NCAA Tournament 2012: The Stats Say You Should Pick (and Avoid) These Teams in Your Brackets
By Jason McIntyre
* “The worst decision that the tournament committee made? Probably seeding Memphis, whom power ratings have as about the 10th best team in the country, as a No. 8 seed instead. This is one reason that the program likes Missouri rather than Michigan State to emerge out of the West region”
* “the teams seeded from about No. 3 through No. 6 this year are somewhat weaker than normal.”
* “Another under-seeded team is Belmont, who should have been about a No. 9 seed based on their power rating but got a No. 14 seed instead. They could give Georgetown, whom the system thinks was slightly over-seeded as a No. 3, a good run when they play”
Luke Winn over at SI has some pretty neat statistical tidbits you may also want to take a gander at:
* “Historically, high-seeded teams with great offense/mediocre defense efficiency profiles — the last two Adam Morrison Gonzaga squads, Chris Paul’s last Wake Forest team, and more recently, 2008 Drake, 2010 New Mexico and 2011 Notre Dame — have failed to make deep tourney runs. This is relevant to the 2012 bracket because we have four top-five seeds who fit that profile:” Missouri, Indiana, Duke, Temple.
* Of the 1-4 seeds from the past nine NCAA tournaments (2003-present) … only one team that ranked highest in percentage of possessions on which turnovers were forced made the Final Four and “many of them woefully underperformed their seeding … The top 1-4 seeds in that category this year are East No. 1 Syracuse (6) and West No. 3 Marquette (23).”