Vegas Watch

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.

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!

Well, this is it. It'd be hard to argue that these aren't the two best teams at this point. People have been complaining about various things all tournament, which annoys me to no end. There weren't enough upsets on the first day. Belmont almost beat Duke- who cares if there were now 5-12 "upsets"? There haven't been enough close games. Yes, there have been a lot of blowouts. But *Davidson* was a shot away from the Final Four, and I can't think of many things more fun to watch than Kansas' 29-4 run in the first half on Saturday. This is the best three week run in any sport; I don't understand why people always need something to complain about.

There aren't many odds left to discuss. Memphis is favored by 2, and everyone is picking them, for reasons that are entirely beyond me. If UNC had won on Saturday, they'd be favored, and everyone would be all over them. Kansas beat the Tar Heels by 18. Memphis beat an inferior UCLA team, in less impressive fashion. I have been picking KU all tournament, and will do so again tonight.

Sportsbook has Final Four MVP odds up again. Rush, 15:1 last week, is now 3:1. Rose is even money, and CDR is +250. Taking Rose at EV would be silly- you'd be much better off just betting on Memphis to win. CDR had 28 against UCLA, I'm not sure why his odds are so much different than Rose's. He's probably the best play there.

Kansas, along with being a better team than UCLA, matches up better with Memphis than the Bruins did. If anyone in the country can guard Rose, it'd be Robinson. And while UCLA had nobody tall enough to guard CDR, the Jayhawks have Rush. On the other end, Dorsey was able to shut down Love, but KU doesn't rely on one guy inside like the Bruins, as they have Jackson, Arthur, Kaun, and, apparently, Aldrich.

Contrary to the score I posted here, I do think it will be close, and would not be surprised at all if Memphis won. I just don't get how their bandwagon got so full, so fast.

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.

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.

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.

Same as always. I averaged the Vegas lines and the Pomeroy numbers for the first round. For rounds 2-4, I adjusted the Pomeroy numbers slightly. Marquette was downgraded, and I gave Pitt a slight bump.

Gasaway posted all the efficiency margins in one pretty chart this afternoon. The South is obviously handicapped because Memphis is not included, but it does not have a single team in the top 10.

I find it interesting that Memphis is 3:2 in multiple places to win the region. This is the same team that is 26-1, right? It's true that they didn't test themselves on the road, but were 3-0 in New York against Oklahoma, UConn, and USC. They also have double-digit home victories against Georgetown, Arizona, and Gonzaga. They went 16-0 in the 10th best conference in the country. If not for that one game, Memphis' odds would probably be much, much worse.

Looking at the aforementioned efficiency margins, Texas is only 15th in the country. This is partially because they play in the Big 12, which was very strong this year. But that's not the whole story- this didn't seem to bother Kansas, as their efficiency margin is 33% higher than anyone else's. The Longhorns looked good in their final two games- beating Oklahoma by 28, and hanging with the Jayhawks in Kansas City- but in the two weeks before that, they were uninspiring. A 3-1 record is nothing to complain about, but two of those games were at home and closer than they should be (beating Nebraska and Oklahoma St. by 4 and 5, respectively), and they lost @Texas Tech. The fact that their defense is only 32nd in efficiency also does not bode well. They don't have a bad draw- they should cruise to the second weekend- but I'm still not sold. Augustin is fun to watch though, I will give them that much.

Pitt sure looked good in New York. But the thing is, Pitt always looks good at the Garden. This was the fifth time they've reached the BE tournament final in the last six years. Let's look at how each year turned out.

Seems to me like their MSG performances aren't particularly indicative of how they'll do in the big tournament.

Marquette-Stanford would be an interesting second round game. Both teams rely on defense, but for Marquette it's their guards (3rd in 3-point FG% allowed, 5th in steal %), and for Stanford it's the tall brothers (6th in 2-point FG% allowed). I don't really see how Marquette is going to score against the Trees- their three guards are terrible outside shooters, and I can't see Hayward and Barro getting too much going against the Lopez brothers. The Vegas lines show a 64% chance of those two teams winning their first round games, so we'll probably find out.

I am picking Memphis- and they're very good- but it's essentially by default. I do not like Texas for the reasons listed above. Stanford has a bad draw. I'm not sold on Pitt. Michigan St. is 4-6 on the road, including losses at Iowa and Penn St. It's just not a very good region.

Pick: Memphis
Upset: Oral Roberts
Scary Team: Marquette

Related: First Round Schedule [Rush the Court]

Since a couple people have asked, I'm going to post my full bracket later tonight. There is no way I am going to class tomorrow afternoon, so there may be a live-blog.

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%

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.

Joe Lunardi published an article today looking at which teams could possibly end up as #1 seeds. The way he sees it, there are seven schools fighting for four spots. Here are the percentage chances that he gives each team of securing a top seed:

Memphis: 85%
Tennessee: 60%
UCLA: 60%
North Carolina: 55%
Duke: 45%
Kansas: 45%
Texas: 40%

This was obviously before Texas' win in Manhattan tonight (thanks for nothing, Bill Walker), so they're probably a little higher.

First of all, these only add up to 390%. Either Lunardi can't add, or he thinks there's a 10% chance a team like Xavier sneaks onto the top line. I tend to think it's the former; if he thinks Xavier has a 10% chance at a 1 seed, he should have said so.

I agree that Memphis is the most likely. They're clearly a 1 right now, and it is extremely unlikely that they lose before the C-USA tournament- according to Pomeroy, they have a 85% chance of winning their final four conference games. They are then hosting the C-USA tournament, so it would be quite a shock if they lost there. Even with this, it's possible that they stay on the top line with a loss. 85% looks about right; I might even go as high as 90%.

I would say the rest of the percentages look about right as well. UCLA and Tennessee are clearly the front runners after Memphis. Texas is now in good position to finish 14-2 in the B12; I think they're probably the fourth most likely at this point. I'm not quite sure what to make of UNC, with Lawson missing so much time.

Along with Xavier, Stanford and Louisville are two other teams worth watching. The Cardinal clearly doesn't belong on the time line at this point, but they have the opportunity to make some noise, playing at USC and UCLA to finish out the Pac-10 season. If they sweep those, as well as their home games against the Washington schools this weekend, they'll finish 15-3 in the Pac-10, and hold at least a share of the conference title. If they then win the tournament, you have to think they'd receive strong consideration for a 1 seed. It's a longshot, but one worth considering.

Louisville is in a similar situation. If they take care of Notre Dame and Villanova at home, and then win @Georgetown, they'll finish 15-3 in the Big East. If they do this, and then win the conference tournament, they would have a case. This is actually a more likely scenario than Stanford's, since Louisville winning @Georgetown is much more likely than Stanford winning on the road against both USC and UCLA.

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.

The St. Louis under won, 39-14 (74%). Arizona is up now; we're going alphabetically the rest of the way.

Baseball Prospectus 2008 comes out on Monday. Probably the best $13.17 you'll spend this year. Unless Xavier (80:1 at BetUS) wins it all.

Very old, but this Russell Westbrook dunk against Cal was absolutely filthy.

Baseball Musings predicts how many R/G each team will score in '08. A commenter alertly notes, "Looks like another long year for Matt Cain."

STF interviews SI's Luke Winn.

Ozzie Guillen, being awesome:

‘’Then if you’re a nice guy, they are going to treat you the same way. [Expletive] it, be an ####### then. I would rather be an ####### winning than be a nice guy [expletive] losing. Give me an ####### who can win, don’t give me a nice guy who can [expletive] lose.’"

ESPN jumped the gun on the UAB-Memphis game. How does that happen? Is it really so difficult to wait two minutes?

Silver adjusts PECOTA for strength of schedule. Seattle's prediction descends even lower. 85 wins. Right.

With Leather was on the foxnews.com front page. Also from WL:

"Seriously, if I said that Raul Ibanez could run down a routine fly ball, I'd punch myself in the face, because I'd be lying."

Derek Jeter: a below average fielder!? Man, what are they smoking down at Penn?

If you've watched ESPN for more than 30 seconds this week, you're aware that the Memphis Tigers and Tennessee Volunteers are playing each other at 9pm ET on Saturday night, in a battle of '#1 vs. #2'*.

Pinnacle, which is always on top of this type of thing, has released the line already- Memphis is favored by 6.

This may seem a little high, but do remember the game is being played at Memphis, so that explains about four points of it. As discussed here the other day, Tennessee has struggled on the road- they've been winning, but not by much, and not against very tough competition.

Ken Pomeroy also brought up an interesting point today. The Volunteers' defense depends on their opponents turning the ball over; they struggle, especially defending the three, when their opponents are able to take care of the ball. This hasn't been too much of a problem so far, but may become an issue against stiffer competition.

Regardless, Saturday night promises to be an intriguing, fast-paced games between two of the country's most exciting teams.

*Yeah, okay. Kansas and UCLA apologize for playing in real conferences.

Update: Not surprisingly, Tennessee is a very public dog, getting almost 70% of the action so far at Wagerline.

Thursday update: The line has moved down to 5.5. Although the juice (-112 for Tennessee, +102 for Memphis) indicates that it's right on the border between 5.5 and 6.

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

Kansas has been demolishing everyone, and may be the best team in the country right now. But they haven't beaten a team that I have in the top 25. They play @Mizzou on Saturday; if they win that one easily, I might have to move them up.

I don't think we'll know how good Memphis really is until March. They've got all these big names on their non-con schedule (Oklahoma, UConn, USC, Georgetown, Arizona, Gonzaga, Tennessee), but none of those are true road games. The Gonzaga game is a week from Saturday, so that will be interesting.

Who is the 5th best team in the country? I have no idea. Tennessee? Duke? Marquette?

Arizona went 1-3 without Bayless, dropping out of the poll. He's now back, and scored 33 @Houston on Saturday. The Wildcats visit Stanford and Cal this week. If they win those two, they'll certainly be back in the poll.

The last five are impossible to rank every week. ASU hasn't played a Pac-10 road game yet. They're obviously playing the same teams as Arizona this week, so that should be interesting.

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.)

This year's Memphis team really seems like the perfect storm. They were pretty solid last year, reaching the Elite 8 before losing to a team that only had two eventual top-four picks.

Obviously, that doesn't make them unique. The difference between Memphis and those other seven teams is that they returned nearly their entire team.

Below are the key losses of each of last year's final eight teams:
Ohio State: Conley, Oden, Cook
UNC: Wright
Georgetown: Green
Kansas: Wright (the other one)
UCLA: Afflalo
Florida: Ha
Oregon: Brooks
Memphis: Jeremy Hunt

Now, this is not to diminish Jeremy Hunt's contributions to last year's team. He did average 24 minutes and 14 points. But his loss clearly didn't hurt Memphis as much as the other Elite 8 teams (with the possible exception of Kansas).

Not only that, but Memphis added the third best freshman in the country this season. Combine that with a 13-0 start and the fact that they play in Conference USA...I think you see where I'm going with this.

So, how likely is it that they finish 31-0, ? Moreso than you probably would have guessed.

Here's their schedule the rest of the way:
1/9 East Carolina
1/12 @Marshall
1/16 @Rice
1/19 Southern Mississippi
1/23 @Tulsa
1/26 Gonzaga
1/30 @Houston
2/2 UTEP
2/6 Southern Methodist
2/9 Central Florida
2/13 Houston
2/16 @UAB
2/20 @Tulane
2/23 Tennessee
2/27 Tulsa
3/1 @Southern Mississippi
3/5 Southern Methodist
3/8 UAB

Projections for each of these games can be found at Ken Pomeroy's site. Needless to say, they are going to be significant favorites in each. They've been favored in every C-USA game since 04-05 (when their conference schedule looked a little bit different), and their two non-conference games (Gonzaga, Tennessee) are both at home.

Pomeroy gives them a 46.9% chance of running the table in C-USA, and since I'm not about to try to handicap games like Memphis @ Rice, I'm going with that for these purposes. He predicts Memphis to beat Gonzaga by 12 (with an 87% chance of winning), which seems about right- I would guess they'll be favored by about that number when they play later this month.

In their other non-conference game, Pomeroy has Memphis beating Tennessee by 11, with a 83% chance or winning. Both of these numbers seem high to me; Tennessee is damn good. On 12/22, the Volunteers won at Xavier by seven. Check out what Xavier has done since that loss:

12/28 Delaware State W 65-33
12/31 Kansas State W 103-77
1/3 Virginia W 108-70
1/6 @Auburn W 80-57

Not bad. I'd guess Memphis will be favored by about 7.5 against Xavier, which gives them a 75% chance of winning. Combine that with 87% in the Gonzaga game, and 46.9% to go 16-0 in C-USA, and they're at a 30.6% to go 31-0.

If there was a line on this (there's not...there should be), here's what it would look like:

Memphis to go undefeated, +215
Memphis to NOT go undefeated, -255

(I understand that there are five other undefeated teams. It's really too early to look at the odds that any of them to undefeated, though. Pomeroy has Kansas rated #1, and they are by far the highest, at almost 12%. But UNC is at only 1.02%, because they're still rated below Duke, who they play twice. And Vandy, Wash St. and Mississippi are all under 0.1%. If one of them still hasn't lost a few weeks from now, then it'll be worth looking at.)

Photo: InsideHoops.

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.

My strategy for teams who don't play anyone (Pitt, Clemson) is to just keep them where they are. I really don't care how much you beat Toledo by (26, in Pitt's case); you're not moving up with this nonsense. As for Clemson, they're actually lower than last week, because they looked absolutely atrocious against Purdue.

Arizona is good, apparently. I kind of lost faith after they lost to UVA at home, but playing with Kansas in Lawrence and beating Texas A&M certainly puts you in the top 25. I'm trying to plan a trip to visit a friend at Arizona and see Wildcats-Bruins in early March. We shall see.

It's hard to know what to do with teams like USC. They're clearly very good, but they need to actually start winning some of these games (they should have last night; Memphis gave them that game, Hackett just missed the FT that would have given them the lead with six seconds left).

I filled this ballot out Monday night, but last night caused me to have some second thoughts about having Memphis so high. They looked so sloppy. It's one thing for USC to still be figuring things out this early in the year, but expectations are a lot higher for the Tigers.

Big game in the northwest tonight, Washington St. @ Gonzaga.

The Hoosiers have bounced back after a disappointing loss to Xavier with wins over Georgia Tech and Southern Illinois. Interesting game in Bloomington on Saturday, with Kentucky coming into town.

Butler is another team it's hard to find a spot for. They outscored Ohio State 45-16 in the second half, and have the advantage of being more of a "name" than a year ago, but their resume isn't going to be nearly as strong; the only major conference team left on their schedule is Florida State (they play @Southern Illinois later this month as well).

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.