I gotta say, I don’t remember the last time I was so excited to see an NCAA final not involving a team I root for. Game is at 9:21 ET. Preview is here. All the stats paint this as pretty much dead even, with a score in the 70’s. That’s how […]

[These are just summaries. More in depth analysis can be found in the linked previews.]
Saturday, 6:07 PM: Ohio St. vs. Georgetown
This should be an offensive, evenly matched game. OSU’s Greg Oden has been possibly the most influential player in the tournament (when he hasn’t been sitting due to fouls), but this is the […]

Here’s a graph that shows the Final Four teams’ performance during the tournament, game by game. The top 4 lines (with the white diamonds) are offense, and the bottom 4 (black diamonds) are defense. As always, down is good for defense. Two things really stand out for me:

UCLA’s amazing defense and non-amazing […]

A fantastic slate of games this weekend, with only one game that seems to have a clear favorite (Florida over Oregon). Here are summaries of the more in-depth analysis found in our game previews, along with a couple stat-based predictions.
Saturday, 4:40 PM: Ohio St. vs. Memphis
Not many turnovers or fouls (but if there are, […]

These are rolling 10 game averages of the offensive (top, up is good) and defensive (bottom, down is good) efficiencies of all the teams left in the tournament, broken down by region. If that’s not interesting to you, you are really missing out on a number of worldly experiences.
Basically, if a team’s top line […]

KenPom.com has eFG% data for the last 3 years, so I took a look at what, if anything, eFG% (definition) might be able to tell us about which Sweet 16 teams will make the Final Four. Turns out, if this year holds to the patterns of the last 3 years, the Final Four is […]

Check out our game previews for the Sweet 16 … I know, we picked a lot of chalk. If we have to pick a #1 seed to lose, my gut says USC takes down UNC. (Which probably means UNC wins in a blowout.)
[BE SURE TO CLICK THROUGH TO THE ACTUAL PREVIEWS. THEY […]

Hope these “Just Stats” posts aren’t too annoying, but Mondays are busy nights. Should have some commentary up tomorrow at the latest.

Tempo
Rnk
Offense
Rnk
Defense
Rnk
Overall
Rnk

Kansas
69.9
1
126.4
2
82.3
1
0.9928
1

N. Carolina
69.8
2
127.9
1
90.3
8
0.9822
2

Georgetown
60.1
15
121.1
8
85.9
3
0.9813
3

Florida
65.5
7
123.8
4
90.2
7
0.9745
4

Ohio St.
63.6
9
117.7
12
86.0
4
0.9736
5

Texas A&M
63.1
11
122.4
5
91.8
10
0.9650
6

Oregon
62.2
13
126.0
3
94.5
13
0.9646
7

UCLA
62.2
14
116.8
14
88.6
5
0.9602
8

Tennessee
69.6
3
121.4
6
92.1
11
0.9598
9

S. Illinois
62.5
12
110.9
16
85.8
2
0.9504
10

UNLV
64.1
8
117.3
13
91.0
9
0.9491
11

Memphis
66.9
4
114.4
15
89.0
6
0.9472
12

Pittsburgh
63.1
10
120.2
10
93.7
12
0.9457
13

Vanderbilt
66.4
5
119.3
11
95.8
14
0.9258
14

USC
66.0
6
121.1
9
97.4
15
0.9241
15

Butler
57.9
16
121.3
7
98.4
16
0.9171
16

Here’s a chart of the adjusted tempo and efficiencies of all the Sweet 16 teams for the first 2 games of the tournament. I was going to post it with each team’s rank in each category, but the ranks exaggerate some differences in performance and minimize others. So I broke the offenses and […]

12:10 PM: #4 Virginia vs. #5 Tennessee
40 MINUTE GAME OF HORSE. Both of these teams played great on offense and poor on defense in the first round. The reason the scores look so different is all about the tempo and opponent. Both teams are likely to improve their defensive performance a bit, […]