UCLA is favored by 32 in the first round. This is a lot, even for a 1-16 matchup. Is this is sign that the oddsmakers like UCLA? No. It is a sign that Mississippi Valley St. is really, really bad- Pomeroy has them 318th out of 341 D1 teams. From his preview: "Mississippi Valley State's chance of a title is one in 600 trillion." Nice.
Everyone is jumping on the Xavier bandwagon in the lower half of this region, since Duke has lost two of their last three games. Look, I love the Musketeers, but this is kind of silly. Duke has lost a couple games- @UNC, and against Clemson on a neutral court. Meanwhile, Xavier has lost two of their last five, both to Saint Joseph's. If you flip their schedule, Duke is probably 4-1 over Xavier's stretch, and Xavier is likely 1-2 over Duke's. Just something to keep in mind.
It was discussed in the East preview that the Sportsbook lines are unusually good because of UNC being so overvalued. Sadly, this does not hold true in the West, as UCLA's odds are more reasonable. There is still one that sticks out, however- the Aggies' Sportsbook odds are twice their true odds. As with Indiana, this is even after knocking down the Pomeroy odds, as I question whether Texas A&M is the 16th best team in the nation (although, looking at the teams below them, they're probably pretty close). Even with this conservative assumption, 60-1 looks great.
The potential match-up with UCLA in the second round will obviously be tough. But it's important to remember that if they get past the Bruins, the region really opens up. This is true for all the 8/9 teams, and probably contributes to the favorable odds. Breaking it down round-by-round, Pomeroy gives the Aggies only a 26% chance of winning in the second round (should they get there), but a 58.4% chance of winning their potential third game. This may be a little high, but I'm not too scared of UConn or Pitt, especially if aTm has already beaten UCLA, thus living up to their lofty Pomeroy rank.
I have not discussed the National Championship odds much. This is primarily because they're almost all terrible. It should be noted that Pomeroy does love Kansas at +525 (The Greek)- his 36.8% puts their true odds at an incredible +171. I honestly do not know what would get you better value in this situation- betting on the Jayhawks in each round, or taking the 5-1 odds. My guess would be the 5-1, but I am not sure.
I had a larger point here- right. Aside from the Jayhawks, almost all the NC odds are worthless. Let's take Indiana as an example. Sportsbook has their Final Four odds at 40-1; the best NC odds for them that I have seen are 125-1. This would imply that they have a 1 in 3 chance of winning the whole thing if they reach San Antonio. Considering that they would almost definitely be underdogs in both games, this is pretty unreasonable. Similar to longshots in conference tournaments, it's another inefficiency in the market- for all but the top teams, there is more value in the F4 odds than the traditional "Hoosiers to win it all" futures.
Somehow, I have barely mentioned #1 seed UCLA to this point. I have heard repeatedly that the Bruins got a great draw. To an extent, this is true- you certainly can't compare this region to the stacked East. But I think this claim is greatly exaggerated. Their first round draw is awesome, but that has very little effect. Texas A&M in the second round is more difficult than usual- in Pomeroy's words, the Aggies "will make UCLA's life interesting". Following this is a likely Sweet 16 game against UConn. I am not the Huskies' biggest fan, but a 4 seed seems to match their skill level. So in the first three games, it's actually more difficult than average.
The main reason people think this is a great draw is the region's "weak" two seed, Duke. But is this really true? Granted, the Blue Devils are a notch below UCLA- I actually think that the four one seeds are also the four best teams in the nation. But Duke isn't a 1, they're a 2. And I think they compare reasonably with the other 2s. Duke may not have won their conference tournament, but neither did Tennessee, and the ACC is miles ahead of the SEC this season. I will talk about this more in the South preview, but I think the perception of Texas would be very different if they played @Kansas during the regular season, rather than hosting the Jayhawks. I can't really argue for the Blue Devils being better than Georgetown- the Hoyas have been pretty impressive over the last month- but really don't think that having Duke as the 2 in their bracket makes UCLA's draw particularly special.
For the same reasons that I advised against picking the USC-Kansas St. winner to beat Wisconsin, I wouldn't be so quick to put the West Virginia-Arizona winner in the Sweet 16. Each could pull the upset, and I think both teams are underseeded as far as talent goes. But that's exactly the problem- they're both good, and they have to play each other in the first round. Meanwhile, Duke is -3600 in their round 1 game against Belmont. There is a reason that Pomeroy- whose ratings agree that the Wildcats and Mountaineers are underseeded- has Duke at 67% to get to the second weekend, while Arizona and West Virginia are each around 16%.
Pick: Duke
Upset (+6 or worse): San Diego
Scary team (four seed or worse): Texas A&M (there's no shortage of these- I also strongly considered WVU and U of A)
Related:
Midwest Region Round 1 Leans [The Money Line Journal]
South Region Round 1 Leans [The Money Line Journal]
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9 comments:
Looking at the KenPom archives, I only see region breakdown/log5 computations for the past two years. Among the 8/9 seeds, the highest percentages of winning their 2nd round game were both in 2006, Arizona at 18.82% and Kentucky at 18.55%. Both suffered 4-point losses.
The Arizona loss was a 2-point deficit with 1:31 to go, and trading layups and free-throws for the last 91 seconds resulted in a Villanova victory. The UK loss to UConn was similar: down 2 at the 0:52 mark, but the #1 seed made their free throws to hold on for victory.
Last year, the two highest were Michigan State (12.72%), who lost an 81-67 contest to UNC. The Spartans held a 59-58 lead with 6:54 left on the clock, and would be outscored 23-8 over the remainder of the game. Xavier also had a 12.37% chance of succeeding in the 2nd round, and while I'll remind you the final score was OSU 78, Xavier 71, I doubt I have to remind anyone that this was the closest to being an upset out of any of the previously mentioned games.
So this year... Indiana is given a whopping 21.26% chance of moving on to the Sweet Sixteen... Texas A&M at 18.67%. Granted, a very small sample size, but the 4 games presented in the last 2 years should indicate that #8/9 seeds with better than a 10-to-1 shot of playing on the second weekend hold tremendous value at 40:1 and 60:1, respectively, to win 4 consecutive games.
Our Final 4 picks are the same so far. That isn't surprising considering how similar we think.
I went back and forth between Duke and UCLA.
I think our selections from the South will be different though.
Marquette???
That's not mine (well, maybe it is, I haven't figured it out yet), but given your description it's my guess for yours. Unless you've done a complete 180 on the Longhorns. I haven't.
reading this it seems like you're picking duke just to prove they aren't the supposed weak 2 seed. As far as the Xavier bandwagon, maybe i'm just a sap for a great story, but I like Bayor, talent tends to win in march, and looking at Drew's recruiting classes, theres definitely talent in Waco, beside a double digit seed has to make the second week, they always do.
My bracket will be up later tonight with some explanations.
It's the chalkiest bracket I have done in years. You'll be a bit surprised by some of it.
Whoa there with the full name, Aram.
I don't really see your point. The #1 seeds are each going to have the highest % chance to reach San Antonio- would you like me to have a Final Four of UNC, KU, Memphis, and UCLA? Would that be interesting?
I think perhaps Aram's point was that once you got around to talking about UCLA, you clearly noted that Duke is a notch below UCLA without giving any clear reason why the Blue Devils should be your pick. Perhaps it has something to do with UCLA having a tougher road?
Reasons for not wanting to pick UCLA:
1. They got luck in their last two home games, and at that point everyone started to declare them the best team in the country. This annoys me.
2. Mbah a Moute is hurt.
3. I do think they have a tricky draw.
4*. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080319
*This was not an actual reason, and I did not even see this article until after I wrote the post. It is strong logic, though.
Duke? Interesting...I was on the Duke bandwagon until very recently. They just haven't looked good to me. But who knows??
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