Conference Tournament Previews: Pac-10

Here are the Pomeroy percentages for each team advancing to each round of the Pac-10 tournament, which begins on Wednesday:

Oregon St. does have a non-zero chance of winning this thing, but I would have had to make the last column extremely wide to express that. More on them later.

Despite their questionable performance this weekend, UCLA is clearly the best team here. The Cal game made me question how they stack up with other elite teams in the country, but none of those teams reside in the Pac-10.

Washington St. and Stanford have had their struggles, but are both excellent teams. The Cougars lost three consecutive home games in the middle of conference play, but are 6-2 since. The Tree is currently on a two game losing streak, but it's hard to fault them for road losses to UCLA and USC, especially considering the nature of the former defeat. 13-5 in the Pac-10 should not be overlooked, even if their most difficult non-conference opponent was Texas Tech.

USC stands alone in fourth, and then comes a slew of bubble teams. Arizona finished only 8-10 in the Pac-10. But they were missing Bayless for three of those losses, and have the #1 RPI SOS. If they can beat the lowly Beavers tomorrow, they're likely in. Oregon and Arizona St. both finished at .500 in conference. Either would punch their ticket with a win in the quarters, but that won't come easily, as ASU faces USC, and Oregon plays against Washington St. Either way, Thursday is shaping up to be the most exciting day of the tournament.

Now, onto the odds. All of yesterday's disclaimers apply to the following table, which is the Pomeroy odds, my adjusted odds, the best odds available, and where those odds are located.

Are you noticing the pattern with this? Sometimes the top teams have worthwhile odds; sometimes they don't. But the bottom teams never have good odds. I think this speaks to two things. One, it's more fun to bet on a team at +3000 than +500. Second, and this probably the main reason, people don't understand odds. What I mean is people don't realize that betting on a team at +200 in three consecutive games is better than getting them at 20:1. This is somewhat counterintuitive, and if you don't work it out (the former is equivalent to +2600), it's easy to sympathize with this misunderstanding.

That being said, it would be asking a lot for books to offer fair odds- 2.5 million to 1- on Oregon St. Hopefully you now understand why I rounded it off to zero in the initial table.

Washington St. at +650 is the best look here. People forgot about them because of the mid-season swoon, but Pomeroy still has them as the #10 team in the country. Their odds, and UCLA's, are likely marginally better than market value (the odds on single games), but nothing like Louisville at +350. Speaking of the Cardinals, they're now down to +250 at BetUS. The only surprise there is that it took so long for them to change it.