

70
North Carolina State
12
MIDWEST

79
North Dakota State
12
WEST

87
Stephen F. Austin
12
SOUTH

173
Tulsa
13
SOUTH

90
Manhattan
13
MIDWEST

99
Delaware
13
EAST

155
New Mexico State
13
WEST

164
Louisiana-Lafayette
14
WEST

107
Mercer
14
MIDWEST

166
Western Michigan
14
SOUTH

220
North Carolina Central
14
EAST

255
Milwaukee
15
EAST

161
Eastern Kentucky
15
SOUTH

190
Wofford
15
MIDWEST

211
American University
15
WEST

217
Cal Poly
16
MIDWEST

117
Mount St. Mary's
16
SOUTH

201
Weber State
16
WEST

247
Albany
16
SOUTH

257
Coastal Carolina
16
EAST

302
Texas Southern
16
MIDWEST

323

The above matrix shows each team in the Field of 68 first sorted by seed, and secondarily sorted using their ranking in my SBPI (detailed explanation of which can be found in prior blog entries).  We then wanted to test each region’s strength using SBPI on three levels:

  1. Entire region (taking the average SBPI rating of the teams involved in the 4 play-in games)
  2. Top 8 in each region
  3. Top 4 in each region


AVG RANK
TOP 8 AVG RANK
TOP 4 AVG RANK
SOUTH
72.8
20.8
14.0
EAST
76.4
20.0
12.0
WEST
70.8
21.9
13.0
MIDWEST
65.7
24.4
14.3

The lower a score above the tougher the region – meaning we see some interesting scenarios.  While the Midwest is clearly the toughest region from top to bottom it is also ranked as the easiest when isolating the Top 8 & Top 4 teams in the region.  A lot of the “strength” in the Midwest region is coming from the 11 line where the play-in game between Tennessee & Providence comes between two teams with an average rating of 12; the other three regions have ratings on the 11 line of 20, 47 & 56.  On the flip side the East region is clearly the weakest #1-16 but is also the toughest using Top 8 & Top 4 teams.  Of the top 8 seeds the East does not have the weakest ranked team on any of the eight lines.

Check back during the week for additional analysis on the tournament.

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