Pre-Preseason College Hoops Top 10

There is a lot of information to go through here, so I thought I'd try to compile some of it, as well as add my own opinions. Among the various resources used for this were Katz's top 25, Lunardi's Bracketology, Pomeroy's site, Rivals' Prospect Rankings, and Wikipedia (always). The futures lines were gathered from Bodog, BetUS, Carib, and Sportsbook.

1. North Carolina (4.5-1, BetUS)
Katz #1, Lunardi #1 seed
Last year: 36-3 (14-2), Pomeroy #4. Lost to Kansas in the national semifinal.

Sophomore forward Alex Stepheson is transferring, to some school out west (he hasn't decided). I think the Tar Heels will survive the loss.

Since 2000, four teams have gotten at least 80% of the preseason first place votes in both the AP and ESPN polls, as I'm assuming UNC will. Two of those teams--'06-'07 Florida, and '03-04 UConn--won the title. The other two--'05-06 Duke, and '01-'02 Duke--lost in the Sweet 16. I don't know what that means, other than "Dook is teh suck" but it's interesting.

Carib currently has the Tar Heels at +250 to win the title, which is pretty absurd. What this ends up doing is putting a lot of value in some of the other teams, as you'll see below.

2. UCLA (18-1 at Carib)
Katz #3, Lunardi #2 seed
Last year: 35-4 (16-2), Pomeroy #3. Lost to Memphis in the national semifinal.

Give it up for Ben Howland, everybody. Losing two top 10 picks and still being this loaded is a neat trick. The incoming class, led by Jrue (pronounced Drew) Holiday, is supposed to be the best in the country. Add that to Collison, Shipp, and Aboya, and the pieces are in place for a fourth straight Final Four, which would be an astonishing accomplishment in this day and age.

The Bruins are getting some bonus points here for Howland. You don't have Defensive Efficiencies rankings of 3, 2, and 3 over a three-year stretch by accident. It's too bad, for both team and player, that Mbah a Moute's decided to stay in the draft. He could've been a solid contributor, and might end up going undrafted.

18-1 may be the best value on the board. Even if you don't agree with them at #2, it'd be hard to argue that they're not the second most likely team to get a #1 seed, given the relative weakness of their conference.

3. Pittsburgh (22-1, The Greek)
Katz #2, Lunardi #1 seed
Last year: 27-10 (10-8), Pomeroy #21. Lost to Michigan St. in the second round.

Well, I suppose they're the heavy favorite to win the Big East tournament at the moment.

Katz mentioned that Mike Cook may get a medical redshirt and be allowed to return for another year. That'd be big, since they're already set inside with Young and Blair, and at the point with Fields. It's tough to place them with that unknown, but I suppose that's why you don't rank teams in June.

22-1 isn't bad. The problem is this conference, which is going to be outrageously good. Four teams may end up deserving top two seeds, but that doesn't mean they'll all get them. For that reason, I don't know that I could pull the trigger on any of these Big East futures.

4. Duke (15-1, Carib)
Katz #6, Lunardi #1 seed
Last year: 28-6 (13-3), Pomeroy #8. Lost to West Virginia in the second round.

Considering they have six of their seven top contributors returning, you'd think it would be fairly easy to gauge how good this team is, but I have no idea. By the end of last year, they were much better than the public perception (no mystique!), but worse than their lofty Pomeroy rank. Problem is, that leaves a pretty big gap.

They lose Nelson, but their best recruit is 6'4 "slashing lefty" Elliot Williams, who sounds like an ideal replacement. Although that doesn't help their apparent weakness down low--I don't know if you've heard, but Duke lacked an "inside presence" last year.

I do know I wouldn't take them at 15:1.

5. Connecticut (20-1, Carib)
Katz #15, Lunardi #2 seed
Last year: 24-9 (13-5), Pomeroy #22. Lost to San Diego in the first round.

I was quite surprised to see that Katz has UConn so low. It sounds like they lose Stanley Robinson (Winn says he's "on the brink of academic ineligibility), which would be unfortunate. I really think a lot of the pessimism is caused by their weak finish last year, losing four of their last seven. But that included a two-point loss at Villanova, losing to a very good West Virginia team in the BE tournament, and losing to San Diego in OT without their point guard in the NCAAs. If, on February 20th, you would've told people that Thabeet was coming back, they would've been talking the Huskies up as preseason #1.

One thing UConn could stand to improve is their perimeter defense. With Thabeet inside, they held opponents to 40.4% from 2 (second in the country), but allowed 34.9% from 3 (153rd). Maybe the addition of Rice guard Kemba Walker (Rivals #14) will help in that regard.

6. Louisville (20-1, Carib)
Katz #5, Lunardi #3 seed
Last year: 27-9 (14-4), Pomeroy #6. Lost to North Carolina in the Elite 8.

They lose a lot of bigs--Padgett, Caracter, and Palacios--but are seemingly prepared for that with two Rivals top 20 recruits, 6'9" Samardo Samuels and 6'10" Terrence Jennings, incoming. The backcourt will be very strong, as they have everybody coming back. Earl Clark should make a big impact after electing to return, rather than entering the draft as a likely first round pick.

Maybe a couple guys will get hurt, they'll lose a bunch of games in November and December, and be undervalued for three months. That'd be fun.

7. Memphis (25-1, Carib)
Katz #7, Lunardi #1 seed
Last year: 38-2 (16-0), Pomeroy #2. Lost to Kansas in the national championship.

Like Duke, Memphis is tough to gauge, but for entirely different reasons. We know exactly how good they were last year--second best team in the country. But without Rose, CDR, and Dorsey though, that's not all that helpful.

Anderson, Dozier, Taggart, and Kemp return, joined by 6'5" guard, and Rivals #6 prospect, Tyreke Evans, and two more top 50 recruits. It's not clear how good the returning guys are, because they were only complimentary pieces last year, and recruits are always hard to value. So I'll play it safe and go with Katz here.

8. Texas (30-1, Carib)
Katz #13, Lunardi #3 seed
Last year: 31-7 (13-3), Pomeroy #9. Lost to Memphis in the Elite 8.

They would've been #2 if Augustin had come back, without a doubt.

Mercifully for all parties, Abrams is returning after considering going pro. Mason will take over at the point, which will clearly be a dropoff, although who knows how much. After a breakout 2008, Atchley returns for his senior season. This is a very strong team, which could contend for the title if Mason turns out to be a capable full-time point.

9. Gonzaga (50-1, BetUS)
Katz #9, Lunardi #4 seed
Last year: 25-8 (13-1), Pomeroy #30. Lost to Davidson in the first round.

That first round exit isn't looking so bad now, is it?

The Bulldogs got great news last week, when Pargo announced he'd return to school for his senior year. He returns to a pretty stacked team--a full year from Heytvelt, and everyone else except Pendergraft returning. If they're going to contend for a title, this is their year, as they'll lose (at least) Pargo, Heytvelt, and Downs after this season.

Probably because of their first round loss (and Heytvelt missing time), Gonzaga at 50-1 looks to be the second best value available here.

10. Notre Dame (50-1, Carib)
Katz #4, Lunardi #2 seed
Last year: 25-8 (14-4), Pomeroy #28. Lost to Washington St. in the second round.

They have a very good team coming back, but the defense is still a huge question mark. Notre Dame's Defensive Efficiency rankings over the last three years have been 120th, 49th, and 42nd, respectively. With the same personnel and coach as last year, I have a hard time putting them much higher than this. Should be a fantastic offense, though.

Carib seems to have the same reservations (defense, strong conference) about this team that I do, as their odds are a real outlier among Katz's rankings. If you think they're the fourth best team in the country, it's certainly worth it. Here, it's probably not.

Photo: NCAA.org.

One More Year

He's coming back.

I just hope that this year Tyler will finally get full credit for how hard he plays. The man's oversized heart somehow continues to go unnoticed. It's really a shame.

Photo: MSNBC.

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.

What Are The Odds: 1-1-1-1

Obviously, all four #1 seeds reaching the Final Four is a rare occurrence, as this is the first time it's happened. But thinking about it abstractly, it doesn't seem all that unlikely, especially in a year that the top seeds were clearly the best teams. No single unusual thing happened, but 16 likely events combined to form one very unique one.

Prior to the tournament, Basketball Prospectus' Ken Pomeroy placed the odds of a 1-1-1-1 Final Four at 3.5%. That was probably a good estimate at the time, but the way things played out, it ended up being higher. Two teams had unusually easy paths to San Antonio:


Kansas' path has to be one of the easiest ever, although they're paying for that with their opponent on Saturday (UNC is favored by 3). Instead of playing Clemson and Georgetown/Wisconsin, they faced Villanova and Davidson. It could be argued that the Wildcats were better than the Badgers- after all, they did beat them- but there's no question that KU would've been favored by fewer than 9.5 against Wisconsin. With these four opponents, the oddsmakers gave the Jayhawks a 62.0% chance of reaching San Antonio.

From the start, UCLA had the benefit of a weak bracket. The craziness in Tampa on the first Friday of the tournament made it even worse; Western Kentucky was certainly not one of the 16 best teams in the country this year. In the regional final they drew Xavier, a good team but certainly on the level of Louisville, Texas, or some of the other 2/3 seeds in. Their performances in rounds 2 and 3 didn't inspire too much confidence, so despite the easy draw, the Bruins had only a 53.2% chance of winning the region.

The other two teams had more traditional paths:

Memphis really had to work to get this far. KU was favored by 9.5 this afternoon against Davidson, which was their closest spread- Memphis was a 9.5 favorite against Mississippi St. two rounds ago, and it only got tougher from there. This is partially because people were down on them- well, mostly just their foul shooting- but also a function of playing tough teams. Unlike the West and Midwest, there were no big upsets in the South. Memphis is the most unlikely Final Four participant, with a 31.5% chance of getting here.

Carolina didn't play bad teams, but were significant favorites in each game simply because they're really good. If Memphis had played Louisville this weekend, the Tigers would've barely been favored (if at all), certainly nothing close to the 5.5 point line in last night's showdown. Despite playing in the toughest region, the Tar Heels had a 46.6% chance of winning these four games.

Add it all up, and there was a 4.8% chance- or 1 in about 21- that this would happen, given these opponents for each team. If you'd started with $100, and kept betting on the money lines of each #1 seed in each game, you would've turned that into $1,508. This final four combination was more unlikely than the results of any single team in the tournament. Davidson came the closest, as there was only a 6.1% chance of them reaching the Elite 8.

One thing I'll be interested to see is how this effects people's brackets next year. Until now, it was pretty unusual for someone (with the exception of Clark Kellogg) to have all four top seeds in their Final Four- after all, it had never happened before, so how could it? I'm sure the ESPN Tournament Challenge will have a lot more entries with an all chalk Final Four next year, even though the odds of that happening will be the same as they've always been.

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?

Elite 8 Preview: Saturday

There are only seven games left in the season, which is somewhat depressing. Hopefully, we have some fantastic games ahead of us. The two tonight each have that potential.

For each team I've listed the "Best Final Four odds", which are the best odds you could find two weeks ago. The "Real Final Four odds" are the odds you would've gotten if you'd bet on that teams' money line in each game.

(1) UCLA -6.5 vs. (3) Xavier
6:40pm EST
Best Final Four odds: UCLA -140, Xavier +1100
Real Final Four odds: UCLA 53.2% (-138), Xavier 6.4% (+1327)

Yesterday, Gasaway pointed out the parallels between last year's Ohio St. team, and UCLA this season. Both teams came into the tournament as top seeds with lofty expectations, and both struggled in rounds two and three. The Buckeyes had no trouble with Memphis in the Elite 8, and reached the championship game before losing to Florida.

Despite the sample size of one, it's an interesting comparison. That both teams revolved around a point guard and a big man doesn't hurt. I do think last year's Tennessee team was better than WKU this year; they did reach the Sweet 16, but the Hilltoppers only beat Drake and San Diego on their way there.

The Bruins are also still dealing with these lingering injury issues. It's far from clear that Mbah a Moute is healthy, as he's combined for 9 points and 10 turnovers in their last two games. They survived A&M without a third guy stepping up (check out the box score; it was really absurd), but they are going to need Shipp and/or Westbrook to have solid games to get past Xavier.

Drew Lavender is the guy everyone loves to talk about (he's short, if you hadn't heard), but Josh Duncan has gotten the Musketeers here, averaging almost 21 points in the first three tournament games. X has the bodies to stop Love inside, but I'm not sure who on this UCLA team the 5'7 Lavender will be able to defend.

(1) North Carolina -6 vs (3) Louisville
9:05 pm EST
Best Final Four odds: UNC -125, Louisville +350
Real Final Four odds: UNC 46.6% (-101), Louisville 11.1% (+700)

Finally.

These two have combined to win their first six games by 158 points. This is especially impressive considering the East was considered the most difficult region, although I suppose a large part of that was because it contained these two squads.

It's arguably the best offense in the country against what might be the best defense, but they get it done in different ways. UNC is so good because of all the offensive rebounds, and all the free throws- there's one guy who I think is pretty good at both of these things, but I can't seem to remember his name. Louisville held its opponents to the seventh lowest eFG in the country, which is interesting since they only person on Carolina that really qualifies as a "shooter" is Ellington (Danny Green fit that description for the first have against Wazzu, but doesn't qualify otherwise.)

On offense, Louisville relies on the inside games of Earl Clark, David Padgett, and Derrick Caracter. Their only real outside threat is McGee, although that doesn't stop Williams, Smith, and Sosa from jacking up plenty of threes as well. They need to get the ball inside to Padgett both because this is how they can score, and they can look to get Hansbrough into foul trouble. If they run the offense through him, rather than having their guards throw up ill advised shots from the perimeter, they can win this game.

As you're surely noticed, all the #1 seeds are still alive. We're four games away from the "doomsday" scenario of all four reaching San Antonio. Each is favored this weekend, but the lines only give a 1 in 4 chance to all four of them advancing.

Regional Previews: East

SITE NEWS: The Nationals' poll is the last one. Finally. I have to figure out the details of this contest, but hopefully it'll be up and running in the next few days.

Also, I have added even more pools to the list.

Okay, on to the East preview. The table below is a hybrid. For the first round percentages, I averaged the Vegas lines and the Pomeroy numbers. For rounds 2-4, I adjusted the Pomeroy numbers slightly. For example, I downgraded Indiana, because of the obvious external factors. I gave UNC a boost, because Pomeroy's numbers obviously don't know that Lawson was hurt.


There are reasonable arguments for each of the following statements:

• North Carolina is the best team in the country
• Tennessee should've been a 1 seed
• Louisville has the talent of a 2 seed
• Indiana should've been a 6, rather than an 8
• Butler should've been a 5, rather than a 7
  

It is pretty amazing that all five of these things converged into one region. The result is that the East is absolutely loaded.

The Sportsbook lines for this region are great. They have UNC at 5-7; the Tar Heels would have to have a 58% chance of reaching the Final Four for you to break even on that. They don't. This absurdity causes the rest of the lines to be better than usual- Sportsbook's odds only added up to 127% to begin with, and if you knock UNC down from 58% to 33%, there's barely any juice.

The Louisville line is a little better than break even, which is nice, but boring. The one that really surprised me was Indiana. I know they've been playing poorly lately, but 40:1? Even after I knocked down Pomeroy's numbers for the Hoosiers significantly, those are good odds.

Another intriguing one is Washington St. There are two reasons this line is so high- they didn't make it past the second round last year as a 3 seed, and they lost three straight home games in the middle of the Pac-10 season. Since then, they've played pretty well. I don't think it's unreasonable to say they've got a 1 in 10 chance, which makes their odds profitable.

I'm not saying it's a good bet (it's not), but considering what happened a couple years ago, I'd think Sportsbook is taking a good deal of action on George Mason at 300:1.

Yesterday, for the Midwest, six teams had at least a 1% chance of winning the regional, and only four were above 2%. For the East, those numbers are eight and seven, respectively. I think everybody thinks of the top three teams as serious Final Four contenders, and Washington St. is probably in the next tier down. It is possible that all of the following matchups occur: UNC-Indiana, Notre Dame-WSU, Butler-Tennessee, UNC-WSU, Louisville-Tennessee, and UNC-Louisville. I know upsets are part of what make the tournament what it is, but who could argue with that slate? I read somebody compare this region to the South last year- that works for me.

Pick: Louisville
Upset (has to be at least a 6 point underdog): George Mason
Scary team (four seed or lower): Indiana

Related: Bracket Breakdown: East and Midwest [Basketball Prospectus]

Conference Tournament Previews: ACC

Here are the Pomeroy percentages for each team advancing to each round of the ACC tournament, which begins on Thursday.

This table is not aware that Lawson missed seven games, obviously.

The seeding of UNC and Duke was discussed here. Clemson is the third ACC team that is a lock for the tournament; they're probably a 6 at the moment. If they beat Maryland and lose to Duke, they should stay there. A loss to the Terps (or BC) would drop them; beat Duke and they should move up to at least a 5.

If Miami avoids an ugly first round loss to NC State, they should get in. They were only 8-8 in the ACC, but 13-1 out of conference, including a win @Mississippi St., and wins over VCU and Providence in Puerto Rico.

Maryland and Virginia Tech are also on the bubble. The Hokies are relying on their questionable 9-7 ACC mark. Their non-conference is pretty ugly; they need to beat Miami/NC State in the quarters to stay in the conversation. Even then, I think they should be out, but it probably depends on where the cut line falls.

Maryland, 8-8 in the ACC and with non-conference home losses to Ohio and American, really has their work cut out for them. Wins over BC and Clemson are a necessity; that would probably get them onto the same level as Virginia Tech.

I've made some noticeable changes to the Pomeroy percentages, in an attempt to account for Lawson's missed time.

VIP has posted some pretty nice odds for all of these tournaments, by the way.

Duke at +350 is fairly ridiculous. Here are the predicted lines, and their implied chance of winning, for their most difficult path:

Fair odds for a team with a 22.3% chance of winning would be +348. Factor in the times that they won't have to face Clemson or North Carolina, and VIP is offering some excellent odds on the Blue Devils.

Clemson and (surprisingly) Virginia Tech are not bad either, if you want to gamble. Clemson's odds are probably so good because of their lackluster play in the last week of the regular season. If you believe in momentum, and teams playing better when they have more on the line, then the Hokies at 30:1 is for you.

#1 Seed Odds

I tried this a couple weeks ago. Lunardi's top seeds have stayed put, but the percentages have changed substantially.

Memphis, 30-1 (16-0), #3 RPI
If they win their tournament, they're clearly a top seed. If they reach the finals and lose, I can't see them falling. If they lose before the finals, and things break against them (Tennessee and UCLA win their tournaments, in particular), then there's a chance. Maybe. They are in very good shape. Chances of #1 seed: 97%

UCLA, 27-3 (16-2), #6 RPI
We have to take that conference record at face value, even if they needed some serious breaks.
If they win in the quarters against Washington/Cal (90%), it'd be tough to deny them. A loss there, coupled with others taking care of business, could make things interesting. Chances of #1 seed: 94%

North Carolina, 29-2 (14-2), #2 RPI
UNC is 15-0 away from home, which is a difficult factoid to top. They have a great draw, needing only to beat Wake/FSU, and then Va Tech/Miami/NC State to reach the ACC tournament final. The 72% of the time they do that, they should be a 1; their resume is still better than Duke's, plus they were missing Lawson for an extended stretch. I think they should be a lock, but there's a chance they fall. Chances of #1 seed: 87%

Tennessee, 27-3 (14-2), #1 RPI
Winning the SEC tournament (50%) would do it. If they lose, they're asking for trouble- Kansas would likely overtake them if they win the Big 12, and Duke could do the same. Honestly, if they can't beat LSU, Arkansas, and Mississippi St. on neutral floors, they really don't deserve it. Chances of #1 seed: 68%

Kansas, 27-3 (13-3), #8 RPI
The first step is to win three games (57%). Their best chance is to sneak ahead of Tennessee (.5*.57=28%). They could surpass one of the other three, but that would require a very strange turn of events. Chances of #1 seed: 36%

Texas, 25-5 (13-3), #5 RPI
Winning the Big 12 (18%) would both give them a boost, and knock out the team directly in front of them. I suppose they could take Tennessee's spot, but I can't see them passing the top three. Chances of #1 seed: 10%

Duke, 26-4 (13-3), #4 RPI
I haven't calculated the ACC numbers yet, but they're around 25% chance to win that tournament. They'd need that to do that, have Kansas and Tennessee lose...and then they'd have to fight it out with Texas. Beating UNC on Saturday night would've been the way to go about this. Chances of #1 seed: 6%

Georgetown, 25-4 (15-3), #7 RPI
The Hoyas are a good example of why you should play real teams in November and December. Playing Memphis was nice, but once they lost that, they assured that they would not have a quality non-con win (Alabama!). That they could go 18-3 against Big East competition and barely even be in the conversation is remarkable. I am including them, but even this might be optimistic. Chances of #1 seed: 2%

The Best Wins Of The Year

Tonight's craziness inspired me to compile the following list of the best wins to date this season. This isn't a list of the biggest upsets, or most impressive blowouts- it's the wins that will look best to the selection committee, three weeks from now.

The spread for each game is in parenthesis. Those are just for reference though- that didn't really factor into the list at all.

1. Tennessee 66, Memphis 62 (TEN -6.5)
Prior to this, Memphis had won their three big home games (Georgetown, Arizona, Gonzaga) by an average of 12 points, and had won 47 straight at the FedEx Forum. All their streaks ended tonight, as the Volunteers surprisingly outrebounded the Tigers by 15. Chris Lofton shot just 2/11 from the floor, but Tyler Smith (6/11, 16 pts), Wayne Chism (13 pts, 3/5 from 3, even banked one in), and JP Prince (5/8, 13 pts) picked up the slack offensively. It should be noted that freshman Derrick Rose was extremely impressive, carrying the Memphis offense at times. Although asking out of the game because he was winded with five minutes left was kind of weak.

2. Maryland 82, North Carolina 80 (UNC -18)
This was a real shocker, and remains UNC's only loss with Ty Lawson. The Terps are tough when their bigs, Bambale Osby and James Gist, are playing well. That's what happened here, as they combined for 34 points and 18 boards. But the key was Maryland's defense (which Osby and Gist certainly contributed to)- they held Carolina to 42.4% eFG%, tying their lowest mark of the year.

3. Texas 63, UCLA 61 (UCLA -10)
I originally had USC's win @UCLA here, before realizing that Mbah a Moute sustained a concussion in the first half of that one. The Bruins were at full strength against the Longhorns, but were held to 6/21 from beyond the arc. DJ Augustin uncharacteristically had six turnovers, but did shoot 8/15 from the field (19 points). Damion James added 19 points and 10 boards.

4. Tennessee 82, Xavier 75 (XAV -3.5)
Bet you didn't expect to see this one here. In 15 other home games, Xavier has outscored their opponents by an average of 24 ppg. Think about that for a second- the average score of their home wins is 82-58. Despite being outrebounded 37-25 in this one, the Volunteers took 13 more shots from the field- this was made possible by 21 Xavier turnovers. Lofton (3/12, 9 pts) was off in this one, too. But, similar to tonight, T. Smith, Chism and Prince picked up the slack, combining for 47 pts on 19/31 shooting.

5. Connecticut 68, Indiana 63 (Indiana -8.5)
This was easily the most impressive victory during UConn's 10-game win streak, which ended this afternoon. Playing without Jerome Dyson (who returns on Tuesday) and Doug Wiggins, the Huskies outrebounded Indiana, 41-26, and held them to 37% shooting (although they did shoot 11/20 from 3). Hasheem Thabeet had an extremely odd line for a man his size (7'3)- 38 minutes, only 5 rebounds, but 12 points on 6/7 shooting. Jeff Adrien and Stanley Robinson helped him out on the boards, with 11 rebounds apiece.

Photo: Yahoo!

The Arizona over got 27 of 48 votes (56%). Atlanta is up now, and will be up until there are at least 45 votes. I think that's the best way to do it on the weekends.

Blogpoll: Week Thirteen

The full blogpoll is here, my ballot was as follows.

I didn't watch any of the game tonight- I was in the library studying Corporate Finance. I see that Lawson didn't play, and the combined 7/34 shooting of Ginyard, Ellington and Green didn't help matters. Scheyer got six rebounds? That's interesting. Looks like Duke's 39-9 advantage from beyond the arch more than made up for UNC's dominance inside. I don't think people will ever stop saying "Duke has no inside presence"; we'll see how far they can advance despite that.

Drake just keeps on winning. They're up to 20 in a row after coming back to win at Indiana St. last night. The Valley is down a little this year, but starting off 6-0 on the road is difficult no matter what conference you play in. They've now got another big road test on their schedule, as they'll visit Butler on February 23 as part of BracketBusters weekend.

As detailed over at RTC, the Gonzaga-St. Mary's game was pretty incredible on Monday night. Pargo and Mills really took over down the stretch, and St. Mary's got pretty much every call in an extremely hostile (and dark) environment. The Gaels are at Santa Clara next Monday, and their next real test after that will come against Kent St. in another BracketBuster game.

Notre Dame was very impressive tonight (not that I saw the game, but they did win by 26) on the road against Seton Hall. They're starting to shed their reputation of a poor road team- they also won @Villanova a couple weeks ago. They host Marquette on Saturday (a game they really should win), and then play @UConn next week- that should be an excellent game.

Purdue makes their first appearance on my ballot this week. They've started off 9-1 in the Big 10, but now their schedule really gets tough. Their next four games are at Wisconsin, vs. MSU, at Northwestern, and at Indiana. You'd have to consider a split of those four games (so, really, beating Northwestern and winning one of the other three) a success. If they do that, they could very realistically finish 14-4 in the Big Ten, which is almost shockingly good.

Vegas Power Rankings: ACC

With the big Duke-Carolina showdown in Chapel Hill tomorrow, seems like tonight is as good a time as any for the ACC rankings. As before, these are based on the lines for each game thus far in conference play.

The distribution here is truly incredible. Nine of the 12 teams have a negative rating. Despite the average being 0, the median is -2.2. This is what happens when you have two powerhouses at the top, a decent Clemson team, and then overwhelming mediocrity. Pomeroy pointed out the other day that this situation has led to an unbelievable number of close games.

The expected line for Duke @ UNC is 6.7; the actual opening line is 4. Clearly, this discrepancy is caused by the expectation that Carolina PG Ty Lawson won't play (sprained left ankle).

Despite their current #2 AP ranking, it's taken the general public a surprisingly long time to figure out that the Blue Devils are very good this year. One has to figure this is caused by their lack of a true inside presence- their tallest players, Kyle Singler and Lance Thomas, are only 6'8. (I am excluding Zoubek, who has been hurt throughout conference play, and averaged only 11.7 minutes when healthy.)

The betting stats also tell us that Duke has been underrated to this point. Despite being a favorite in each game, their average Wagerline percentage (the approximate proportion of the public that bet on Duke against the spread) is only 55.5%. In comparison, Carolina's average percentage is 59.0%; that's a pretty significant difference. Given this, it's not surprising that Duke is 6-0-1 against the spread in ACC games, while UNC is only 4-3-1.

Lunardi currently has both Duke and UNC as #1 seeds (I would imagine the loser or Wednesdays' game drops a line), and Clemson as a 10. Those are the only three ACC teams currently in, although both Virginia Tech and Maryland are one of the "last four out".

I'd guess they end up getting four teams in. I mean, when the bottom nine play each other, somebody has to win. After Virginia Tech's loss tonight, the frontrunner for that fourth spot is probably Maryland. They are 4-3 in the ACC, including the huge win @UNC. They are 42nd in the Pomeroy ratings, and are predicted to finish 9-7 in conference. Whether that will be good enough is unclear; they lost five games out of conference, and one of them was at home against American.

Blogpoll: Week Nine

Everybody's votes are here (Google Doc); the final ballot is as follows:

Please excuse me for not getting too excited about UNC. They beat a Clemson team that is not that good by two in OT. They would have lost if Clemson managed better than 14/27 from the line. If the Tigers make a couple more FTs, UNC loses and they're down to 6th in the poll.

Meanwhile, all UCLA did this week was beat both Stanford and Cal rather easily on the road. I moved them up from 5 to 4 because of this.

After beating Pepperdine by 37, I have Memphis' chances of going 31-0 up to 32%.

The biggest discrepancy between my ballot and the compilation is with Ole Miss. I have them 20th, while they're 13th here. They play @Tennessee at 8pm; if they win, I'll certainly move them way up. And if they make a game of it, I won't drop them too far, as that would be the most impressive part of their resume to this point.

I also stubbornly have Texas higher than any of the 13 other voters. They destroyed St. Mary's, and those Tennessee and UCLA wins are looking more impressive by the day. If Texas played Ole Miss on a neutral court tomorrow, I'm pretty confident that the Longhorns would emerge victorious.

I understand why Xavier is 22nd; they have three losses (including getting blown out by 22 @Arizona St.), and the only name team they've beaten is Indiana. But after their performance in their last four games, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find 20 better teams in the country. (Pomeroy's rankings, which I should do a rundown of sometime soon, agree with this, as Xavier is 5th.)

Blogpoll: Week Seven

Everybody's votes are here (Google Doc); the final ballot is as follows:

The Blogpoll has a new #1 this week, after Memphis' impressive 14-point victory over Georgetown. The AP and ESPN polls continue to be useless, as they will keep UNC as a clear #1 until they lose, no matter what.

Pitt moves up seven spots, to #8, after their big win over Duke at the Garden. Pitt has a big game at #25 Dayton on Saturday (8pm ET, ESPN2).

Kansas was #3 on all 12 ballots. This is amazing to me.

The team we had the least agreement on was Texas A&M. They were as high as 6th, but were unranked on one ballot. Both of those seem a little excessive, although I sympathize more with the optimistic view, as I had them 12th.

Vanderbilt comes in at #21; I had them 16th. I know they're undefeated and all, but their resume really isn't that impressive, but they almost lost to Tennessee State last weekend. Their schedule is pretty weak until they play UMass on 1/5, before starting SEC play.

Blogpoll: Week Three

The full blogpoll can be found here; my ballot was as follows:

North Carolina plays Ohio St. tonight, in Columbus. It'll be interesting to see how the Hansbrough-Koufos matchup plays out. Hansbrough rarely takes a shot from more than eight feet out, while Koufos is 5/11 from 3 so far this year.

If I had submitted this today rather than Monday night, Clemson would not be on the list. They looked terrible last night against Purdue. Same goes for Wisconsin, who lost to Duke by 24.

How about Texas? They shot 63.6% from the floor in beating Tennessee by 19. Abrams is averaging 23 ppg, Augustin is at 17 pts and 8 assists. And sophomore Damion James is chipping in with 9 pts and 8 boards. They visit UCLA on Sunday night. Good thing it's on FSN so I won't be able to watch it.

I have no idea if Pitt or Miami are actually good.

Blogpoll: Week Two

The full blogpoll can be found here; my ballot was as follows:

This is through Monday's games. Although they won the CBE classic, UCLA is pretty clearly not the best team in the country when Russell Westbrook is playing point guard. Looks like Collison will be back in about a week though.

I flipped a coin between Washington St. and Oregon, and apparently I made the right choice.

It's beginning to look like Duke might actually be good. This worries me. Big game against Marquette tonight; the Golden Eagles beat Oklahoma State by 30 last night.

After watching the second half of their game last night, that might be too high for Michigan State.

UNC wasn't very impressive against Davidson; if Curry hadn't shot 2/12 from three the Wildcats could have easily won that game. Carolina's upcoming schedule is interesting- a potential showdown with Louisville in Vegas on Saturday, and then games in Columbus and Lexington next week.

I like Davidson, but I'm not happy about how they destroyed my school.

I have no idea how good Texas is, I haven't seen them play without Durant yet. They're probably only that high because I really like Augustin. Although they're 13th in the blogpoll, so I guess that's a defensible stance.

NCAAB: Tennessee Schools Look Like Early '08 Favorites

Although I've pretty much written exclusively about baseball on this site so far, I started it with the intention of concentrating on both baseball and college basketball. I still plan on doing that- in fact, I'm going to begin right now.

With the college basketball season quickly approaching (less than three months until the CBE Classic!), I've been doing some work looking back on year, and forward to the upcoming season. In doing so, using data from Ken Pomeroy's website, I put together the following table, which shows, for each team that made the Sweet 16 last year, what percentage of their 06-07 total minutes played each team has returning for the 07-08 season.

This table doesn't capture the effects of incoming freshmen and transfers, but I think it can still be pretty informative.

Memphis, the top team here, also has the #3 freshman in the country, PG Derrick Rose. Memphis should breeze through C-USA again (they're 29-1 in conference games the last two years), and has a good shot at a #1 seed if they play well against a non-conference schedule that includes USC, Georgetown, Arizona, Gonzaga and Tennessee.

A Tennessee team that almost knocked off the Buckeyes in the Sweet Sixteen all their key players except Dane Bradshaw. They are without a bigtime top 10 recruit (SoSM informs me that, although only 98th on the Rivals 150, Cameron Tatum has looked great this summer), but they will add sophomore Tyler Smith, who transferred from Iowa after averaging 15 ppg as a freshman.

UCLA does lose SG Arron Afllalo, but everybody else is coming back, and their freshman class is highlighted by big man Kevin Love, who might be the missing piece for a team that lacked an inside presence last season.

At the other end of the spectrum are the two national finalists. This comes as no surprise, as it obviously takes very talented players to make it that far, and reaching the final game allows those players to get extensive exposure, thus raising their draft status.

Florida's position is similar to North Carolina's after they won the 2005 tournament. UNC lost their top six, and had only 12.4% of their total minutes returning. This didn't end up being that big of a problem for the Tar Heels, as, boosted by freshman Tyler Hansbrough, they went 12-4 in the ACC. We'll have to wait and see if Nick Calathes can give the Gators a similar boost.

Amazingly, last year Florida returned 90.2% of it's total 05-06 minutes; I would guess that's the most for a defending champ in a very long time.