march madness

Looked back over my tip sheets for last year. They did reasonably well until some minor upsets occurred in the Elite Eight. (Georgetown over Carolina was the main one).

Several major points. Pittsburgh is squarely in the wheel house of picking against this team early. Oral Roberts fits the small profile of a winning 13 seed (there is such a thing, but it’s no lock), Pitt isn’t great on the road, everybody loves them for winning a conference tournament. Teams that win those conference tournaments unexpectedly and get higher seeds because of it generally flame out earlier. Pitt was 6th in the Big East and got a 4 because of their run. Clemson is also potentially suspect despite not winning the tournament. Even if Pitt wins against ORU, they then have Michigan St. I’m not seeing much help there. Villanova presents some interesting matchups but I don’t think Clemson will sleep on them as they might have with a mid-major as a 12 (say W. Kentucky).

Bad road teams fared poorly again last year. The list of Sweet Sixteen subpar road teams -- USC 7-8 (who beat fellow poor Texas), Vanderbilt 5-8 (who beat Washington St in a semi-surprising but easily forecast occasion), Tennessee 6-10 (who beat fellow poor Virginia) and that’s it. Here’s the list of poor road teams who lost quickly:
first round: Stanford 5-7, Duke 7-6, Notre Dame 6-7, Georgia Tech 3-10
second round: Virginia 3-9,, Texas AM (16 still, but many had them as a final 4 team) 7-5, , Kentucky 7-9, Indiana 5-10, Virginia Tech 8-9, Maryland 7-6, Purdue 5-10, Texas 9-8, Michigan St 3-10, BC 6-7
The only one of the advancing teams who had a toss-up with a good road team and won was Michigan St over Marquette.

So the list this year reads like this:
Notre Dame 7-7, Oklahoma 7-8, Arkansas 7-9, Kansas St 5-9, Vanderbilt 7-7, UNLV 6-5, Mich St 7-8, Pitt (prior to Big East run) 6-7, Oregon 5-10, Marq 8-7, UConn 8-7, Purdue 7-7. Outside of K St and Oregon there aren’t as many that scream bad road team.

Title contenders in order then: Kansas, North Carolina, UCLA, Memphis, with Tennessee and Texas being more marginal. Duke fits number wise but they have serious vulnerabilities inside. A matchup with UConn, Arizona or UCLA would probably crush them.

My upsets. Oral Roberts over Pitt. Siena has a shot against Vandy. Boise even has a shot against Louisville, though I’d rather not be bothered with 14 seeds. West Kentucky is the best and only 12 with a shot, and it’s a weak one. Temple could be trouble for Michigan St, but I’m not yet worried about it. Baylor over Purdue. St. Joseph’s looks good over Oklahoma perhaps as well. Butler and Miami look like the weak 7 seeds, but got more favorable draws. Arizona can beat West Virginia though either looks potentially useful vs Duke. This may be the same paradox as the UNLV/Ga Tech game last year, the winner going to the 16 by virtue of Wisconsin’s injury woes.