Rock Chalk Championship

11:58 I don't know if I can coherently write about that game. I definitely can't right now. Check back in a minute.

12:03 John Calipari, on his team's free throw shooting (video):

"I never worried about it because I know my guys are mentally tough and they've got good mechanics."

12:11 So, I guess all this insanity started after Arthur hit the long two (terrible shot selection) to pull within 7 with 1:57 left. After a timeout, Kansas got a steal on the inbound, and Collins hit a 3 from the wing. This gave KU some life. I will admit that at this point I started yelling at the TV (and the people around me that they should not foul. You do not foul, down 4, with 1:39 left. It is bad basketball strategy. You have plenty of time, you need to get a stop. This time, it didn't work out, as CDR hit both to get the lead back to 6. Chalmers hit a pair on the other end, and then things really got wacky.

People really went overboard with this whole "Memphis is shooting FTs well now". Their percentage was higher in previous games because Rose and CDR, who were good FT shooters throughout the season, were taking almost all of Memphis' shots from the line. Joey Dorsey didn't suddenly become a good shooter or anything.

Either way, I guess it doesn't really matter. Up 4, CDR missed a front end, then, with 16 seconds left, he missed both after Arthur scored to bring the Jayhawks within 2. Incredibly, Dozier came across the lane and got the rebound, and kicked it out to Rose, who was fouled. As he got fouled, he passed it to Douglas-Roberts, who spiked the ball into the ground. I thought this could have easily been a technical, but I guess I wouldn't want the championship to be decided on something like that.

I really thought Rose was going to make both. He missed the first, and made the second (which was good, because Memphis probably would've gotten the rebound otherwise). Calipari is saying right now that they wanted to foul at this point- up 63-60, with 10 seconds left. I'm not sure how they didn't, I'd have to see the replay again. But if you don't know what happened next, well, look at the picture above.

12:31 Calipari is focusing on how Memphis didn't have Dorsey (fouled out with 1:23 left) in overtime, and for good reason. Rush opened up OT with a layup, and then Arthur and Jackson scored on Kansas' next two possessions. Arthur had an absolutely brilliant game- 9/13 from the floor, 10 boards, 2/2 from the line, 20 points. Chalmers (deservedly) won the most outstanding player, but Arthur was the team's MVP for the first 39 minutes, on offense at least. I thought that would be a key to the game, and it was- Arthur and Jackson shot a combined 71% from the floor.

Kansas took a commanding lead with 1:09 left when Rush missed a layup on a fast break, but got his own rebound and scored, putting the Jayhawks up 6. CDR hit a 3 afterwards, but Chalmers and Collins knocked down their FTs, and KU won, 75-68.

12:45 Reporter asks Chalmers, essentially, "Are you aware of what you just did?"

Chalmers answer: "No, not really."

12:48 The announcers were saying, I hope sarcastically, that maybe Rose's struggles in the first half were because of his stomach issues. Robinson did an absolutely brilliant job on him. Sure, he ended up with 18 points, but he was only 7/17 from the field, and also had 5 turnovers.

1:04 Collins got fouled on that drive, down 2 with 20ish seconds left. Just wanted to include that. Also, it's a good thing that they reviewed that Rose circus "three", isn't it.

1:25 Continuing a discussion in the comments, Calipari said that the review rule regarding the Rose 3 should be changed. I am pretty sure he was kidding though, as he had a smirk on his face after answering the question.

1:33 Just to be clear- Chalmers' foot was behind the line.

1:53 Chris Douglas-Roberts had an absolutely fantastic tournament. He dominated the UCLA game, and kept Memphis in it in the first half when Rose only had 3 points. The free throws were unfortunate, but the kid can really play.

1:55 One Shining Moment.

1:58 Congratulations to reader Scott, whose bracket won the Deadspin pool.

It is good to see that some guy who had no idea what he was doing won the entire ESPN Tourney challenge. USC and Vandy in the Sweet 16. Congratulations to him, I guess. (To be fair, he did have Davidson in the Elite 8, and WV in the Sweet 16, which is obviously what enabled him to win.)

2:13 Last thing. Bilas makes a great point, accompanied by the replay. Rose was absolutely not trying to foul at the end of regulation. He could've easily fouled Collins at halfcourt; he had his hands up. Calipari may have wanted his players to foul, but you kind of need to communicate that to them.

And Knight is saying that you have to count in your head to 6, and then foul. I don't agree with that at all. If you do that, you end up fouling Chalmers as he's shooting, and you've really got a mess on your hands. You foul Collins as he is approaching/passing halfcourt. Needless to say, I don't agree with this, either.

Photo: Getty Images via Yahoo!

*Now* It's Over, Billy

(If you don't get the reference in the title, go here.)

Kansas 84, North Carolina 66

Wow.

The difference in this game was defense, especially on the interior. Both of these teams have all kinds of weapons on offense, we knew that coming in. UNC's offense is probably a little better, but it's close.

Defensively, KU is in another league. I don't think there's a group of guards in the country that are better on D than Chalmers, Rush, and Robinson. Ty Lawson was a complete non-factor- 2/8 from the field, 2 assists, 2 turnovers from a guy who shoots 52% with a 2.4-1 assist to turnover ratio. Ellington didn't get nearly as many open looks as he normally does in that offense, shooting 1/9 from 3.

The main reason Kansas won the game because UNC couldn't stop them down low, and they shot 59% (29/49) from 2. When Kansas was getting the ball inside- both Rush driving to the rim, and the guards dumping it down to the bigs- they were essentially scoring at will. Why did they decide to start shooting threes early in the shot clock in the second half? I have no idea. After UNC cut the lead to 5, they went back to what allowed them to build a big lead, and pulled away.

Also- and this didn't get any play in the pregame hype- Kansas made life very difficult for Hansbrough down low. Similar to Memphis against Love in the early game, every time he got the ball there were at least two bodies on him. Even so, he didn't have a terrible game on offense. He makes shots that nobody has any business making, and hitting a few of those allowed him to shoot a respectable 6/13. But he only got to the line 6 times, and on a night where the guards weren't taking on their share of the scoring load, they needed more than 17 points out of TH.

North Carolina is probably the best rebounding team in the country, but they were outrebounded by 7 tonight. The big surprise contributor for KU was Cole Aldrich. He averages 8 minutes per game, but played twice that many tonight because of foul trouble, and had 8 points, 7 boards, and 4 blocks. He was a McDonalds All-American, and has plenty of potential, but I don't think anyone expected those numbers out of him in this one.

Memphis 78, UCLA 63

How did Chris Douglas-Roberts not average 30 ppg in C-USA? UCLA had nobody with the combination of length and quickness necessary to guard CDR, and he went off for 28. Derrick Rose had over 20 for the third straight game- those two against the Kansas guards is going to be a great matchup on Monday night. Seems to me that Rush is a lot better suited to guard CDR than anyone on UCLA's roster.

The two guys that got the Bruins this far, Love and Collison, both struggled mightily. Dorsey, Dozier, and Taggart were all over Love inside, and he never got much going, finishing with 12 points on 4/11 from the field. Collison had his worst game since their loss to Washington- 1/9 from the field, 4 assists, 5 turnovers, and he even fouled out with a few minutes to go. The 53% 3-point shooter only attempted one shot from beyond the arc- it was an impressive defensive showing by the two aforementioned Memphis guards, as well as Antonio Anderson.

Mbah a Moute shouldn't take jump shots in that offense. He is a very useful player, grabbing rebounds, getting putbacks, and playing defense, but he's just not a very good shooter.

The line for Monday night's title game opened at KU -1.5, but moved to Memphis -1 pretty quickly. This really surprised me- the opening line was consistent with what I expected, but apparently somebody with a lot of money really likes the Tigers.

Photo: Getty Images, via Yahoo!

Breaking Down the Final Four Lines

Writing the Final Four MVP Odds post yesterday, I noticed something very interesting when comparing the lines for this weekend's games and the futures odds for who will win the championship. I couldn't really figure what the significance of it was, but an e-mail I received today from reader Thomas F. got me thinking about it again.

From the lines at Pinnacle, we can derive both the chances each team has of winning on Saturday, and the chances they have of winning the championship. Using these two numbers, we can then determine what percentage of the time each team will win the title if they reach the championship game. I have calculated all of these in the chart below.

Kansas' percentage for Monday seems right, as I think they will be favored if they win on Saturday.

Carolina's odds make no sense. In the last sentence Kansas was established as the second best team in the tournament. Yet Carolina has a 58.8% chance of winning against them on Saturday, and then their % decreases when facing supposedly inferior on Monday?

More confusion comes when we contrast the odds for Memphis and UCLA. Memphis is favored by 2 points in the semis, thus seemingly establishing them as superior to the Bruins. Yet the "Monday" column shows them winning the championship game only 40.5% of the time they get there, while that number is 48.5% for UCLA. This really makes no sense.

Something is wrong here. Either the futures lines are off, or the lines for Saturday's games are incorrect. This is not limited to Pinnacle- all of the other sites I have checked have the same odds.

I believe that the lines for Saturday's games are off. Let me explain.

For huge events, such as the Super Bowl and Final Four, there books take much more action from casual gamblers than during the regular season. For these games, the ratio of money from casual gamblers compared to sharps is much higher than usual. Because of this, the books are forced to adjust accordingly, and set the lines so they will receive an equal amount of money on both sides. Because these casual gamblers tend to not be particularly bright, this can cause the line to be significantly different than it would be in the regular season.

UNC and Memphis are the popular teams right now, since each played so well last weekend. This is why they are favored on Saturday, and are both getting a lot of action. But let's look back a couple weeks ago, and see where the oddsmakers had each of these teams ranked:

1t. Kansas
1t. North Carolina
3. UCLA
5. Memphis

Now, things can certainly change over the course of a couple weeks, but they can't change much. After all, each of these teams are 4-0 over that span. According to these rankings, a KU-UNC game would've been a pick'em two weeks ago, and now the Tar Heels are favored by 3. That is an enormous jump. This is pretty clear proof that the oddsmakers don't actually think UNC is three points better than the Jayhawks. But they know that if they'd set the line at UNC -1, or whatever it should be, they'd get a ridiculous amount of action on Carolina, and would be putting themselves at risk to lose a huge amount of money.

The same can be said for the other game- UCLA was two spots ahead of Memphis before the tournament, and now the Tigers are suddenly 2 points better? I don't think so.

It's worth noting that, despite the inflated spread, Wagerline shows 71% of bets coming in on UNC. This may at first seem to refute my argument, but it actually supports it. If the books could set a split action line, they'd do so. But in this case, that number would be so absurd- say, UNC -5, when they should be favored by 1- that anybody with a clue ("sharps", as they are called) would place a large sum of money on Kansas. At this point, setting the line so high would be completely counterproductive- there would end up being more money on Kansas than UNC, which would be terrible for the books, since the Jayhawks would cover that spread the vast majority of the time.

It's a different story with the futures odds. Those lines receive way less action than the sides, so it's likely that the books set them at what they think is a fair price, and adjust them slightly when large bets come in. Because of this, they are much more indicative of what we should actually expect to happen than the game lines.

The percentages above are telling us that UNC is the best team remaining, but they're not three points better than Kansas. The Jayhawks are the second best team left, and will be (deservedly) favored should they reach the title game. And, despite the spread, the Memphis-UCLA game is essentially a toss up, as neither the futures lines nor the Vegas rankings indicate that Memphis is anywhere near 2 points better.

(Thanks to Money Line for helping me get my head around this whole mess. Make sure to check out his completely premature 2009 college hoops previews for the Big Ten and ACC.)

Edit: I switched up some things in the middle, because people were bitching, and it's not an argument I feel like having right now. Wasn't really relevant to the conclusion anyway.

Final Four MVP Odds

Sportsbook has posted odds on who will be the MVP of the Final Four. Before looking at those, we should establish the odds on each team winning it all, since the MVP generally comes from the national champion. This isn't always true- Curry did win the award for the Midwest region- but it generally is, and serves as a very helpful guideline; From Pinnacle:


These are very interesting. Kansas, a 3 point underdog against UNC, has essentially the same odds as Memphis, favored by 2 against UCLA. These odds establish pretty clearly that the two best teams in the country will be playing on Saturday at 8:47pm EST (approximately).

Now, on to the MVP odds. The first two columns are self explanatory- the player, their school, and their odds. The next is the percentage of the time they have to win for it to be a good bet. Following that is the percentage of the time their team is expected to win it all. Finally, we have the percentage of the time their school wins the championship that they need to win the award for it to be a profitable wager. It'll make more sense with an example:

Rush needs to win the MVP over 6.3% of the time for 15:1 to be a good bet. Because Kansas is expected to win it all 22.4% of the time, Rush would need to be the MVP of a National Champion Kansas team 27.9% of the time for it to be a good bet. A actually think his chances may be higher than that- it's unclear why he's at 15:1 while Chalmers is 10:1. For me at least, Rush is the face of that team. Chalmers has a higher eFG, but I'm pretty sure whomever is voting doesn't care about that (or even know what it means).

As usual with this kind of thing, the three big names- Hansbrough, Rose, and Love- have terrible odds. At Pinnacle, UCLA is +345 to win the championship, compared to Love's +350 to win the MVP. It's pretty obvious that this would be a terrible bet. The same goes for both Hansbrough and Rose. Their odds are just too close to their team's odds to be worthwhile.

The other intriguing one here is Lawson. If UNC wins it'll probably be Hansbrough, but it's far from a lock. Lawson is easily the second most noticeable player on their team, both because of his speed and how often he has the ball in his hands. Unsurprisingly, the only value here is in the longshots. I think Rush at 15:1 is the best look, with Lawson a close second. Ellington and Chalmers at 10:1 are both okay, and everything else is pretty terrible.

UNC, UCLA Advance to San Antonio

North Carolina 83, Louisville 73

I hate to say it, but an absolutely brilliant game out of Hansbrough. To open the second half, as Louisville was starting to make a run, he made two extremely tough shots- one a fall away jumper, the other a very improbable layup after which he ended up on the floor. On the strength of five minutes of unusually intelligent Louisville basketball- not turning the ball over, taking decent shots, getting back in transition- an Earl Clark free throw tied it with 10:21 left. Hansbrough took over after that, with a combination of long jumpers and free throws. The other big shot belonged to Lawson, who hit a 3 to put UNC up 6 with 5 minutes left.

Not surprisingly, the turnovers really killed Louisville. In the second half, their shot selection improved, and they were getting the ball inside rather than throwing up shots from the perimeter. Unfortunately, getting the ball inside isn't very helpful if you travel after doing so, which Earl Clark managed to do three times.

The announcers for this one were comical. Dick Enberg does not know where he is, and at one point claimed that Hansbrough, with 9 assists, was nearing a triple double. He'd made a reasonable mistake, accidentally looking at Lawson's line, but anyone who was paying attention would've realized that there was no way Hansbrough had 9 assists. Enberg didn't. Bilas, who's usually decent, fell in love with Hansbrough just the same as every other announcer, yelling about how his heart and will as he was hitting 18-footers. Tonight, Hansbrough's dominant performances gave him a chance to take it to a whole new level, and he jumped at the opportunity. TH has come a very long way over the last three years, which is something that should be noted and complemented, rather than repeating the same meaningless praises. We know he plays hard. We get it.

Not to take anything away from Hansbrough, but it could've been a lot different. He was guarding Padgett, and could have been called for multiple fouls- something even Enberg noticed- in the second half. A turning point, which I believe happened when UNC was up 5 with about 3 minutes left, was when Hansbrough looked like he bumped Padgett, but instead the ref said that Padgett stepped out, and Carolina got the ball back.

The Cardinals just don't play like a very "well coached" team. They turned the ball over 37 times in their final two games, and shot 9/16 from the line tonight. Especially in the first half, they took way too many outside shots, which is not new. Williams, Smith, and Sosa combined to shoot about 35% from 3 this year, but that doesn't stop them from shooting. I understand they like to press a lot, but some of the baskets they gave up in transition, with the UNC guards getting behind the Louisville defenders, were inexcusable. It's hard to argue with Pitino's success, but I don't think this year's team was one of his better coaching jobs.

UCLA 76, Xavier 57

UCLA did not play well in the first half, at all. Xavier had multiple easy dunks inside, the Bruins kept turning the ball over, and Shipp was throwing up shots that weren't hitting anything. The fact that they were up 9 at the half did not bode well for the Musketeers, and UCLA pulled away after the break. Collison has been incredible- he made all three 3s he attempted, and is now 10/15 from deep in the tournament. Shipp was awful again (1/7 from the floor), but Mbah a Moute and Westbrook both showed up for a change, and that was enough for the Bruins to advance to their third straight Final Four.

There is now a 48% chance that all four #1 seeds reach San Antonio.

Update: Doug Gottlieb has informed us that Texas is the favorite tomorrow. He finishes his rant by saying, "I got Texas playing at home." Okay, sure, but what if they were playing in Houston?

Comparing National Championship and Final Four Odds

Rob made a very good point in the comments of yesterday's "Final Four Odds" post:

"I agree that Sportsbook did not really make any assumptions regarding seed. In fact, I think these odds are simple extensions of their odds to win the title...Simply, it looks like they are dividing the odds of winning the title by a factor between 4.5 and 5."

This is very true. It is also an awful way to go about creating these Final Four odds. Let's take a look at the Final Four and National Championship odds of the 14 longshots that have F4 odds listed.

The first three columns should be self explanatory (all odds taken from Sportsbook). The final column is their implied odds of winning the title should they reach the Final Four. For example, Indiana is 8:1 (11.1%) to reach San Antonio, and 40:1 (2.4%) to win the title, so their final column is .024/.111, or 22.0%.

For these two sets of odds to be equal, each of these teams would have to have between a 22% and 23.5% chance of winning two F4 games. None of them are even close to that number. Take Purdue, for instance. Let's give them a 30% chance of winning either game in the F4 (this is being generous). That puts them at 9% to win both. If they are 22:1 to reach San Antonio, they should be at least 250:1 to win it all. They are 100:1. You would be insane to bet on their NC odds over their F4 odds.

I could go through this exact same process with each of the other 13 teams listed above. For each, there is at least two times more value in the F4 odds than in the NC odds. This is precisely why Sportsbook's strategy does not work for handicapping F4 percentages; if they want to make these odds equal, they should be dividing the NC odds for these teams by a factor of 10, rather than 5.

Here is this same comparison with the favorites:

Sportsbook's strategy works a little more efficiently here, but it is still far from perfect. Take Texas, for example. I would absolutely not bet on either of those numbers, but if I had to take one, it would definitely be the +220. Even if we say they'd be a pick'em in an average F4 game (which is not true; they'd be underdogs against any of the six teams listed above them), their percentage should be 25%; Sportsbook's implied odds have it at 29.1%.

The same can be said for each of the five teams listed below Texas. For each one, there is significantly more value in the F4 odds than the NC odds.

I think there is a more general lesson here as well- there is rarely much value in longshot futures odds this late in the year. If you think Purdue is going to make a run in the tournament, then you should bet on their money line in every game. If you do this, starting with $10, and they win it all, you will likely end up with something in the range of $2500. If you just bet on them at 100:1, you'll have $1010 if they win it all. I don't think I need to further elaborate on which of these is the superior option.

Final Four Odds

Sportsbook has posted Final Four odds for 25 teams (H/T: Rob). Before the brackets come out, it is very difficult to handicap this kind of thing, because a team's chances are so dependent on both their seed and their draw. That is not going to stop me from trying, obviously.

The first column is the team's projected seed. These are mostly just taken from Parrish, but I made a few slight adjustments. That is followed by the team name, and their odds at Sportsbook. The last two columns are what I think their true chance of making the F4 is, along with what their odds should be in that case.

Odds I consider to be very good wagers are in green. Good wagers are in blue, and terrible wagers are in red. The black odds range from neutral to poor. Here is the first half:

Memphis being +200 really surprised me. They are almost certainly going to be a 1 seed, meaning they have a pretty easy path to the S16 (giving them about an 80% chance of making it that far). They will then be significant favorites against the 4/5 seed they will likely play, and again favorites in the Elite 8. Clearly Sportsbook has UCLA, UNC and Kansas as the top 3 teams in the country, and I don't disagree with that assessment. But I don't think Memphis is that far behind, and they will likely have seeding on their side.

Seeding plays an very big role in this. I know they don't have the reputation of Duke or Texas, but Xavier is just as good as those teams, and they will likely all be 2 seeds- there should not be such a large discrepancy in their odds.

Stanford is in a similar situation, except it is likely that they will have a 3 seed rather than a 2. That makes them not quite as attractive as Xavier, but at +650, it's still worth considering.

No 3 seed should be +300. You know I must feel that way if I have Louisville at +344. The four games you have to win are just too difficult. Assuming you get past the 14, you still have to beat a 6, a 2, and a 1, in theory. Except for the elite teams in the nation, nobody has better than a 25% chance of doing that. And Georgetown does not fall under the category of "elite team" this year.

UConn, a likely 4/5 seed, at +400 is even worse. They will play a 4/5 in the second round, and then the top two seeds after that. A 20% chance of winning those three games? Not even close.

On to the longshots:

Most of these are terrible. The Arizona and Kansas St. odds are particularly brutal. These are teams that will likely end up in 8-9 games, where their chances are barely better than a toss-up. Then, in the second round, they face a top seed. Kansas St. should be about +800 to reach the Sweet 16, not the F4.

Wisconsin at +800 is intriguing. They are a 3 seed, and a legit one at that. Barring a huge upset, they are going to finish 16-2 in the Big Ten. I know the B10 isn't very good this year, but unless you think it is really atrocious, the conference's best team at 8:1 to reach the F4 seems pretty good.

The odds for Marquette and Purdue are probably about right, but stick out because the others are so bad. I do not think Sportsbook gave seeding enough weight in their analysis. It is completely unreasonable for an 8 seed to have better odds than a 3, unless that 8 seed is about 15 points better, which is certainly not the case with Arizona and Purdue. It is highly unlikely that the Boilermakers lose their first round game against a 14. Taking that into account, you are getting about 18:1 that they will beat a 6 seed that is probably equally talented, and then two teams that are better than them. It's unlikely, but +2200 is not bad for them.

P.S.- 15 of you have voted on the Indians' under? I hope you guys aren't betting on this stuff, because you *clearly* don't know what you are talking about.

This Week's Links (11/12-11/16)

The Colts' radio announcer was a little confused about the result of Vinatieri's kick.

Posnanski looks at some more undeserving MVPs.

Keith Law, ESPN.com's "voice of reason", talks to Sabernomics.

Like we needed another reason to dislike the '72 Dolphins.

The Dugout is excited about Tampa Bay's name change.

Apparently, 3 years $45MM isn't enough for Mariano. Unbelievable. I enjoyed this:

"Rivera has apparently told his agents to shop him around, as he's annoyed by Hank Steinbrenner's public comments about his age. Hank seems to make a lot of public comments that don't seem professional or well thought-out. "

Leitch:

"[W]e're not too comfortable living in a world in which fish can grow to 359 pounds. Heck, that thing could pitch for the Indians at this rate."

Storming the Floor collected the Final Four picks of 28 bloggers (including myself; Indiana, Memphis, Tennessee, UCLA). Starting next week I'll also be participating in the blogpoll, which should be fun.