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Podcast: Death, eternal life and the 2023 bracket analysis

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

The Region of Death is stacked with top teams in the 2023 NCAA tournament. In contrast, the Region of Eternal Life keeps giving poor teams an opportunity to advance. With help from analytics and the markets, I break down the 2023 bracket.

To listen here, click on the right pointing triangle:

You can also find this episode of the podcast on:

  • YouTube
  • Spotify
  • Apple Podcasts

Get your March Madness cheat sheet

My cheat sheet is based on my points based numbers and makes it drop dead easy for you to fill out your bracket (this will not appear on the site). To get this free service, sign up for The Power Rank’s free sports betting email newsletter.

This is a free service that strives to be:

  • Valuable
  • Concise
  • Entertaining

In addition, you get a free pdf of my book How to Win Your NCAA Tournament Pool.

To get this free service delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”








 

 
 

Filed Under: 2023 NCAA Tournament, Podcast

The team to fade in the 2023 NCAA tournament

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

The Power Rank 2023 Bracket Advice is now ready. To get this complete guide to winning your March Madness pool, become a member of The Power Rank or purchase as a separate product. The following is an excerpt.

The Jayhawks won the national title last year. It was not an upset because they had the second highest win probability by my numbers. Kansas had a high ceiling with future NBA players Ochai Agbaji and Christian Braun.

It was an upset since they had only an 8% win probability compared to 32.6% for Gonzaga. Kansas was a great team but looking up at the favorite.

This year, Kansas is actually better on defense. They rank 6th in my adjusted points per possession, an improvement from 15th on their championship team. 

This improvement is particularly impressive because they are doing it without size. Last year, they had David McCormack at 6’10” to take up space and block shots. This year, Jalen Wilson is their tallest player at 6’8”, and he is more of a wing than a big.

Kansas looked awful on defense against Texas in the Big 12 championship game. They gave up multiple uncontested layups in a 76-56 loss. However, this performance seems like an outlier given the strength of their season long numbers.

However, Kansas is not nearly the same as last season on offense. As Agbaji and Braun are now both getting significant NBA minutes, Kansas has dropped from 6th last season to 31st this year.

Jalen Wilson has become the leader. However, he is not nearly as efficient as Agbaji last season.

  • Wilson in 2023: 47.4% from 2, 33.8% from 3.
  • Agbaji in 2022: 53.3% from 2, 40.9% from 3.

Kansas freshman Grady Dick might have a higher ceiling than Wilson, Agbaji or Braun. The Athletic has him as a lottery pick at 10th in the 2023 NBA draft, and he’s making 39.9% of his threes. However, his usage is low, which suggests this freshman won’t suddenly carry the offense in March.

Backup guard Joseph Yesufu has a jump shot that makes Shaq’s release seem fluid. Dick Vitale said that Yesufu “can really shoot the ball,” but his 26.6% three point field goal percentage suggests otherwise. Dickie V or numbers, you can decide which to follow.

Kansas’s rank of 31st on offense isn’t bad, and they are a blueblood that is getting picked as champion in almost 12% of brackets on ESPN. However, my numbers give them less than a 5% chance to win, as they are in the Region of Death out west with teams like Gonzaga and Connecticut.

I’m more likely to fade the Jayhawks.

Get your March Madness cheat sheet

My cheat sheet is based on my points based numbers and makes it drop dead easy for you to fill out your bracket (this will not appear on the site). To get this free service, sign up for The Power Rank’s free sports betting email newsletter.

This is a free service that strives to be:

  • Valuable
  • Concise
  • Entertaining

In addition, you get a free pdf of my book How to Win Your NCAA Tournament Pool.

To get this free service delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”








 

 
 

Filed Under: 2023 NCAA Tournament, The Power Rank Newsletter

Podcast: 3 insights into winning your 2023 March Madness pool

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

You want to win your March Madness pool. The money is nice, but the bragging rights are even better. In this episode, I discuss three topics for the 2023 NCAA tournament:

  • The one thing you must get right to win, even before you use analytics (0:46)
  • Tennessee and their title chances (3:43)
  • How to predict March Madness upsets (6:54)

To listen here, click on the right pointing triangle.

This episode of The Football Analytics Show is also available on:

  • YouTube
  • Spotify
  • Apple Podcasts

Get your March Madness cheat sheet

The Power Rank’s email newsletter is a free service that strives to be:

  • Valuable
  • Concise
  • Entertaining

You’ll also get my March Madness cheat sheet that makes it drop dead easy to fill out your bracket. And you’re going to need analytics more than ever in 2023 with such parity in college basketball.

In addition, you get a free pdf of my book How to Win Your NCAA Tournament Pool.

To get this free service delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”








 

 
 

Filed Under: 2023 NCAA Tournament, College Basketball, Podcast

How to predict March Madness upsets

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

Upsets make March Madness special. 

In 2018, Virginia was the top overall seed heading into the tournament. They got shocked by UMBC, as a 16 seed beat a 1 seed for the first time in men’s NCAA tournament history.

The only thing better than watching these upsets is picking them in your bracket. How can we use analytics to do that?

Maybe others have some insight. For the past two seasons, The Athletic has written about Bracket Breakers, a math model that predicts March Madness upsets.

Let’s focus on one result: teams that pull off the upset tend to shoot a lot of threes. This makes sense, as shooting more threes should increase the variance in points. An increased variance favors the underdog.

Last year, I decided to test this and other hypotheses about upsets. However, I didn’t restrict myself to tournament games like the Bracket Breakers model. 

Instead, I considered all college basketball games in which a team closed in the markets as an underdog of six or more points but won outright. As a data scientist, I like a larger sample size.

In the 2021-22 season, college basketball teams took 37% of their field goal attempts from three. Underdogs of six or more points that won had a three point rate 1.7% lower. Pulling off the upset is not about shooting more threes.

In addition, I’ve found no statistical relationship between a team’s three point rate and variance in points per possession. The idea that shooting more threes increases variance is not supported by the data.

Then what leads to upsets? Making three pointers.

During the 2021-22 season, underdogs of six or more points that won made 5.5% more of their threes than their season average. Favorites that lost made 5.5% less from behind the arc.

This difference in three point shooting from both teams resulted in a seven point swing. This was by far the largest effect that I found.

For example, there is also an effect from two point field goals. Like from behind the arc, underdogs make a higher rate of two pointers while favorites make a lower rate. This resulted in a two point benefit for the underdog.

Fantastic. Three point shooting leads to upsets. All we need to do is predict three point field goal percentage.

However, this is difficult. In a landmark study called The 3-point line is a lottery, Ken Pomeroy found no correlation in a team’s three point percentage from early to late season. This was true for both offense and defense.

The results on offense should be particularly surprising. Shooting is a skill, right? How can it not be predictive?

That’s a nuanced question for another day. For March Madness, let’s conclude that the randomness of three point shooting makes it difficult to predict upsets.

Except for one team. I’ll get into that team that bucks three point regression next week.

Get your March Madness cheat sheet

The follow up to this email will come out on Tuesday, March 14, 2023. It will not be posted on the site.

To find out which team has bucked three point regression, sign up for The Power Rank’s free sports betting email newsletter. This is a free service that strives to be:

  • Valuable
  • Concise
  • Entertaining

You’ll also get my March Madness cheat sheet that makes it drop dead easy to fill out your bracket (this will also not appear on the site). And you’re going to need analytics more than ever in 2023 with such parity in college basketball.

In addition, you get a free pdf of my book How to Win Your NCAA Tournament Pool.

To get this free service delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”








 

 
 

Filed Under: 2023 NCAA Tournament, The Power Rank Newsletter

5-Nugget Saturday, March 11, 2023

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

Your weekly dose of sports betting tips, analytics and humor, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.

First CB in the NFL draft – Benjamin Solak of The Ringer joined the Deep Dive podcast to talk about the NFL draft and cornerbacks.

Oregon’s Christian Gonzalez is the favorite as the first CB taken, as he checks every box. However, Solek notes that some teams will have Devon Witherspoon ahead of him. The exceptional film on the Illinois star makes up for concerns about his size.

While the market has moved already, Solek suggested value in betting Witherspoon at +300 as the first CB taken (FanDuel).

College basketball injuries – Evan Miya’s COVID baby was college basketball analyitcs. Based on his Ph.D. in Statistics, he developed a Bayesian approach to evaluating players both on offense and defense. The result is an adjusted plus minus for college basketball players.

On a recent episode of The Football Analytics Show, Evan talked about UCLA’s Jaylen Clark, the third best defensive player in the nation by his metrics. The season ending achilles injury to Clark drops UCLA from 5th to 7th in his team rankings.

UCLA hosted Arizona recently and closed as a 5.5 point favorite with Clark. With three points of home court, this implies UCLA was 2.5 point better.

These two teams play again in the Pac-12 tournament tonight at a neutral site. As of Saturday morning, Circa and Bookmaker have their rematch as a pick, which suggests Clark is worth about 2.5 points.

Evan broke down his methods and discussed three team he likes to win March Madness in a must listen episode of The Football Analytics Show.

Do you make this mistake in your bracket? – Since you get this email and have read this far, you’re going to use analytics to fill out your bracket. But will you use it in every game?

An episode of my podcast gets into the cognitive science behind why you might not. The ideas apply not only to your bracket but also that list of bets you get from a long time winner.

Desmond Bane assists prop – The third year pro for the Memphis Grizzlies is having his best season, averaging a career high 21.2 points per game. However, Betscope notes some value on his assists prop against Dallas tonight (6pm Eastern tip off).

Sports books are split between 4.5 and 5.5 assists for Bane while he has averaged 4.1 assists this season. DARKO, probably the best NBA player projection system out there, also projects 4.1 assists moving forward. This suggests value on under 5.5 assists, and FanDuel has the best price (-146).

The mythical 12 seed – Last weekend, Andy Molitor of Betspurts poked fun of the public.

Just think, this time next week we'll all have found a 12 seed we love more than our family

— Andy Molitor (@AndyMSFW) March 6, 2023

This is data from NCAA tournaments since 1985:

  • 10 over 7 seed: 40.9%
  • 11 over 6 seed: 36.7%
  • 12 over 5 seed: 34.3%
  • 13 over 4 seed: 21.9%

There is nothing special about a 12 seed.

Get your March Madness cheat sheet

These nuggets were sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter. This is a free service that strives to be:

  • Valuable
  • Concise
  • Entertaining

You’ll also get my March Madness cheat sheet that makes it drop dead easy to fill out your bracket. And you’re going to need analytics more than ever in 2023 with such parity in college basketball.

In addition, you get a free pdf of my book How to Win Your NCAA Tournament Pool.

To get this free service delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”








 

 
 

Filed Under: 5-Nugget Saturday, The Power Rank Newsletter

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