The 2013 Wothism NCAA Tournament Preview

Welcome to the 2013 Wothism NCAA Tournament Preview. Get ready for a lot of numbers with very little context!

Now, I know some of you will wonder how the numbers below were created, but here's pretty close to the best explanation that I'm willing to give: through a lot of late nights and a lot of Excel programming.

It's not that I don't want to help you out if you're legitimately interested -- I'll be happy to run additional numbers for you or attempt to quantify the likelihood of various events in the tournament taking place -- but the development of many of the bits and pieces that go into the creation of these numbers has taken years. I'm not a generous enough man to simply give it all away. At least not yet.

If you want a window into what I'm doing here, visit kenpom.com. That scratches the surface, and I use some of the exact same statistics he does. In other cases, I have created some of my own metrics that have proven more useful than his.

How they all mingle together is what I won't explain. Feel free to inquire if you have a specific question, but you otherwise won't get much of an explanation from me.

Without further ado, here are my game lines for each of the upcoming 32 games already scheduled (there are four first-round games and then 28 currently scheduled second-round games; obviously there will be 32 once you toss in the first-round winners). Please note that NEU stands for NEUTRAL -- I have done this because you will have to make your own determinations where any slight "home court advantage" might apply. For the truly uninitiated, the team with the minus is the team that's favored -- for instance, I predict that North Carolina A-T will win by 2 points in a game with just less than 131 points; in other words, the final score will be roughly NC A-T 71, Liberty 69:

	NEU
539	LIBERTY	130.95
540	NORTH CAROLINA A&T	-2.12
	NEU
541	MIDDLE TENNESSEE	130.96
542	ST. MARY'S	-5.99
	NEU
623	LONG ISLAND	142.33
624	JAMES MADISON	-0.22
	NEU
625	LA SALLE	139.16
626	BOISE ST.	-4.17
	NEU
709	MISSOURI	142.07
710	COLORADO ST.	-1.19
	NEU
711	DAVIDSON	136.11
712	MARQUETTE	-7.47
	NEU
713	BUCKNELL	122.32
714	BUTLER	-2.84
	NEU
715	VALPARAISO	126.96
716	MICHIGAN ST.	-9.06
	NEU
719	AKRON	136
720	VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH	-4.08
	NEU
721	SOUTH DAKOTA ST.	139.47
722	MICHIGAN	-13.71
	NEU
723	SOUTHERN	130.37
724	GONZAGA	-18.64
	NEU
725	WICHITA ST.	119.18
726	PITTSBURGH	-3.08
	NEU
727	HARVARD	123.7
728	NEW MEXICO	-8.25
	NEU
729	BELMONT	137.1
730	ARIZONA	-7.05
	NEU
731	OREGON	130.85
732	OKLAHOMA ST.	-2.83
	NEU
733	NEW MEXICO ST.	123.14
734	ST. LOUIS	-2.45
	NEU
735	CALIFORNIA	130.55
736	NEVADA LAS VEGAS	-2.52
	NEU
737	MONTANA	132.65
738	SYRACUSE	-14.29
	NEU
823	ALBANY	133.98
824	DUKE	-18.93
	NEU
825	CINCINNATI	132.62
826	CREIGHTON	-0.99
	NEU
827	FLORIDA GULF COAST	124.97
828	GEORGETOWN	-11.99
	NEU
829	OKLAHOMA	130.2
830	SAN DIEGO ST.	-4.6
	NEU
833	TEMPLE	149.6
834	NORTH CAROLINA ST.	-3.04
	NEU
835	IONA	146.04
836	OHIO ST.	-12.58
	NEU
837	IOWA ST.	151.32
838	NOTRE DAME	-2.59
	NEU
839	WESTERN KENTUCKY	136.34
840	KANSAS	-16.32
	NEU
841	VILLANOVA	136.7
842	NORTH CAROLINA	-3.31
	NEU
843	MISSISSIPPI	132.3
844	WISCONSIN	-8.61
	NEU
847	NORTHWESTERN ST.	142.43
848	FLORIDA	-18.14
	NEU
849	MINNESOTA	-6.77
850	UCLA	137.15
	NEU
851	PACIFIC	126.15
852	MIAMI FL	-9.06
	NEU
853	COLORADO	132.18
854	ILLINOIS	-3.26

I know that's what most of you came looking for, so hopefully that will help to inform some of your early bracket decisions. As previously mentioned, I would be happy to run later matchups upon request.

I do have a few otherwise general comments on the selection process as a whole:

1. I have absolutely no problem with anything the Selection Committee did this year. Some of the seeding is truly bizarre, but I'm not even going to pretend to know (or care) about some of their geographic procedures. The bottom line is that every team that deserved to get in, got in. The team with the biggest gripe based on my numbers would be Kentucky, but those were numbers created mostly with Nerlens Noel. The Wildcats weren't the same team without him, and so I can't say the committee was wrong in leaving Kentucky out.

2. In other words, maybe the move to 68 teams hasn't been the biggest travesty ever. My initial thought when it happened was that it was a complete joke, but frankly, I'd have to say that it has worked out tremendously well. As much as I hated VCU getting in a few years ago (and, honestly, that was one of my biggest gripes with the committee EVER), they went from the First Four to the Final Four, so they showed that simply getting the right teams into the tournament period is the most important thing. The seeding doesn't necessarily matter as long as the teams that deserve a shot to play for the title get the shot they earned.

Now, here's a macro breakdown of what I see across the board to inform some of your later picks:

1. Everyone (including me) had the knee-jerk reaction that the Midwest was the toughest region, and everyone was right on some level (yep, I was right) -- at the top, the Midwest is the heaviest: three of the six best teams in the country are in that bracket: Louisville (#3), Duke (#4), Michigan State (#6). But on some level, everyone was wrong: the WEST has the most quality from top-to-bottom. The top teams speak for themselves: Gonzaga-Ohio State-New Mexico-Kansas State-Wisconsin-Arizona-Notre Dame-Pittsburgh, but the bottom teams are what make it: Wichita is really dangerous, Iowa State can beat anyone when they're hitting from outside, Belmont is incredibly efficient, Ole Miss is ... well, I think Ole Miss is garbage, but Marshall Henderson is really dangerous, and Boise State is easily the best No. 13 seed. Harvard is kind of "meh" at No. 14, but Iona is dangerous as a 15 seed and Southern is the second-best 16. So the MIDWEST may indeed be the "toughest" if you're talking about making it to the Final Four, but the games in the WEST are going to be the "toughest" if you're talking about closest. /Semantics-based discussion

2. The East is BY FAR the weakest region by pretty much any measure. I do have Indiana as the second-best team in the nation, but Miami-Marquette-Syracuse-UNLV-Butler-Illinois as your Nos. 2-7 seeds? Just awful. If you're in a multiply or add seed pool, this is the region where you pick Indiana and then all upsets and clean up.

3. There were plenty of head-scratchers in the seeding -- some of the Pac 12 teams getting 12 seeds while UCLA came up with a 6, for instance -- I only have three games in which the lower-seeded team is "better" than the higher-seeded team: Middle Tennessee/St. Mary's over Memphis (both teams are better), Boise State over Kansas State, and Minnesota over UCLA. So, again, more credit is due to the selection committee for incorporating at least some semblance of advanced metrics into their thought processes.

What follows now is a breakdown of other various outcome-based numerology I've created through a full tournament predictor. Again, this uses a proprietary metric and assigns probabilities for literally everything that might occur in this tournament. I can give you the likelihood that Team A will play Team B in the Sweet 16, and the likelihood that Team A will beat Team B in the Sweet 16, in just a few seconds.

In fact, just take a look at the below chart for the probabilities that each team wins the following number of games. As an example of what the chart means: Louisville is 66.87% likely to win both of their first two games, i.e. make the Sweet 16. They are 49.84% likely to make the Elite 8 and 29.33% likely to make the Final Four. Finally, they are 17.79% likely to make the championship game and have a 10.17% chance to win it all.

Here's the rest:

	winboth	win3	win4	win5	win6
LOUISVILLE	0.6687	0.498415	0.293286	0.177967	0.101764
NORTH CAROLINA A-T	0.000274	9.84E-06	1.77E-07	3.31E-09	5.45E-11
COLORADO ST.	0.201023	0.123253	0.053958	0.024581	0.01035
MISSOURI	0.130003	0.071613	0.026962	0.010596	0.003819
OKLAHOMA ST.	0.407285	0.148789	0.058759	0.0242	0.009163
OREGON	0.172292	0.04173	0.011122	0.003108	0.000786
ST. LOUIS	0.354312	0.107154	0.035339	0.012191	0.003835
NEW MEXICO ST.	0.066111	0.009036	0.001384	0.000223	3.2E-05
MEMPHIS	0.094997	0.0226	0.005919	0.001502	0.000344
ST. MARY'S	0.238526	0.084166	0.031844	0.011856	0.004039
MICHIGAN ST.	0.626329	0.336897	0.188208	0.10514	0.055001
VALPARAISO	0.040149	0.006386	0.001143	0.000195	2.98E-05
CREIGHTON	0.200745	0.094981	0.042161	0.018546	0.007526
CINCINNATI	0.167933	0.075137	0.031421	0.012988	0.004936
DUKE	0.629822	0.379755	0.21849	0.125827	0.068009
ALBANY	0.001501	7.81E-05	3.46E-06	1.42E-07	5.15E-09
	winboth	win3	win4	win5	win6
GONZAGA	0.575731	0.339992	0.201581	0.105889	0.055037
SOUTHERN	0.001583	7.85E-05	3.97E-06	1.53E-07	5.67E-09
PITTSBURGH	0.313836	0.172841	0.095595	0.046331	0.022191
WICHITA ST.	0.108851	0.042546	0.016722	0.005515	0.001787
WISCONSIN	0.494302	0.262549	0.154573	0.080533	0.041511
MISSISSIPPI	0.09035	0.024333	0.007834	0.002077	0.000539
KANSAS ST.	0.199895	0.074719	0.032327	0.011862	0.004283
BOISE ST.	0.215453	0.082941	0.036836	0.013918	0.005177
ARIZONA	0.394816	0.188761	0.082795	0.03459	0.014249
BELMONT	0.116125	0.034455	0.008923	0.002184	0.000523
NEW MEXICO	0.459031	0.212808	0.090198	0.036385	0.014464
HARVARD	0.030028	0.004515	0.000562	6.58E-05	7.48E-06
NOTRE DAME	0.202908	0.092287	0.032887	0.011117	0.003693
IOWA ST.	0.139997	0.055962	0.017127	0.004962	0.00141
OHIO ST.	0.633344	0.406813	0.22147	0.115585	0.059683
IONA	0.023751	0.004398	0.000566	6.88E-05	8.1E-06
	winboth	win3	win4	win5	win6
KANSAS	0.591331	0.306168	0.147101	0.074757	0.036158
WESTERN KENTUCKY	0.003251	0.00018	8.01E-06	4.04E-07	1.79E-08
NORTH CAROLINA	0.274947	0.122116	0.049674	0.021576	0.008824
VILLANOVA	0.130471	0.044079	0.013342	0.004375	0.001328
VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH	0.280567	0.126478	0.049014	0.020334	0.00792
AKRON	0.06358	0.015994	0.003317	0.000756	0.000157
MICHIGAN	0.643295	0.383584	0.203251	0.113233	0.060436
SOUTH DAKOTA ST.	0.012559	0.001401	0.000125	1.25E-05	1.11E-06
UCLA	0.094654	0.038013	0.013415	0.004683	0.001519
MINNESOTA	0.26037	0.144332	0.072379	0.035785	0.016806
FLORIDA	0.638084	0.433424	0.273175	0.169707	0.101824
NORTHWESTERN ST.	0.006892	0.00083	8.3E-05	8.32E-06	7.38E-07
SAN DIEGO ST.	0.360356	0.147861	0.070624	0.033268	0.014836
OKLAHOMA	0.130856	0.034957	0.011232	0.003574	0.001051
GEORGETOWN	0.501682	0.200181	0.093232	0.042832	0.018598
FLORIDA GULF COAST	0.007106	0.000403	2.84E-05	2E-06	1.24E-07
	winboth	win3	win4	win5	win6
INDIANA	0.757999	0.48862	0.341104	0.199876	0.117443
JAMES MADISON	0.001367	5.37E-05	2.64E-06	7.88E-08	2.35E-09
NORTH CAROLINA ST.	0.180625	0.072176	0.033095	0.011295	0.003864
TEMPLE	0.060008	0.015866	0.004979	0.001084	0.000237
NEVADA LAS VEGAS	0.24847	0.090696	0.045237	0.017127	0.0065
CALIFORNIA	0.116202	0.031398	0.012128	0.003367	0.000937
SYRACUSE	0.631688	0.301018	0.185509	0.092001	0.045748
MONTANA	0.00364	0.000171	1.26E-05	5.7E-07	2.58E-08
BUTLER	0.294871	0.108533	0.030533	0.008671	0.002468
BUCKNELL	0.115116	0.028222	0.005079	0.000917	0.000166
MARQUETTE	0.527918	0.24942	0.093335	0.035375	0.01344
DAVIDSON	0.062095	0.011387	0.001501	0.000198	2.61E-05
ILLINOIS	0.251755	0.144884	0.053781	0.020218	0.007619
COLORADO	0.195996	0.105102	0.035202	0.011928	0.004051
MIAMI FL	0.524294	0.345404	0.157608	0.072928	0.033832
PACIFIC	0.027955	0.007048	0.000893	0.000113	1.43E-05

If you can't make sense of that chart and just want to know who I think is most likely to win it all, the answer is Indiana. I give them an 11.7% chance of winning the title.

Beyond all of that, if you're in a larger pool or have the ability to bet on the winner of the NCAA tournament, I like the following squads: Michigan, Minnesota, San Diego State and Colorado State. Michigan is a team that isn't that far removed from the upper echelon, yet you can grab them at a whopping 30/1 in some places. The biggest argument against them is probably the tough potential second-round matchup against VCU, but they get Kansas -- the weakest 1 to my system -- and maybe even Georgetown -- the weakest 2.

In fact, you'll notice that the first three teams I listed there were all from the South regional. Minnesota figures to benefit greatly from getting outside of the Big 10 and has an easy matchup (for an 11 seed) against UCLA to open the tourney. Florida presents the biggest hurdle for them in round 2. Minnesota at 85/1 is not bad.

San Diego State is not as good as either of the above teams, but I think the odds you can get on them currently are totally out of line. 220/1! Compare that to 15/1 on New Mexico and, well ... the Lobos are not that much better than the Aztecs. Granted, I don't think they ought to be equal odds, but there's a solid overlay on San Diego State. Yeah, it's hard to see them going all the way, but if they can win a few, you could start hedging out of the position with ease.

I'm not going to get into detailed odds discussions about the following, but if you're looking for some longer shots to win various regions, I don't hate the following:

TO WIN MIDWEST REGION: CINCINNATI, COLORADO STATE, MICHIGAN STATE, OKLAHOMA STATE, ST. MARY'S

TO WIN SOUTH REGION: MICHIGAN, MINNESOTA, SAN DIEGO STATE

TO WIN WEST REGION: BOISE STATE, WISCONSIN

TO WIN EAST REGION: COLORADO, ILLINOIS, MARQUETTE

Finally, here's some specific prop-based analysis that may vary depending on your betting outlet of choice:

TOTAL #1 SEEDS TO MAKE THE FINAL FOUR: I come up with .98 No. 1 seeds making the Final Four.

Total ACC wins = 8.813
Duke 2.39
UNC 1.09
Miami 1.99
NC State .95

Total Big East wins = 12
Louisville 2.73
Cincinnati .76
Pittsburgh 1.31
Notre Dame .90
Villanova .58
Georgetown 1.78
Syracuse 2.21
Marquette 1.73

Total Big 10 wins = 13.72
Michigan St. 2.18
Wisconsin 1.79
Ohio St. 2.33
Michigan 2.33
Minnesota 1.18
Indiana 2.89
Illinois 1.02

Total Big 12 wins = 5.39
Oklahoma St. 1.29
Kansas St. .81
Iowa St. .66
Kansas 2.11
Oklahoma .52

Total Pac 12 wins = 3.85
Oregon .58
Arizona 1.41
UCLA .5
Cal .55
Colorado .81

Total SEC wins = 3.61
Missouri .68
Ole Miss .37
Florida 2.56

Will a 12 seed win at least one game?

I give Cal a 38.4% chance of beating UNLV. Akron a 28.7% chance of beating VCU. Ole Miss a 24.2% chance of beating Wisconsin. Oregon a 35.3% chance of beating Oklahoma State.

We first need to calculate the likelihood none of the events occur, i.e. they all lose. So that’s .616 * .713 * .758 * .647 = .215. 1-.215 = .785 or a 78.5% chance that at least one No. 12 seed will win.

Will a 14, 15 or 16 seed win at least one game?

If you want exact probabilities on these, too bad. Suffice to say, using the same procedure as above, there is a 34.2% chance that a 14, 15 or 16 seed WILL NOT win at least one game; ergo, there is a 65.8% chance that at least one 14, 15 or 16 seed WILL win a game.

The Best March Madness Pool Ever is back

Last year, I introduced a revolutionary new idea that makes picking brackets more fun than ever before.

The idea was designed to mitigate the fact that, in most bracket formats, if your title team gets upset early, you're pretty much out of the running.

The idea was THE BEST MARCH MADNESS POOL EVER. 

And it's back for another run here in 2013.

Here's a quick overview of the rules:

1. Each person gets a budget of $100 each week of the tournament (before the second/third rounds, before the Sweet 16/Elite 8, and before the Final 4/Championship).

2. Each person will select as many teams as they desire as long as said teams can fit in their budget.

3. Teams will earn points as follows:

Second round win = 1 point
Third round win = 3 points
Sweet 16 win = 2 points
Elite 8 win= 6 points
Final 4 win = 3 points
Championship win = 9 points

If you're wondering why the scoring works this way, it's because A) It's harder to pick the second game of the weekend than it is the first, B) It's harder to pick games later in the tournament, C) You need more points when there are less games to more properly even the scoring out (even though it's not necessarily completely even, it's a bit more distributed this way).

4. The most points at the end of the tournament wins. The winner will take 60% of the pot, second will take 30%, and third will take 10%.

5. The entry fee will be $30.

If you're wondering how the price per team will be created, I'll simply use a proprietary spreadsheet uses a proprietary rating that gives each possible outcome in the tournament a percentage (for instance, Colorado has a .41% chance to win it all, VCU has a 4.9% chance to make the Final Four, etc.).

As an example, Michigan State is 62.63% likely to win two games and their opponent, Valparaiso, is 4.01% likely to win two games. 

The idea is to use these percentages to price each team by simply rather crudely cutting them in half. To use the above teams as an example, Michigan State will "cost" you $31 (rounding) and Valpo will "cost" you $2. If a team were somehow 100% likely to win both games, their cost would be $50.

So, without further ado, here is the price list for week 1:

INDIANA	38
LOUISVILLE	33
MICHIGAN	32
FLORIDA	32
OHIO ST.	32
SYRACUSE	32
DUKE	31
MICHIGAN ST.	31
KANSAS	30
GONZAGA	29
MARQUETTE	26
MIAMI FL	26
GEORGETOWN	25
WISCONSIN	25
NEW MEXICO	23
OKLAHOMA ST.	20
ARIZONA	20
SAN DIEGO ST.	18
ST. LOUIS	18
PITTSBURGH	16
BUTLER	15
VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH	14
NORTH CAROLINA	14
MINNESOTA	13
ILLINOIS	13
NEVADA LAS VEGAS	12
ST. MARY'S	12
BOISE ST.	11
NOTRE DAME	10
COLORADO ST.	10
CREIGHTON	10
KANSAS ST.	10
COLORADO	10
NORTH CAROLINA ST.	9
OREGON	9
CINCINNATI	8
IOWA ST.	7
OKLAHOMA	7
VILLANOVA	7
MISSOURI	7
CALIFORNIA	6
BELMONT	6
BUCKNELL	6
WICHITA ST.	5
MEMPHIS	5
UCLA	5
MISSISSIPPI	5
NEW MEXICO ST.	3
AKRON	3
DAVIDSON	3
TEMPLE	3
VALPARAISO	2
HARVARD	2
PACIFIC	1
IONA	1
SOUTH DAKOTA ST.	1
FLORIDA GULF COAST	1
NORTHWESTERN ST.	1
MONTANA	1
WESTERN KENTUCKY	1
SOUTHERN	1
ALBANY	1
JAMES MADISON	1
NORTH CAROLINA A-T	1

Again, you can construct a squad of however many teams you would like AS LONG AS YOU STAY AT OR UNDER $100. You could literally have 28 teams in your stable! Unfortunately, almost none of these teams would be likely to win even one game, let alone two, so that's what you need to grapple with. Do you want to take a few near sure-things (like Indiana and Louisville) and a few longer shots, or do you take a ton of longshots? Or try for some happy medium?

Whatever you do, remember that even if your teams flame out this week, you'll be supplied with new team prices next week and should still have a chance to win regardless of what happened (last year, everyone was still in contention after the first weekend and only one of 11 people was eliminated entirely heading into the Final Four).

You can have as many entries as you want. Feel free to share with friends, but if we get above 20 entries somehow, I'm keeping 5% for myself for doing the legwork.

If you want to be in, send me an email at bobwothe@gmail.com titled 2013 NCAA POOL WEEK 1 TEAMS with your teams and $30 via PayPal gift (bobwothe@gmail.com) or check (2190 Willow Hill Dr., Neenah, WI 54956) by Thursday, 3/21, at 10 a.m. CST. If you haven't gotten me the money or made other arrangements by then, your entry will not count, PERIOD.

Last thing: In order to remove any issues with me knowing other people's picks before giving my own, I will send my picks to a new email account each week before 11:59 p.m. CST Monday of that week. You will then need to get your picks to me by 11:59 p.m. CST Tuesday of that week. Then, Wednesday night/Thursday morning of each week, I will send out an email with a spreadsheet containing everyone's picks AS WELL AS the login credentials to the email account that I create. This will provide a timestamped version of my picks so that you can rest assured that I am not cheating.

As for this first week, I have already sent my two entries on to this new email address, so you may send in your entries whenever you wish.

Let me know if you have any questions. Again, feel free to share this with others! 

3/3 NCAA Tourney Update

Read my last post for details on how I'm doing this.

Here are the current 31 projected conference winners:

A10	VCU
ACC	DUKE
AEAST	STONY BROOK
ASUN	MERCER
B10	INDIANA
B12	KANSAS
BEAST	LOUISVILLE
BSKY	WEBER
BSOUTH	CHARLESTON SOUTHERN
BWEST	PACIFIC
CAA	G MASON
CUSA	SOUTHERN MISS
HORZ	DETROIT
IVY	PRINCETON
MAAC	IONA
MAC	AKRON
MEAC	NC CENTRAL
MVC	CREIGHTON
MWC	SAN DIEGO ST
NEC	ROBERT MORRIS
OVC	BELMONT
P12	ARIZONA
PAT	BUCKNELL
SB	MIDDLE TENNESSEE
SOCON	DAVIDSON
SEC	FLORIDA
SIND	STEPHEN F. AUSTIN
SUM	NORTH DAKOTA ST.
SWAC	SOUTHERN
WAC	DENVER
WCC	GONZAGA

Notes on some changes and surprising non-changes:

• Mercer moved past Florida Gulf Coast in the Atlantic Sun.
• Charleston Southern took a bid from NC Asheville in the Big South.
• Southern Miss continues to hold on to Conference USA despite the fact that Memphis has handled them pretty easily twice now.
• Princeton was projected to win the Ivy last time I did this, which was at a time when Harvard appeared to be in full control. Well, now Princeton has three games they should win (all on the road, but still) to wrap up the Ivy.
• San Diego State is still projected to win the Mountain West, somehow. There are so many good teams clumped together there that it's a crapshoot, but my system kind of hates New Mexico.
• Robert Morris jumped Bryant in the NEC. All hail Bob Morris.
• Denver continues to hold on to the WAC, and by a pretty comfortable margin. They won't win the regular season crown barring some weird shit from La Tech, but I'll name them the favorite in the conference tourney.

At-larges (1-37):

1 WISCONSIN
2 MICHIGAN ST.
3 SYRACUSE
4 OHIO ST.
5 MINNESOTA
6 PITTSBURGH
7 MIAMI FL
8 COLORADO ST.
9 GEORGETOWN
10 NORTH CAROLINA
11 UNLV
12 NEW MEXICO
13 MARQUETTE
14 ILLINOIS
15 CINCINNATI
16 OKLAHOMA ST.
17 KANSAS ST.
18 BOISE ST.
19 KENTUCKY
20 BAYLOR
21 VIRGINIA
22 MISSOURI
23 ST. MARY'S
24 NORTH CAROLINA ST.
25 COLORADO
26 UCLA
27 WICHITA ST.
28 OKLAHOMA
29 ST. LOUIS
30 IOWA
31 NOTRE DAME
32 STANFORD
33 NORTHERN IOWA

LAST FOUR IN:
34 CALIFORNIA
35 IOWA ST.
36 OREGON
37 BUTLER

FIRST FOUR OUT:
38 VILLANOVA
39 MISSISSIPPI
40 LA SALLE
41 WYOMING

NEXT FOUR OUT:
42 PROVIDENCE
43 TENNESSEE
44 ARKANSAS
45 MEMPHIS

Notes on the above:

FALLERS:

• Northern Iowa has dropped quite a bit. In reality, they have little chance unless they go on a big run in the MVC tourney (probably need to win it, really -- at 18-13, their record is blah), but they haven't lost to any bad teams other than a clunker at Southern Illinois last Wednesday.
• Butler! In reality, wins over Marquette, North Carolina, Indiana and Gonzaga have the Bulldogs in absolutely no danger o missing the tourney. But they've struggled somewhat against some lesser A10 teams (and even awful teams like Ball State, Penn and New Orleans -- seriously, they only beat New Orleans by 13). And they lost to a middling Charlotte squad. And they've lost two straight against St. Louis (at home) and by 32 at VCU. It would be hard to logically argue against any team capable of beating Indiana in OT or Gonzaga not making the tourney, but that's where you have to consider: How much differently would you view Butler if they hadn't beat Marquette, Gonzaga and Indiana by a COMBINED margin of four points? And then consider how generally meaningless those close wins are ... and you realize that Butler can't exactly afford to blow any of their final two games. They'll get in because they're BUTLER, but in a perfect world they would have work to do.
• Wyoming's season has really gone down the drain with some injuries and suspensions. They have no business being in at this point, so I'm glad they are now pretty solidly out.
• Ole Miss has dropped to first four out territory. That last post I made came on Feb. 18. On Feb. 20, Ole Miss lost to South Carolina. Then, on March 2, they lost to Mississippi State. Those are the Nos. 185 and 228 teams in my rankings. That is, how you say, DAMAGING.
• La Salle was barely in last time, and now they're barely out.

RISERS:

• Oregon, Cal, and most emphatically Notre Dame moved to the right side of the bubble. ND got big wins over Pittsburgh and Cincinnati to cement their status as a tourney team.
• St. Louis made the least sense to me as a "next four out" team last time around, so I was glad to see that they're now solidly in. 

STANDING STILL:

• Villanova is still the first team out. Yikes. They had a chance to put themselves solidly in today at Pitt, but they blew it. I should note that these ratings did not include today's games, so I'm quite sure that kind of performance against Pitt would probably put them in.
• Providence remains in the next four out list. At 16-12, they probably don't have much of a chance in reality, but that's why pure win-loss is a shame -- they lost to Syracuse by 6, at Georgetown by 9, Pitt by 4, UConn by 3 ...they really did themselves in, though, around the New Year. They went from 8-2 to 8-7, with three of those losses coming to fairly poor Boston College, Brown and DePaul squads. 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I'm still rolling with Florida as my best team, but it's less emphatic than it was in the last update. In fact, the team most likely to beat Florida is ... DRUMROLL PLEASE ... the Wisconsin Badgers. Yep, the same Wisconsin Badgers squad that Florida rolled by 18 back on Nov. 14, and the same Wisconsin Badgers squad that lost to Purdue today. By my numbers, Wisconsin is slightly more likely to knock off Florida than Indiana, which in turn is slightly more likely to knock off Florida than Duke. 

I know this will likely cause you to discount my numbers and musings altogether, but hear me out: It's likely to be a very defensive game with fewer possessions than you'd see in any of the other matchups listed above. A Wisconsin-Florida game would be in the 50s or low-60s. The others would be in the high-60s/low-70s. 

Now say it with me: FEWER POSSESSIONS = BETTER CHANCE FOR AN UPSET.

The easiest way to think about this is to boil it down in rather extreme terms: Let's say you play Michael Jordan in 1-on-1 for $10,000 (because Michael Jordan is a compulsive gambler and you have money to burn because your great aunt just died and left you $1 million). And let's say Mr. Jordan gives you two options: You can play first one to 15 wins OR you can play one possession each -- you each get the ball with a chance to score one time only. 

You don't even think about it, right? Assuming Jordan can dunk on you 80% of the time and make a 3 the other 15% of the time, he's going to score 95% of the time. You, on the other hand, have a 2% chance of scoring on some kind of ridiculous move going at Jordan, and a 5% chance of bombing in a 3 over him from 30 feet away.

Your odds are terrible either way, but if it's a one possession proposition, he doesn't score about 5% of the time and you DO score 7% of the time. Yes, your chance of beating Michael Jordan in 1-on-1 for even one possession is still less than one-half of one percent, but it's within the realm of reasonable conjecture.

On the other hand, if you play to 15, you enter scientific notation territory. You truly have a better chance of being struck by lightning. 

And yet teams seem to ignore this all the time. Yes, I'm entering diatribe territory here, but it kills me when I see inferior teams pressing the pace and trying to speed the game up. It's one thing to do this when it's truly meant to alter how the other team plays -- as much as I hate VCU, their style of play is a good example of this. But so many teams run without a purpose -- if teams take care of the ball against VCU, the Rams actually play fairly slow offensively. They're deliberate and take mostly good shots.

But a lot of teams artificially press the tempo and end up taking terrible shots and wasting possessions. Again, it could be one thing if this was part of your strategy, but the only place I know that truly successfully does that is Grinnell College. So many teams that play fast end up simply sacrificing efficiency on both ends and nothing more. 

So, it will kill me over the next couple of weeks when more or less awful teams with nothing to lose don't change things up and try to get into a 45-40 game with a much superior opponent. We'll see a pathetic Depaul team -- the third-fastest team in the nation and also 11-18 -- lose 90-70 in the Big East tournament and I will just shake my head. 

There is something to be said about a team having an identity and a preferred style, and that varying from that could negatively impact the team's overall efficiency. And while that may be true to some extent, when your team hasn't performed well all season, or if your team's year-to-date efficiency pales in comparison with your opponent's, why wouldn't you try to slow it down and hope to get some positive variance in your direction?

On the other hand, if you're the better team, it's harder to push the tempo to get more possessions, because you know that could negatively impact your efficiency if that's not your typical style of play. 

So, in some sense, assuming some level of ball control and ability to not turn the ball over, the underdog has the edge in dictating how a game is played. And yet coaches so often ignore this fact. 

Basketball is a simple game: You want to get the best shots you can get and force your opponents to take the worst shots possible. So many teams these days really seem to get off on PLAYING UP TEMPO, but it's an empty act -- tempo is meaningless on its own (unless, again, you're really at an extreme where you can affect the other team through conditioning). 

Good fast tempo comes from good defense. Bad fast tempo comes from good offense. 

Playing more slowly/deliberately won't necessarily make your team the next incarnation of the UCLA dynasty. But it will absolutely give you a better shot if you're outclassed.