Regional Previews: Midwest

First off- Luke Winn incorporated the home/road splits into a post for his Tourney Blog. His take on it is definitely worth a read. I swear, I have nothing against Vanderbilt- it just so happens that Siena was great on the road, and quite poor at home.

On to the Midwest preview. In the table below, the second column is the chance I think each team has of winning the region. This was done partially by taking Pomeroy's numbers into account, but mostly by my own judgments. The next column is what the odds should be. The third column is the best odds I've found, followed by their location.

Portland St. is 51:1 just to beat Kansas. Why anyone would bet on them to win the entire region is entirely beyond me.

The odds of everyone outside of the top four are really, really bad. USC is a good team. But to get to the Final Four, their four opponents could potentially be Kansas St., Wisconsin, Georgetown, and Kansas. The idea that they have a 1 in 13 chance of beating those four teams is absurd.

I'm a Wisconsin believer. They're 29-4, and have won 23 of their last 25 (both losses coming to Purdue). They are fourth in Pomeroy's ratings. That's probably a little excessive, but I still think 10:1 is quite good. The Sportsbook line is also an outlier- they're no better than 6:1 anywhere else.

I'm higher on Kansas than most. I think they are the best team in the nation- some others agree, but most do not. I would not bet on them at even money to win the region, since I think you could probably get better odds betting on each individual game. But that's not a bad line.

I have it as 90% that Kansas, Georgetown, or Wisconsin emerge from the Midwest. I think that's fair. This is partially because they're really good, but also a product of seeding. They just have it easier than the other than the other teams- that's a privilege they've earned, but a significant advantage nonetheless.

There's no doubt that USC-Kansas St. is a compelling first round matchup. But I would advise against picking either team to beat Wisconsin. First, the Badgers may not have the pro prospects, but they're better than either of those teams. But the main reason is each team's first round matchup. Who's going to win the USC-KSU game? I have no idea. It's about a toss up (USC is favored by 2.5). I'm much more confident that Wisconsin (-11) will take care of CS Fullerton. That's an important thing to keep in mind when filling out your bracket- not just the chance that USC beats Wisconsin, but the relative chances either team has of getting that far.

If Kansas, Clemson, Wisconsin, and Georgetown do end up reaching Detroit, the second weekend will be quite something.

Pick: Kansas
Upset (has to be at least a 6 point underdog): Siena, obviously
Scary team (four seed or lower): Clemson

Related: Bracket Winners and Losers [Basketball Prospectus]

Home/Away Splits In March

The comments of the "Original Bracketology" post are really excellent. David pointed out what looks like a trend in the data from teamrankings.com. They have separate home and road ratings for each team, dating back to 98-99. He noticed that teams with good home rankings, but poor road marks, tend to fail pretty spectacularly in March:

"I looked for all teams in that span that were:
A) ranked 20th or better at home
B) ranked 51st or worse on the road
C) seeded 1 through 6

Year #Seed Team (Home/Away) - Result
----------------------------------------------------------
2006 #3 Iowa (2/53) - 1st round upset
2005 #6 LSU (15/51) - 1st round upset
2003 #6 Missouri (17/57) - 2nd round loss to #3 seed
2002 #6 Texas Tech (17/51) - 1st round upset
2001 #5 Virginia (4/56) - 1st round upset"

This is obviously not a very large sample, but it does look like there's something here.

I collected data on the top six seeds in each region from the '99-'06 tournaments (excluding '01, since the teamrankings.com data is incomplete). On the right are the expected wins for each seed. This gives us a baseline to fairly assess the wide range of teams that we are looking at.

Using this, we can see how each team did compared to their expectation. For example, if a #1 seed wins two games, they're -1.04. But if a 6 seed reaches the Sweet Sixteen, they're +0.75.

Next, taking David's idea, I took the teams with the biggest differentials between their home and away rankings. There are 168 teams in the sample, so let's look at the top and bottom 10%. Here are the teams with great home ranks that were awful on the road:


This is pretty amazing. 15 of these 17 teams won fewer games than expected*. The average "vs Exp W" is -0.50, which is remarkable. Let's look at the other end of the spectrum; teams with weak home ratings, that were good on the road:


It's not as extreme, but we do see the opposite trend. These teams win an average of 0.24 more games than we would expect.

This trend is both anecdotally and statistically significant. I did a regression using these 168 teams. The independent variables were their home and away ranks, and with the dependent variable (what we're trying to predict) being tournament wins. Since a lower rank should lead to more wins, we would expect both estimates to be negative. Here are the results:

The minuscule P-Values show that both variables are statistically significant.

The absolute value of "Away" is 58% larger than that of "Home". Clearly, a team's road performance is a much better predictor of tournament success than what it does on it's home floor.

What does this all mean? Well, let's apply it to this year. Since the data only considers the top six seeds, we'll stick to that- conveniently, that's what I covered in the Bracketology post. So, of those 24 teams, who has the most dramatic home/road splits?

I think sufficient attention has been paid to the first team on this list. I'm not at all surprised that Notre Dame has a significant split- they were 9-0 at home in the Big East, but only 5-4 away from South Bend.

Xavier was a little surprising, but understandable. They are 16-1 at home, with their only loss coming to Tennessee. Their road record is 7-4- none of these opponents have been particularly good, and they lost to the best one, Arizona St., by 22 back in December.

It should be noted that these two teams have the second and third largest differentials, but they're not huge. So I'd say it's a slightly negative indicator, but nothing to be too worried about. This does not apply to Vanderbilt, obviously.

The second half of the list is interesting as well. Washington St. has been tremendous on the road, with wins over Baylor, Gonzaga, USC, Arizona St., Oregon, Cal, and Washington. To this point, they've been held back by their disappointing 5-4 home record in the Pac-10. This is a dangerous team.

I am surprised that Drake appears here. I suppose road wins against Butler, Illinois St., Creighton, and Bradley help. I am still not sold on them, but maybe my skepticism is misplaced.

Update: I forgot to include Michigan St., because I didn't have them as a top 6 seed. In reality, they're probably a 6 right now. They are 3rd in the home rankings, and 59th away; they'd be right behind Vandy.

*Because of the weird distribution of wins (each year, one team wins six, one wins five, two win four, four win three, and so on), 65% of teams are below their expected wins. In our example, 88% of the teams in the first table (bad road teams) won less games than expected, while for the second table (good road teams) only 47% won less than expected. This confirms what is displayed in the average (road success is a better indicator than home games), but it's important to have a relevant baseline.

Equal Time

I criticize Vanderbilt pretty much as often as possible. I will not repeat these comments here, but it's safe to say that I don't feel that they're the 17th best team in the country.

However, they are 25-6. They did beat Tennessee, and they are 10th in RPI. So, in the interest of equal time, I thought I'd post the comment that Jarred from The Sports VU left on my most recent Bracketology post. Although not exactly a neutral party, he clearly knows more about this team than I do, and it's always fun to hear from the other side. So:

"Big fan of the blog, but you guys will regret hating on Vandy. They may be an awful road team, but I expect them to excel on a neutral site coming tourney time and here's why:

1) Experience: Remember that these guys were a Jeff Green travel away from advancing to the Elite Eight a year ago. Three starters (Shan Foster, Alex Gordon and Ross Neltner) and three bench players return from that squad so don't expect nerves to be a factor like it is for other teams.

2) Shan Foster: Have you guys seen him play? He is flat-out ridiculous. The SEC Player of the Year dropped 42 on Miss. State and with his size (6'6) and release (ball above his head) and range, he can get his shot off from pretty much any where on the floor.

3) The Thunder from Down Under: Freshman center A.J. Ogilvy gives the Commodores the post presence they've been missing. While not too athletic, he's very skilled, uses his body well and does a great job getting to the foul line. If Vandy doesn't shoot well from outside, it still has a chance to win with Ogilvy.
Note: Disregard this point if Ogilvy plays like a bitch and picks up two stupid fouls in the first 30 seconds.

4) Solid guard play: Good tourney teams usually have strong guards and Vandy has just that. Point guard Jermaine Beal leads the SEC in assist to turnover ratio and Alex Gordon is a solid (albeit streaky) shooter. And I hear that Foster kid is pretty good too.

5) Coaching: Kevin Stallings is one of the most underrated coaches in the country. He's a great motivator and will undoubtedly have his team prepared to play come next Thursday or Friday.
What do you guys think?"

Well, I think it's unlikely that Foster hits nine consecutive 3s again, like he did in their one point overtime win over Mississippi St. And I still want to know how they lost to Alabama. And it continues to be true that they don't have a non-Memorial win over a top 70 team, in RPI or Pomeroy. And...

Wednesday Links?

I don't have time to write much of anything (and there's not much of note to write about anyway, except maybe Purdue), so I figured I'd post some links from the past few days.

Excellent Sheehan chat last Friday. My favorite part (I know, it would be):

erbacaine (Milwaukee): Eric Gagne over/under 35 saves

Joe Sheehan: Under, and I'll take out a loan to make that bet.

erbacaine (Milwaukee): rickie weeks over/under 30 Homeruns

Joe Sheehan: Under, parlayed with Gagne's saves.

If you want to read 4800 words on the 2008 Kansas City Royals' lineup, Posnanski's got you covered.

Early 2008 projected standings. How are the Indians +220 to win the Central at VIP? That is nonsense.

Shyster reviews Leitch's God Save the Fan. Good book, I recommend it.

Will Carroll begins his Team Health Reports with the Indians. I think I would sign up for Carmona only missing a month mid-year right now.

Football Outsiders pegs the Giants' odds at winning the SB when the playoffs began at 143:1.

Vanderbilt beat Kentucky by 41. No, seriously.

I have been meaning to do a NCAAB futures post, but don't 35:1 and 100:1 seem high for Stanford and Purdue, respectively? (Both at Sportsbook.)

Looks like Indiana might be in some trouble.

Checking In

A couple weeks ago I had two posts (linked below) examining the biggest discrepancies between the AP poll and the Pomeroy ratings. Today I'm going to go back and see how these teams have done since. First, those who were...

"Under the Radar"

Marquette
Then: AP #13, Pomeroy #3
Since: 3-3
Now: AP #16, Pomeroy #9

I was very wrong on this one. Marquette added two more ugly road losses to their resume, at the hands of Louisville and Connecticut. It looked like they might be turning around after they finally got a conference road win against Cincinnati on Saturday, but then they turned around and got blown out at home by Louisville tonight. Definitely not a top ten team, and both of their current rankings will fall after tonight's game is factored in.

Xavier
Then: AP #20, Pomeroy #9
Since: 4-1
Now: AP #13, Pomeroy #10

Xavier was definitely underranked at 20, and may still be at 13. They surprisingly lost @Temple by 19, but have been excellent since, beating a shorthanded Dayton team by 26 at home, and winning @UMass by 12. They have three of their next four on the road, so it might be tough to stay this high in the polls, but luckily that doesn't really matter. Lunardi currently has them as a 3 seed in the NCAAs- they will likely end up as a 3 or 4, and are certainly not a team I'd want to face.

Drake
Then: AP #26, Pomeroy #15
Since: 6-0
Now: AP #15, Pomeroy #25

This is interesting. Drake's win streak has reached 18, allowing them to move all the way up to 15th in the AP. Yet they've fallen ten spots on Pomeroy's ratings, since each of their last six wins have come by ten points our less. They also have a very difficult upcoming schedule, with visits to Illinois St., Southern Illinois and Northern Iowa in the next two weeks. I bet they'll lose one or two of those, and fall back under the radar until March. Lunardi currently has them as a 3- I'd be surprised if they stay that high, they'll probably end up at 4 or 5.

Wisconsin
Then: AP #17, Pomeroy #6
Since: 5-1
Now: AP #8, Pomeroy #5

The Badgers are the best team in the Big Ten. I don't see all that much room for debate at this point. Michigan St. has suffered borderline embarrassing losses against Iowa and Penn St. Indiana somehow lost to UConn at home, and then lost @Wisconsin by 13. Meanwhile the Badgers are 8-1, with their only loss coming at a surprisingly tough Purdue team. They do have five of their last nine on the road (although the last one is @Northwestern, which barely counts), but should be able to scure at least a 3 seed in March.

And the teams I was quite critical of:

"They're Not That Good"

Vanderbilt
Then: AP #16, Pomeroy #65
Since: 2-3
Now: AP #23, Pomeroy #75

Vandy is still ranked? Seriously? Let's look at their SEC road games:

1/12 Kentucky; lost 79-73 in OT
1/17 Tennessee; lost 80-60
1/27 Florida; lost 86-64
1/30 Mississippi; lost 74-58

They're 3-4 in a weak SEC because they've beaten South Carolina, LSU, and Auburn at home. I honestly have no idea how they are still 23rd in the AP, and 20th (!) in the ESPN poll.


Dayton
Then: AP #14, Pomeroy #44
Since: 1-4
Now: Zero AP votes, Pomeroy #69

Dayton has been really bad. They've lost to UMass, Xavier, Richmond and Rhode Island by an average of 16 points.

The Flyers do have a good excuse. They've been without freshman Chris Wright (broken ankle) for this entire stretch, and Charles Little (broken foot) missed the Xavier and Richmond games. Little is back now, but Wright won't return until March. Their schedule down the stretch isn't bad- they've gotten all their difficult road games out of the way- but they're down to a 10 seed in the latest Bracketology, and that 25-point win against Pitt seems like a distant memory.

Villanova
Then: AP #25, Pomeroy #73
Since: 2-5
Now: Zero AP votes, Pomeroy #89

This overrated post was pretty solid. Villanova has been the worst of the three- after getting demolished by St. Joe's on Monday night, they've now lost five straight. At 3-6 in the Big East, they won't make the tournament unless they catch fire down the stretch. They were certainly never one of the 25 best teams in the country, that was a product of going 10-1 against a weak (#216 in the country) non-conference schedule.

Blogpoll: Week Eleven

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

This thing is really a mess this week.

I expected to look like an idiot with this if Drake lost to Creighton last night (Creighton was favored by six), but they won in overtime, 68-60. Kyle Whelliston predicted the exact score, which is pretty impressive. It was Drake's first win @Creighton since 2002, and their best win of the year so far. They have a good shot at starting off 11-0 in the MVC before a trip to surprising Illinois St. on February 5.

This ballot does end up looking kind of silly, since Tennessee somehow lost to Kentucky last night. I suppose it is difficult to win on the road when you shoot 7/26 from three and get outrebounded by 11. I still think the Volunteers are the best team in the conference, but maybe the gap is smaller than I thought.

Ole Miss was 15th in the overall blogpoll, but I don't have them ranked. This will continue to be the case until they win a road SEC game. Mississippi St. on Saturday would be a good place to start.

Pretty much the same situation for Vanderbilt. In their two SEC road games they lost to Kentucky in double OT (which was really a terribly played game on both ends, although that loss doesn't look as bad after last night), and lost to Tennessee by 20. They play @UF and @Ole Miss in the next week, so they'll have no shortage of opportunities to prove themselves.

I'm honestly not really sure what inspired me to put Gonzaga so high. Although that win over UConn in Boston could end up looking pretty good. They will probably get blown out at Memphis on Saturday, and that'll be the end of that. St. Mary's is #15 because they handed Drake their only loss, beat Oregon, and have only lost @Texas and @SIU. They are also 4-0 on neutral floors. They should move to 6-0 in the WCC before a home game against Gonzaga a week from Monday.

I have West Virginia 18th, which is the highest of anyone in the blogpoll (they are unranked in the full ballot). Their only losses are in road/neutral games to Tennessee, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, and Louisville, and they've beaten Duquesne, Marquette, and Syracuse at home. They play @Georgetown on Saturday in a game that Pomeroy's numbers actually have them winning, so that'll be interesting. More on the Hoyas later tonight.

Some interesting matchups/lines tonight (for the record, this is not, in any way, shape, or form, betting advice; it's really the opposite of that, as the lines that the books set tend to show us when the perceptions of teams are skewed):

Missouri @ Texas Tech (-1); suprising that TT is only laying a point here, as Mizzou is 1-6 in road/neutral games, while Tech is undefeated at home, including last Wednesday's win over A&M.
Baylor @ Texas A&M (-9); A&M laying a whole lot of points to a good Baylor team that's already beaten South Carolina and Nebraska on the road.
Kansas St. (-3) @ Colorado; really short line here, as K State just won @Oklahoma, and Colorado already has eight losses.
Florida (-1) @ South Carolina; another surprisingly small number
UNC (-7.5) @ Miami, Memphis (-13) @ Tulsa; Carolina and Memphis getting 70% of the action on the road, as usual

They're Not That Good

Essentially the same exercise as yesterday, except looking at teams that are overranked rather than "under the radar". The following are the teams with the biggest difference between their rankings in the AP poll and the current Pomeroy ratings.

Vanderbilt; AP #16, Pomeroy #65

Formula for an inflated ranking:

1. Play nobody.

167th most difficult non-conference schedule. 11 home games, two away games (DePaul, Toledo), two neutral (Utah St., Bradley). Check.

2. Beat these teams, but not by that much.

15-0 in non-SEC games. Beat Tennessee St. by 9, and Tennessee Martin by 7. Both at home. These are not good teams. Check.

3. Establish yourself as "good" before you lose, so you don't drop too far.

Starting off 16-0 and climbing to 13th in the AP poll accomplished this. Then on Saturday they lost to Kentucky. Sure, it was on the road, but Kentucky already has five home losses this year, so that's not much of an excuse. Now they're no longer undefeated, and are suddenly just another one-loss team whose best W is...I don't know, either @DePaul, or South Carolina at home. And it's not like anyone expected much of them to begin with- they were tied for 43rd in the preseason AP poll. Yet they're currently #16. Their game in Knoxville on Thursday will likely change that.


Dayton; AP #14, Pomeroy # 44

I am not trying to bash Dayton, I think they're a very good team. This is more an example of how useless the AP rankings are.

Obviously, Dayton has two huge wins on their resume, winning at Louisville, and beating Pitt by 25 at home. After the Pitt win they were #20, which they probably deserved. The problem is that they certainly haven't played like the 20th best team in the country since then.

1/2: Took two OTs to beat a mediocre Akron team by two points, at home.
1/9: Beat Rhode Island at home by nine. Not bad, but a game they should win.
1/12: Needed OT to beat St. Louis. Yes, the same SLU team that scored 20 points against GW last week.

If the rankings made sense, Dayton would have slid down a couple spots after the two uninspiring OT wins. In the real world, everything except the fact that they *won* was ignored, and they moved up to #14. Dayton has created their own formula for an inflated ranking. First, they got a couple marquee wins (Louisville, Pitt) to vault them into the Top 25. Since that, despite not playing particularly well, they haven't lost, allowing them to continue to move up. The legitimacy of this entire exercise will be tested next Thursday, when Dayton visits Xavier. Pomeroy expects Xavier to win that game 77-64, so we'll see.

Villanova; AP #25, Pomeroy #73

Villanova went 10-1 against the 239th most difficult non-conference schedule in the country. Because they were 26th in the preseason poll, this got them up to #18. So that was a little excessive. In Big East play, they've lost on the road to two extremely mediocre opponents (DePaul & Cincy), and they beat Pitt at home. Pitt is a nice win, but it's the only team they've played that Pomeroy has ranked higher than 77th. There's really no reason for a team to be in the top 25 after going 11-3 against the country's 135th most difficult schedule. To stay in the T25 they'll have to beat DePaul on Wednesday, and then win at Syracuse on Saturday.

Blogpoll: Week Eight

I completely forgot about this on Wednesday. The full blogpoll is here, my ballot was as follows.

I also wrote about the blogpoll, this week's AP rankings, and futures odds here.

Nice win by UCLA @ Stanford last night, if they beat Cal tomorrow (see below) then I'll probably move them up to third.

Quite a slate of games on Saturday (all lines taken from Bookmaker, they get them up early):

Noon: Kansas (-11) @ BC, ESPN
2pm: Oregon @ Arizona (-6), FSN
4pm: Louisville (-2) @ Kentucky (this isn't actually a good game, but it's on CBS so I figured I'd include it.)
4pm: UMass @ Vandy (-7.5), ESPN FC (this should be the CBS game)
6pm: UCLA (-5) @ Cal, FSN (probably the game of the day)
6pm: Saint Mary's @ Texas (-9.5) (Fox Sports Southwest, thanks James)
8pm: USC @ Stanford (-6)
8pm: UGA @ Gonzaga (-12.5)
8pm: SIU @ Illinois St. (-5)
8pm: Creighton @ Missouri St. (-3.5)
9pm: UConn @ Notre Dame (-5.5), ESPN
10pm: Washington St. (-3) @ Washington

All these, plus Redskins-Seahawks at 4:30, and Jags-Steelers at 8.

I'm surprised UCLA is giving that many to a very good Cal team. That should be an excellent game. Vandy's schedule has been pretty weak so far, but a win over UMass would be a solid addition to their resume.

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.