THE POWER RANK

Four teams to watch during the tournament

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Gabe Avins won a state high school basketball championship in California. The junior at the University of Pennsylvania has graciously agreed lend his basketball wisdom and analytics prowess to The Power Rank. Moreover, he endorses our interactive bracket with the win probabilities for each team to make each round. This is his first post.

The rank and rating next to each team name is from The Power Rank college basketball rankings. The rating gives a predicted point spread on a neutral court against the average DI team (this year, Charleston Southern).

Ohio State (2nd, 17.8). Don’t let Sunday’s loss to Michigan State fool you—the Buckeyes are legit. In the week leading up to the conference final, Ohio State beat Michigan State in East Lansing (the only team to do so this year) and easily handled tournament bound Purdue and Michigan on a neutral court. Much of their success can be attributed to their stout defense, which ranks first in Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted defensive efficiency statistic and allows offensive rebounds on only 24.8% of possessions (best among NCAA tournament teams). The Buckeyes are no slouch on offense either, turning the ball over on only 17.4% of possessions (25th best in NCAA) and converting 53.8% of their 2-point field goals (12th best).

Prediction: Loss to Kentucky in the Championship Game.

Wichita State (8th, 14.0). Arguably the most dangerous of the mid-majors, Wichita State sits at 8th in The Power Rank and in the top 20 of Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency rankings. This is a veteran bunch—their top five scorers are all seniors, headlined by do-it-all center Garrett Stutz and the sweet shooting Joe Ragland (50% 3FG). The selection committee did them no favors, however, putting them in the same half of the bracket as both Kentucky and Indiana. Look for the Shockers to get past Indiana and play Kentucky tough.

Prediction: Loss to Kentucky in the Sweet 16.

Murray State (22nd, 11.6). The Racers probably have a legitimate gripe with the selection committee after receiving a #6 seed despite being the only team in the field with one loss. Isaiah Canaan is as dangerous as they come at the point guard position, leading an offense that ranks 9th in the NCAA in effective FG% and 5th in 3FG%. If they get by Colorado State, a third round game with Big East powerhouse Marquette looms. The Power Rank sees an incredibly close game here, predicting Marquette by 0.7 (essentially a toss up). However, from our interactive bracket, Murray State actually has a higher chance of making the Sweet 16 (38%) than Marquette (37.7%) since Marquette faces a tougher first round test in the winner of the Iona versus BYU game.

Prediction: Loss to Missouri in the Sweet 16.

Belmont (29th, 10.2). Belmont comes into the tournament riding a 14-game win streak that they will try to build upon in Nashville. The Bruins will look to ride their offense to a successful opening weekend; the team ranks 12th in the nation in adjusted offensive efficiency according to kenpom.com and sports a 55% effective FG% (good for 5th in the NCAA). Though the #3 seed knocks off the #14 seed more than 80% of the time historically, The Power Rank gives Belmont a 44.5% chance of scoring the upset and favors the Bruins over both of their potential second round opponents, SDSU and NC State.

Prediction: Loss to Kansas in the Sweet 16.

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Related Posts:

—About The Power Rank.
—Interactive bracket for NCAA Tournament.
—College basketball rankings.

NCAA Tournament 2011, First Weekend Preview

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No school has dominated college basketball quite like UCLA. Starting in 1964, they won 10 of the next 12 NCAA tournaments under legendary coach John Wooden. The program returned to glory by winning the 1995 tournament, which made them an easy villian to root against as the 1996 tournament began. UCLA faced Princeton in the first round. The Ivy league kids with no athletic scholarships played with the champs all night. Finally, in their last possession, with the game tied, they executed perfectly and made a simple layup. 43-41 Princeton, and people everywhere erupted. This is what makes the first round of the NCAA tournament so special. No other event has the power to make millions of Americans scream so passionately for some priviledged kids from the east coast establishment.

The first round of this year’s tournament will hopefully feature similar excitement. For games with teams seeded higher than 10, The Power Rank predicts that the following games have the highest likelihood of an upset.

Marquette (11) over Xavier (6)

Utah State (12) over Kansas State (5)

Richmond (12) over Vanderbilt (5)

Belmont (13) over Wisconsin (4)

Missouri (11) over Cincinnati (6)

Gonzaga (11) over St. John’s (6)

Ranked 24th in The Power Rank, Marquette is a solid team that somehow ended up with an 11 seed. While we would never tell the selection committee what to do, it seems like a team who plays in a brutally tough Big East conference with 11 teams in the tournament and only lost to tournament teams out of conference should get a higher seed. We predict that Marquette will beat Xavier by 2.6 points. Utah State, ranked 21st in The Power Rank, got a 12 seed because the selection committee didn’t think too highly of their marque win over St. Mary’s, a team that didn’t make the field of 68. Utah State plays an old fashion, pass and look for a good shot style of basketball, and they certainly have the firepower to knock off an erratic Kansas State team. While the remaining 4 teams above aren’t predicted to win, Richmond, Belmont, Missouri and Gonzaga should give their higher seeded opponents all kinds of trouble.

Moving on to the 2nd round, we note that at least one double digit seed wins two games and makes the Sweet Sixteen each year. Who will it be this year? Marquette with their 11 seed is a good bet, as they would likely play Syracuse in the second round. Marquette beat Syracuse by 6 at home during the regular season. We also like odds of a double digit seed coming out of the Tucson region that features both Utah State (12) and Belmont (13). Belmont, a small school in Nashville, Tennessee, will run eleven guys out on the court and fire up threes in their first round game against Wisconsin. A win might result in a second round game with Utah State, which would guarentee a double digit seed in the Sweet Sixteen.

Finally, consider the Michigan State Spartans and coach Tom Izzo, a program that always overachieves in the tournament. After beginning the season highly regarded in the polls, they consistently underachieved and finally hit rock bottom in late January as a key player was suspended for the rest of the season and they lost by 20 at Iowa. However, this is the same team that traveled to Durham and gave Duke all they could handle. The Power Rank sees their first round game with UCLA as a toss up and predicts a close 2.5 point loss to Florida in the second round. That’s a reasonable path to the Sweet Sixteen for the 10th seeded Spartans.

One last word about filling out your brackets. While The Power Rank is a useful tool, picking only the higher ranked teams in every game is unlikely to win your pool. For any pool with more than 10 people, someone is going to get lucky. Maybe your friend’s brother who doesn’t know that a basketball is round but somehow picks an 11th seeded Washington in the Sweet Sixteen because the campus is pretty. So get a little creative in making your picks. Last year, my friend Jeremy Jones picked the higher ranked teams if The Power Rank predicted a margin of victory greater than two. If the point spread was less than two, Jones called the upset. Hmm, Princeton is back in this year’s tournament. In a neutral court playoff against Harvard this Saturday, they hit a buzzer beating shot that lifted them to a one point win. That might be the karma a team needs to win a few games in the tournament.

Belmont is an upset threat in the tournament

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Duke fans remember the Belmont Bruins. In March of 2008, the little school from Nashville, Tennessee met Duke in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Games with a 2 versus 15 seed end in one of two ways: a quiet win for the favorite or one of the biggest upsets in tournament history. With 2:02 remaining in the game, Belmont took a 70-69 lead. Time must have stood still for Duke fans as no one scored for the next 1:53. Finally, Duke’s Gerald Henderson made a layup with 11 seconds remaining. The swelling excitement of a potential upset that makes March so special quickly faded to a quiet 1 point Duke win.

Belmont will return to the NCAA Tournament this year. The Power Rank has the Bruins at 18th, making them a tough matchup for almost anyone in the first round. Belmont has earned their rank based strong conference play in which they only lost once to arch rival Lipscomb. Moreover, they went to Knoxville twice and each time took Tennesse down to the last minute before finally losing. Belmont also led cross town rival Vanderbilt at the half before finally losing by 9. In all three games, Belmont shot poorly from three point range, well below their 38% average. While defense certainly affects this shooting percentage, the Bruins certainly have the ability to light it up from outside, one route to an upset in the tourney.

Why else should Belmont top your list of potential upsets? First, they punched their ticket to the big dance almost a week ago. That gives them at least 11 days to rest and prepare for a first round game while teams in the Big East beat each other up this week. Second, they resemble a team that wreaked havoc in the tournament last year: Murray State. Just like the Racers last year, Belmont has 11 players that play at least 10 minutes a game and no player that scores more than 13 points a game. In last year’s tournament, Murray State hit a last second shot to drop Vanderbilt in the opening round. Later that weekend, they played Butler all the way down to the final possession before finally losing. That Butler team almost knocked off Duke in the national championship game.