THE POWER RANK

The top 10 college basketball teams in 2015 by Sweet 16 appearances

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tom_izzoWhich school has the best college basketball program?

It’s an easy question to answer with only analytics. We could take an average rating from computer rankings over the past 10 years to find the best programs.

However, college basketball is a sport that almost entirely relies on the postseason for its popularity. Any legitimate ranking must consider success in the NCAA tournament.

To balance analytics with post season success, I propose ranking programs by Sweet 16 appearances over the past 10 years. With such a long time period, it’s difficult for a non-elite team by the numbers to have enough tournament success to make this list. The top 10 below includes all the traditional college basketball powers.

In addition, the Sweet 16 seems like an appropriate balance between making the tournament and winning the entire contest. It’s not enough to just make the field every year, but there’s too much randomness in winning the tourney. In the past 10 years, only two programs have won more than one tournament (Florida and Connecticut), and neither made the tournament in 2015.

To break ties among programs with the same number of Sweet 16 appearances over the last 10 years, I looked at appearances in the past 9 seasons. If this didn’t break the tie, I looked at successively shorter time periods until one program came out ahead.

The rankings below show the top 10 college basketball programs by Sweet 16 appearances. Only one program had 7 appearances over 10 years, which shows the parity in college basketball. Even the best programs have years in which they lose before the second weekend of the tournament.

Teams that missed the cut

Gonzaga has made the tournament each of the past 10 years but did not make this list. While they have become a brand name program in college basketball, Gonzaga has struggled in the tournament with only 3 Sweet 16 appearances.

Ohio State and UCLA have 5 Sweet 16 appearances each but lost out to the teams below based on the tie breaker method. Ohio State hasn’t make the second weekend of the tournament the last two years, while UCLA had 3 straight appearances early in the 10 year window.

10. Xavier

5 Sweet 16’s: 2015, 2012, 2010, 2009, 2008

Xavier is the only program in the top 10 not from a power conference. Sean Miller led the Musketeers to the first two Sweet 16 appearances, while Chris Mack has reached the Sweet 16 in half of his 6 seasons.

9. Wisconsin

5 Sweet 16’s: 2015, 2014, 2012, 2011, 2008

Bo Ryan has made the NCAA tournament in each of his 14 years as Wisconsin’s coach. They have made the Sweet 16 in half of the past 10 years, and the 2015 team led by Frank Kaminsky might be the best of all these teams.

8. Arizona

5 Sweet 16’s: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2011, 2009

Sean Miller coached Arizona for the last 4 Sweet 16 appearances. However, Arizona only had 1 appearance between 2006 and 2010 as the program transitioned from long time coach Lute Olsen to Miller.

Arizona has a great team in 2015, and I think they have the best chance of beating Kentucky should they play in the Final Four.

7. Kentucky

5 Sweet 16’s: 2015, 2014, 2012, 2011, 2010

With their undefeated season so far in 2014-2015, one might expect Kentucky to be higher on this list. However, the Wildcats struggled in the early years of this 10 year period as they transitioned from Tubby Smith to Billy Gillispie (whoa, remember him?) to John Calipari.

Even within the last 5 years, Kentucky had a down year in 2013 when they lost to Robert Morris in the first round of the NIT. Even the best programs can’t escape the vagaries of luck in this era of one and done players.

6. Florida

6 Sweet 16’s: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2007, 2006

Billy Donovan has had tremendous success at Florida, winning back to back championships in 2006 and 2007. However, it doesn’t always run smoothly in Gainesville. Florida didn’t make the tournament in 2008 and 2009 when the stars from the championship teams left. They also didn’t make the tournament this year.

5. Duke

6 Sweet 16’s: 2015, 2013, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2006

Back in the Christian Laettner years, Duke made four straight Final Four appearances and won two championships. Even Mike Krzyzewski can’t duplicate that success in this era of parity and one and done players.

Duke has fallen victim to two of the biggest Round of 64 upsets recently, as they lost to 15 seed Lehigh in 2012 and 14 seed Mercer in 2014.

4. Kansas

6 Sweet 16’s: 2013, 2012, 2011, 2009, 2008, 2007

Bill Self has an incredible streak of 11 straight Big 12 regular season championships. He also hasn’t made the Sweet 16 the past two seasons. In 2015, Kansas lost Wichita State, a program in their own state they refuse to schedule during the regular season.

3. North Carolina

6 Sweet 16’s: 2015, 2012, 2011, 2009, 2008, 2007

I thought North Carolina would be lower on this list, as Roy Williams has had some subpar teams in recent memory. North Carolina didn’t make the tournament in 2010, and they didn’t make the Sweet 16 in 2013 and 2014. However, they still have 6 appearances over the last 10 years and squeak ahead of Kansas with their Sweet 16 appearance in 2015.

2. Louisville

6 Sweet 16’s: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2009, 2008

Rick Pitino has the Louisville program in great shape, as they almost always feature a top 10 defense by adjusted points per possession. However, their offense has been the problem in 2015. If they can find enough offense in the soft East Region this year, they could make another Final Four appearance.

1. Michigan State

7 Sweet 16’s: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2010, 2009, 2008

Tom Izzo’s teams continue to perform well in March. In 2015, Michigan State beat Virginia to make the Sweet 16 for the 7th time over the last 10 years, tops in the country. I doubt Michigan State would have the highest rating averaged over the past 10 seasons, but they continue to have success in the tournament.

Sweet Sixteen Predictions, 2011 Tournament

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We were out dinner during the Pittsburgh Butler game last Saturday night. As the clock wound down, I did what any self respecting Dad would do and picked up my son out of his high chair so he could watch the game. Eli would have none of it. All through the last ten seconds of the game, which saw an amazing play for the go ahead layup by Butler and two controversial fouls, Eli kicked and fussed, clearly upset about my insistence that he watched this game. He didn’t seem to understand that he would ask me about this night a decade from now. Really, people thought Pitt was a bunch of chokers before Jamie Dixon’s team won a national championship? After the game, we headed out to my mother-in-law’s van to head home. Since Eli crawled into the back seat to play with some toys, I headed back to the restaurant to use the restroom. As soon as I left, he crawls up into his car seat and says “Bye, Daddy.” So much for showing my two year son the glory of March Madness.

In the Round of 64 and 32, The Power Rank went 24 for 42 against the line with 1 push and 5 games in which our prediction was too close to the line. That’s a 57.1% winning percentage. We found the wins by Butler, Michigan, Marquette and George Mason in the Round of 64 particularly gratifying, as The Power Rank called these winners while Vegas listed them as underdogs. However, we were humbled by the spectacular play of VCU and Florida State on Sunday night. Here are our Mountain West flavored predictions for the Sweet Sixteen:

San Diego State will beat Connecticut by 2.0

Duke will beat Arizona by 6.8

Brigham Young will beat Florida by 2.4, upset by lower seed.

Wisconsin will beat Butler by 4.6

Kansas will beat Richmond by 6.7

Florida State will beat VCU by 0.1

North Carolina will beat Marquette by 1.4

Ohio State will beat Kentucky by 5.1

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.