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!”

 

 

 

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!”