Updated Odds

Before I comment on Thursday’s games, I want to update the expected wins for each tournament team based on Pomeroy’s tournament odds.

What makes my presentation unique is that I also explain why the odds changed. How much of the change in expected wins was due to the teams own win or loss (Own game), how much was due to the result of other games (Other games), and how much is due to changes in our evaluations of the teams (Performance).

This last factor is usually pretty minor. It reflects daily changes in the Pomeroy rankings themselves. I don’t want to emphasize this factor too much, but for the completely insane, here are the details. First, this factor changes because of a team’s own performance. Because Kentucky barely beat Princeton, we need to downgrade Kentucky’s overall rating and expectations. But if Kentucky’s expectations are downgraded, we also need to downgrade Kentucky’s previous opponents on the season. And we may need to upgrade the odds for Kentucky’s future tournament opponents. For example, West Virginia’s odds improve.

Expected Wins in Field of 64

The big winners on Day 1 were teams in the Southwest. Morehead St. beat Louisville, substantially improving their “own” expectations. And Morehead St’s win also improved the expectations for Richmond and Kansas based on “other games”. Kansas’ expected wins improved nicely even without stepping on the court.

Wisconsin also cleared a huge hurdle beating a very dangerous Belmont team in the opening round. They really helped their “own” cause with the win.

I find it a little surprising how much a team like Pittsburgh’s odds increased from their “own” win. But keep in mind that the odds compound. Even a small chance of a first round loss has to be multiplied by the second round odds, the third rounds odds, and so forth. So removing the extremely remote possibility of a first round loss was still important to Pittsburgh’s long-term expectations.

Ohio St. is an interesting case. On the one hand, they are now guaranteed to face West Virginia or Kentucky in the Sweet Sixteen, so their tournament odds fell slightly (see other games). But now Kentucky looks a little weaker, so Ohio St.’s odds went up slightly (see performance). On net, Ohio St.’s tournament expectations stayed the same.

Louisville was the biggest loser on Day 1 of the tournament. But things are also looking a little tougher for Texas should they reach the regional final.

“You Choose the Game You Want to Watch”

Thursday the NCAA finally entered the 21^st century and decided to use four networks at once. The hidden story will probably be that sports bar revenue is down substantially with the new format. Despite this being St. Patrick’s Day and the first day of the tournament, my personal observation in a sports bar was that attendance was down at least 33%.

And there was clearly no benefit to being at the sports bar this year. With the staggered start times, there were almost never multiple quality games coming down to the wire at once. The joy of seeing two games in the final seconds simultaneously and hearing 100 people “ooh and ahh” was substantially downgraded.

In the past, each four-game session would build, and then climax, and then end with everyone filling out their brackets and taking a break before the next set of games. Instead, the constant stream of games felt like it was missing some rhythm. The old format was completely out-dated, but there are parts of it that I will miss.

Thursday Bullets

- I have almost nothing to say about the afternoon session because the bar’s audio quality was somewhat imperfect. But the four incredible endings were amazing. For Matt Howard, Demonte Harper, Juan Fernandez, and Brandon Knight to all hit buzzer beaters made this a very special opening day.

- Thursday presented another horrible scheduling snafu by the NCAA tournament. Presumably the biggest draw in Denver was seeing Jimmer Fredette and BYU play, but because they placed the afternoon session so close to the evening session, and because they were required to empty the stadium between sessions, ticket holders were forced to miss the beginning of the BYU game. This is just ridiculous planning on the NCAA’s part, and there is no excuse for this.

- 13 minutes into the Wisconsin-Belmont game Wisconsin threw the inbounds pass to Belmont for the 6th turnover of the half. Since Wisconsin led the NCAA in fewest turnovers this year, I found this sloppy play somewhat shocking. But the Badgers eventually turned things around.

- Reggie Miller said that he did not think any Wisconsin or Belmont players had tattoos.

- What was with Leslie Visser’s hair today?

- I love how we have to come up with an explanation for a team playing well. Florida crushed UC Santa Barbara, so they must have been upset that everyone said they did not deserve a two seed. Connecticut crushed Bucknell, so they must have been upset that everyone said they would be too tired after the Big East tournament. Maybe these were just two good teams playing well.

- Here is my only comment on Day 1 strategy: Cincinnati started off playing man-to-man against Missouri, but the moment they switched to zone, they completely flipped the game. Missouri has to score to apply full court pressure, and when the Tigers could not score against Cincinnati’s zone, the game was over. 

- Did Cincinnati’s Yancy Gates really take and make a three in that game?

- I am searching for something good to say about UCLA on a night they almost blew a 23-point lead. How about this: Joshua Smith’s block of Adreian Payne early in the second half was a complete game-changer. Michigan St. had started to come back, but Smith’s block temporarily regained the momentum and helped UCLA to build that 23 point lead.

Charles Barkley

You could have written a thesis about Charles Barkley today. In the morning session he noted that Princeton liked to hold the ball for the entire 45 second clock. Then someone else on camera laughed. Then he laughed. Was he making a joke? Or did he forget how long the shot clock is at the college level? It wasn’t clear.

One thing Barkley needs to do is stop criticizing the smaller teams. He said on multiple occasions that UC Santa Barbara did not deserve to be in the NCAA tournament. I have no trouble saying that the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference in the NBA does not deserve to be in the playoffs. But saying that about college students is just not right.

Here was my favorite exchange of the day:

Barkley, “Utah St. does not have any chance of beating Kansas St.”

Greg Gumbel, “But what about their 30 wins.”

Barkley, “Well Belmont had 30 wins, and look what that got them. The only good thing about Utah St. is they have that one fat guy, he’s really big and fat and he’s at the games, you know the fat guy.”

Greg Anthony, “You mean Wild Bill”

Barkley, “One of the producers just said that in your ear, you didn’t really know that.”

Anthony, “Yeah, so what?”