While watching the ending to the Texas/Cincinnati NCAA tournament game, it felt like deja vu. Because it was. In other big games this season, Texas’ deficit followed a similar course.
This is game-flow data (moving left to right) compared to the advantage/deficit in points at a particular time during the game.
2012 NCAA Basketball Tournament Preview
Alright. It’s noon on Thursday. You’ve still got 40 minutes until the games start. Here are some of my final thoughts before the tournament starts.
Generally, I think the tournament committee did a great job seeding these teams this year. Unfortunately, that also means that we’re probably not going to see anything too crazy like a 8 vs 11 in the Final Four. Of course, I’m always wrong about these things.
The bubble
Best 4 teams to not make the tournament
Oral Roberts: Beat Xavier by 22 points
Northwestern: Still never made an NCAA tournament, which is, honestly, quite impressive in its own right.
Mississippi State: Top 15 in the AP poll on Jan 2, and they miss the NCAA tournament. Season ended Tuesday with a loss to UMass in the first round of the NIT.
Seton Hall: 8-10 in conference is only good enough if you are the defending national champs.
Bottom 4 At-large bids
Iona: Drexel got screwed
Xavier: They are either a top ten team or outside the top 50
South Florida: 2-9 vs the top 50. Not good. (But better than Cal, apparently.)
West Virginia: 9-9 in the Big East is not impressive. (Although UConn was 9-9 last year and we know what happened there.) 4-8 against the top 50 this year.
The seeds
Best of each seed
Best 1 seed: Kentucky
Best 2 seed: Ohio State
Best 3 seed: Marquette
Best 4 seed: Indiana
Best 5 seed: Wichita State
Best 6 seed: Murray State
Best 7 seed: St. Mary’s
Best 8 seed: Creighton
Best 9 seed: Alabama
Best 10 seed: Purdue
Best 11 seed: Colorado State
Best 12 seed: VCU
Best 13 seed: Ohio
Best 14 seed: BYU
Best 15 seed: Lehigh
Worst of each seed
Worst 1 seed: North Carolina
Worst 2 seed: Kansas
Worst 3 seed: Florida State
Worst 4 seed: Michigan
Worst 5 seed: Temple
Worst 6 seed: UNLV
Worst 7 seed: Notre Dame
Worst 8 seed: Kansas State
Worst 9 seed: UConn
Worst 10 seed: Xavier
Worst 11 seed: Colorado
Worst 12 seed: Long Beach State
Worst 13 seed: New Mexico State
Worst 14 seed: St. Bonaventure
Worst 15 seed: Loyola Maryland
Best first round games
UConn (9) vs Iowa State (8)
Notre Dame (7) vs Xavier (10)
Memphis (8) vs St. Louis (9)
Florida (7) vs Virginia (10)
Southern Miss (9) vs Kansas State (8)
Temple (5) vs South Florida (12)
St. Mary’s (7) vs Purdue (10)
Best Projected Second Round Games
Indiana (4) vs Wichita State (5): Everyone loves a mid-major team
Florida State (3) vs Cincinnati (6): ACC Tournament Champ vs Big East Tournament Runner-up
Louisville (4) vs New Mexico (5): Big East Tournament Champion vs Mountain West Tournament Champion. No one seems to be talking about either of these teams. Louisvlle just won 4 games in a row (Seton Hall, Marquette (3), Notre Dame (7), and Cincinnati (6), the last three on the road) to win the Big East tournament. New Mexico just won three in a row (Air Force, UNLV (6), and San Diego State (6), the last two on the road) to win the Mountain West tournament.
Most likely lower seed wins by seed
9 seed: Southern Miss over Kansas State
10 seed: Virginia over Florida
11 seed: Texas over Cincinnati
12 seed: Harvard over Vanderbilt
13 seed: Ohio over Michigan
14 seed: BYU overt Marquette
15 seed: Detroit over Kansas
16 seed: Vermont over North Carolina
The 14 seeds
I think we’re gonna see AT LEAST one 14 seed win a game in the first round this year. A lot of people are really excited about Belmont (Sagarin has them ranked 33!), but I think BYU is the most exciting 14 seed. South Dakota State and Saint Bonaventure are no joke either. Sagarin has Belmont ranked ahead of Cincinnati (6), Temple (5), St. Mary’s (7), UConn (9). In the same ratings, Belmont AND BYU are ranked ahead of West Virginia (10), Harvard (12), Notre Dame (7), Murray State (6), NC State (11), San Diego State (6), VCU (12), Xavier (10), Iona (14), Southern Miss (9), and South Florida (12). Sagarin would have Belmont at 9 and BYU at 10; I would put BYU at 11 and Belmont at 13.
My Final Four picks
Kentucky (1), Ohio State (2), Michigan State (1), North Carolina (1). I know these are boring picks, but that’s the way the brackets line up. Sorry.
I have Kentucky playing Ohio State in the finals with Kentucky ultimately winning the tournament. Following the tournament the championship will then have to be vacated because Calipari is the coach and the only thing he loves more than winning is vacating Final Fours.
Good luck to all the teams.
Cheers.
Nan Laird is speaking at Smith College today. Go.
Nan Laird is speaking at Smith College today at 5pm. You should probably go to this.
Finding Genetic Markers for Disease: Some Challenges and Opportunities for Biostatisticians, Thursday, March 15, 5 p.m., McConnell B15
Nan Laird, Professor of Public Health and Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health. In the relatively short time span of less than 10 years, association analysis has become the primary study design for finding genes underlying complex disorders. Genome Wide Association Studies have discovered hundreds of new genetic markers which predict disease. Early successes with association analysis led to great excitement about the promise of GWAS for understanding the genetic basis of complex disease. Although the number of GWAS studies has proliferated rapidly, replications are often disappointing and Meta-Analysis has become an essential part of the process of gene discovery. This talk will review some features of GWAS that offer challenges and opportunities for Biostatisticians.
EigenBracket 2012: Using Graph Theory to Predict NCAA March Madness Basketball
An interesting post from BioPhysEngr Blog:
EigenBracket 2012: Using Graph Theory to Predict NCAA March Madness Basketball
Cheers.
NCAA Basketball Rankings – 3/11/2012
Rankings as of 9:52pm on 3/11/2012.
Previous rankings are here.
Breakdown by conference: 3, 4, 5, 3, 0, 2, 2, 2, 4
ACC Big East Big Ten Big 12 Pac 12 SEC MWC MVC Other
| Team | Rank | Change | Record | AP | Sagarin |
| Kentucky | 1 | ↑1 | 32-2 | 1 | |
| Syracuse | 2 | ↓1 | 31-2 | 5 | |
| Michigan St | 3 | ↑4 | 27-7 | 3 | |
| Ohio St | 4 | ↑2 | 27-7 | 2 | |
| Duke | 5 | ↓2 | 27-6 | 11 | |
| North Carolina | 6 | ↓1 | 29-5 | 6 | |
| Missouri | 7 | ↑2 | 30-4 | 7 | |
| Kansas | 8 | ↓4 | 27-6 | 4 | |
| Marquette | 9 | ↓1 | 25-7 | 15 | |
| Baylor | 10 | – | 27-7 | 12 | |
| Indiana | 11 | – | 25-8 | 9 | |
| Louisville | 12 | ↑7 | 26-9 | 18 | |
| Wisconsin | 13 | – | 24-9 | 8 | |
| Wichita St | 14 | ↓2 | 27-5 | 10 | |
| Creighton | 15 | – | 28-5 | 25 | |
| Michigan | 16 | ↓2 | 24-9 | 23 | |
| Georgetown | 17 | ↓1 | 23-8 | 14 | |
| Murray St | 18 | ↓1 | 30-1 | 40 | |
| Florida St | 19 | ↑7 | 24-9 | 21 | |
| Memphis | 20 | ↑3 | 26-8 | 13 | |
| Vanderbilt | 21 | ↑6 | 24-10 | 20 | |
| St. Mary’s-CA | 22 | ↓1 | 27-5 | 35 | |
| New Mexico | 23 | ↑6 | 27-6 | 16 | |
| San Diego St | 24 | ↑5 | 26-7 | 46 | |
| Temple | 25 | ↓7 | 24-7 | 36 |
26-35: Gonzaga, Florida, Cincinnati, UNLV, Saint Louis, Purdue, Notre Dame, Virginia, Alabama, Southern Miss
BCS: My offer still stands…….if you want to contact me you can send me a tweet @StatsInTheWild.
Cheers.
Stats in the Wild 