Late last season, the Mountain West Conference rose up to have the top average RPI in the nation. Andy Glockner of Sports Illustrated had a brilliant article explaining why this happened. Essentially the RPI favors power conferences where the home teams dominate, and the MWC teams were the best in the nation at winning at home last year. (For those that care about the math behind this, skip to the end of this post.)

Second, the RPI of MWC teams was boosted by Wyoming. A good team in November and December, but when Luke Martinez was kicked off the team for an off-court incident, Wyoming simply couldn’t score. And the RPI wasn’t smart enough realize that Wyoming was a bad team in January and February.

Finally, the other big factor in the MWC’s great RPI was that the bottom of the league was remarkably strong. Traditional power Nevada was the league’s bottom-feeder and even Nevada wasn’t a terrible team last season. The Wolfpack won at Washington in December.

All in all, it was a perfect storm that made the MWC seem like a dominant league, at least in the RPI’s eyes. The margin-of-victory systems thought the league was good too, but not nearly as dominant as what the RPI thought. And as is usually the case, the margin-of-victory metrics had the better forecast. In the NCAA tournament, MWC champion New Mexico lost in the first round to Harvard, and the rest of the league struggled as well.

Unfortunately for fans of the MWC, there is no reason to expect any of those factors to repeat this year. Home teams probably won’t win at a disproportionate rate. Wyoming won’t be dominant and then bad. And the bottom of the league will be bad again. (With San Jose St. coming aboard and Air Force rebuilding behind a bunch of 2-star recruits, a drop-off at the bottom of the league is almost unavoidable). Five teams might be in the conversation for the NCAA tournament, but a year after dominating the regular season, it wouldn’t be out of the question for the league to get only two bids.

Here is my lineup-based prediction model's projections for the league in 2013-14:

For column heading definitions, click here.

New Mexico: New Mexico returns four starters (Alex Kirk, Cameron Bairstow, Kendall Williams, and Hugh Greenwood) from last year’s conference winning squad. And they added Cullen Neal who has only recently risen up into ESPNU Top 100. That starting lineup should be competitive with any team in the country. But the team has little proven depth. (Will Kansas transfer Merv Lindsay contribute?) And since this is Craig Neal’s first head coaching job, there are questions of whether he can lead a team to a league title in his first year. The MWC spends as much on coaching as the traditional power leagues, and opposing coaches will heavily scout the Lobos. Will Neal be ready?

Boise St.: I’ve seen a lot of people with Boise St. in their Top 25 and I understand the logic. This was a good team last year and they bring back 91% of their minutes from last season. But my model has them a little bit lower because there are still some real question marks. In particular, Boise St.’s primary offense was a 4-guard lineup last year. But a number of the guards they played simply weren’t very good. Mikey Thompson, Igor Hadziomerovic, and Joe Hanstad were big drains on the offense because of their turnovers and/or bad shooting. If I could say with confidence those three would be relegated to the bench this season, it would be a no-brainer to put Boise St. in the Top 25. But Boise St. isn’t bringing in any can’t miss prospects to ensure that this happens.

Realistically the team will probably hope to get more out of some of its forwards. JUCO transfer James Webb, red-shirt freshman Edmund Dukulis, incoming freshman Nick Duncan, and seldom-used Darrious Hamilton or Vukasin Vujovic will probably get a chance to play more post minutes next year. If they can earn time, the taller lineup might help improve the defense some. But none of them have particularly high expectations either.

Leon Rice is doing a fantastic job, and the expectation for this team should absolutely be the NCAA tournament. But on paper, there are still too many lineup questions to view Boise St. as a clear Top 25 team.

Utah St.: Most people probably won’t have Utah St. this high because of how they ended their tenure in the WAC conference. To finish  11-7 in that league which really only had three good teams was pretty disappointing. But that completely overlooks what happened last year. In mid-January, Utah St. lost its too most efficient players in Preston Medlin and Kyisean Reed. And both were relatively high usage players too, they weren’t just role players. Those type of injuries are devastating at that point in the season and Utah St. could never really recover in conference play.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like Reed will be back. He went through senior day festivities and I haven’t heard any news that he will apply for an extra hardship year. But the return of Medlin from injury should instantly upgrade the offense.

And Utah St. is once again very mature. The team can put together an 8-man lineup with one sophomore, two juniors, and five seniors. The fact that the team doesn’t need to break in a lot of freshmen should help the offense click. Add to that the fact that Stew Morrill has been one of the most under-rated offensive coaches in the nation, and Utah St. will be good again. They might not win the MWC this year, but they will absolutely be close to the top.

UNLV: Click here for a more detailed preview of UNLV.

San Diego St.: JJ O’Brien and Xavier Thames are solid players. And I can write down a seven or eight player rotation for San Diego St. that sounds reasonably intimidating on paper.  But San Diego St. loses its two most important players in Chase Tapley and Jamaal Franklin. Both took a high volume of shots, played a ton of minutes, and were super efficient. (Departing senior DeShawn Stephens rarely shot, but he was very efficient too.) Losing players like that just isn’t a recipe for a better season. And San Diego St. had only the 36th best margin-of-victory last year. 

The recent addition of Tulane graduate transfer Josh Davis helps a lot. Davis was an unbelievably dominant forward without much help around him. And incoming freshman Dakarai Allen also has high expectations. But expecting those two to do better than Tapley and Franklin seems like a little bit of a stretch.

To truly make the NCAA tournament, San Diego St. is going to need more out of Winston Shepherd, Dwayne Polee, and James Johnson. All three were Top 100 recruits out of high school, but none of them has posted an ORtg above 100 yet. (And Johnson played a rather distressing four minutes per game last year.) Unless a couple of those players break out rather unexpectedly, San Diego St. will have a hard time making a fifth straight NCAA tournament.

Wyoming and Fresno St: The best thing you can say about Wyoming and Fresno St. is that they will probably be competitive defensively. Wyoming head coach Larry Shyatt has produced Top 100 defenses in back-to-back years. After how poorly Henry Schroyer’s defenses did over the previous four years, Shyatt at least has his team working hard. Similarly Rodney Terry orchestrated a remarkable defensive turnaround this least season. Fresno St.’s adjusted defense fell from 101.3 to 93.2.

Offensively, it is harder to be optimistic, but here are a couple of points on the two teams. In Wyoming’s case freshman Josh Adams was dreadful. Larry Shyatt clearly thought he was valuable giving him major minutes throughout the season, but Adams was a terrible shooter. Adams will be better as a sophomore, but he was only a 2-star player, and it isn’t clear that he has a very high ceiling. If Wyoming would limit Adams shot selection, the offense could take more of a bump.

In Fresno St.’s case, prized recruit Robert Upshaw was also awful, but he was hampered by injuries all year. If he is fully healthy from the start of the year, he could improve significantly. And the addition of elite transfer recruit Cezar Guerrero should also help. But with few above average efficiency players returning, Fresno St.’s offense will still likely be below average.

Nevada: David Carter has proven to be a poor defensive coach. And after making the tournament four years in a row, Nevada now hasn’t been to the tournament in six years. I feel bad for Deonte Burton (and to a lesser extent Jerry Evans). Burton is a fabulous PG, but he just doesn’t have a lot of quality offensive players to feed the ball to. And with the team exerting no effort on defense, Nevada won’t score enough points to win consistently.

Colorado St.: Colorado St. is poised for a hard fall this year. It isn’t just that Colorado St. loses 5 starters. Returning only 27% of the team’s minutes is bad enough. But the team also loses all its high volume shooters. The returning players like Daniel Bejarano and Gerson Santo were efficient last year, but they also deferred a lot in last year’s offense. The model is skeptical they can maintain their efficiency when asked to shoot more. That is why the model projects Colorado St. to have one of the biggest offensive collapses of any team in the country this off-season. The team also doesn’t add any can’t miss recruits. The team adds two JUCO transfers, which should help, and Dwight Smith will be back from an injury. But with all that roster attrition, the best case scenario is probably a season like Vanderbilt had last year.

Air Force: Dave Pilipovich did a fantastic job in his first season with the team, but Air Force is a very hard place to win. To return just one-third of the team’s minutes from last year and try to create a winning team with only 2-star recruits is a major undertaking.

San Jose St.: San Jose St. returns only four scholarship players from last year. When you don’t have enough quality upperclassman at San Jose St., the odds of winning are slim to none.

And now the math based reason that the RPI favors conferences where the home team wins. (Again I am just lifting this idea from Andy Glockner.)

Imagine there are just three games, a neutral site non-conference game which the power conference team wins, and then two conference games home and road, which are split. Under the RPI formula, the neutral site win counts as 1 win. But how the W-L split is counted will depend on where the win and loss happen. If the home team wins both, the weight is 0.6, if the road team wins both, the weight is 1.4. So if the home team wins both, the W-L record will be 1.6 and 0.6. If road teams win, the W-L record will be 2.4 and 1.4. The former works out to a 73 percent winning percentage, the later works out to a 63 percent winning percentage. Even though the venues, opponents, and W-L records are the same, the RPI gives higher credit to the league where the home team dominates.

Amusingly, in bad leagues that don’t win many non-conference games, the RPI ratings will be higher if the road teams win more conference games.

Because of the fast pace of both teams, BYU versus Iona has the potential to be one of the most entertaining First Four games of all-time. Also, I am salivating at seeing Missouri’s guards and Florida’s guards potentially clashing in the round of 32. But before I start breaking down the bracket, let’s throw a few quick stats at the wall:

Which Conferences Did the Best?

One thing I like to track during the NCAA tournament is whether conferences are exceeding expectations or falling short. One way to do that is to look at how seeds have performed from 1985 to 2011 and predict an expected number of wins for each conference.

(Note: In all tables I am only counting wins in the Round of 64 and beyond.)

Based on these seed expectations and the seeds received, the Big East should win the most games in the tournament, but the Big Ten is expected to win nearly as many games with three fewer teams.

We can also use this year’s margin-of-victory numbers to form an expectation. In the next table I use Ken Pomeroy’s predicted probabilities. Here we get a slightly different picture. His model expects the Big Ten to win the most games in the tournament, with the ACC earning far fewer wins than their high seeds would indicate:

Team-By-Team

2012 is the year of the clear favorite. It will be virtually impossible for any of the experts who follow college basketball not to pick Kentucky to win the national championship. In terms of the measured statistics like margin-of-victory, in terms of the NBA ready talent on the floor, in terms of 34 games on TV over four months, no one has come close to the Wildcats this season.

But more importantly, there are no clear alternatives to the Wildcats. Again using Ken Pomeroy’s formula, here are the expected wins for each team in the tournament this year:

Rather than showing one clear alternative, the numbers show a great deal of balance between the top seeds.

The Right Side of the Bracket (East and Midwest)

The margin-of-victory crowd is going to love Ohio St., but they might be the only ones. Despite bringing back one of the top post players in the country in Jared Sullinger, one of the top defenders in Aaron Craft, one of the most prolific two-guards in William Buford, and watching Deshaun Thomas emerge into a versatile scoring threat, Ohio St.’s offense has struggled at times this year. Ohio St. has simply not been able to replace the outside shooting of Jon Diebler. And by sharing the Big Ten title and falling to Michigan St. in the conference tournament, very few people are going to be in love with this team. Add in a potential Sweet Sixteen match-up with a Florida St. team that has two wins against Duke and two wins against North Carolina, and Ohio St. will get far less love than these numbers would suggest.

Syracuse is the more traditional favorite, but they are the worst defensive rebounding team in the field, and their offense can look stagnant when they aren’t forcing turnovers. Even a second round match-up against Kansas St. could be a nightmare for Syracuse. Kansas St.’s team is built to crash the glass, and if Angel Rodriguez can simply throw up jump shots (instead of turning the ball over at his normally high rate), Kansas St. might have a chance for an upset.

North Carolina is the choice for people who like NBA talent, but the ACC was so weak this year, the Tar Heels didn’t get their normal share of big games. And when they did play quality teams, they would usually be close. UNC would win 54-51 against Virginia or 69-67 against NC State. Certainly everyone says North Carolina has a lot of NBA ready talent on paper, but unlike Kentucky, it never felt like North Carolina was unbeatable. Ever since the big win over Michigan St. on an aircraft carrier to start the season, they rarely gave off that aura of invincibility. And with John Henson’s injury this weekend, there are additional doubts about the Tar Heels.

If you are scared away by Kentucky’s inexperience, you might like Kansas. The Jayhawks don’t have any amazing freshmen this year because the majority of their recruiting class was declared academically ineligible to start the season. That has left Kansas with a veteran lineup and Bill Self has clearly got the most out of every player on the floor. The once ridiculed Tyshawn Taylor has emerged as a polished superstar and Thomas Robinson emerged into quite possibly the best player in the country.

But when you look at this group of four teams (Syracuse, Ohio St., North Carolina, and Kansas) any honest evaluation would say that it truly is a toss-up. I would unquestionably pick these four teams for the regional finals on that half of the bracket, but I have no idea which of these teams will play in the national title game.

The Left Side of the Bracket (West)

On the other side of the bracket, it is hard not to love what Michigan St. has accomplished this year. But the Spartans got the worst possible second round draw. Memphis has been absolutely demolishing teams lately, winning their last seven games by 18 points or more. Michigan St. may be able to exploit Memphis’ lack of size in the paint better than any team in the nation, but they shouldn’t have to face such a dominant team in the second round. (Oh, and if St. Louis upsets Memphis, they have elite margin-of-victory numbers too.) So even if Michigan St. was a reasonable pick for a deep run based on their performance in the toughest conference in the country this year, the bracket makes the Spartans a very risky bet.

Instead many people will be drawn to the sentimental favorite Missouri. Don’t pick against the Tigers because of their lack of depth. They’ve played smart and avoided foul trouble all year. Don’t pick against the Tigers because of their lack of size. They’ve played bigger teams all year, and they’ve actually struggled more against smaller quicker teams. In fact, I would argue that picking against Missouri is the most unpleasant thing you could possibly do this year. With only 7 scholarship players, this group has developed a type of offensive chemistry that will help you rediscover a love for basketball.

I think part of what made the Missouri offense so good this year was the change of pace. Normally when a player goes to the NBA they realize that the game is much faster. But eventually the game slows down. Well, Missouri is having a slow-down moment. While Missouri still plays at an exceedingly fast-pace relative to most teams, it is much slower than what they played under Mike Anderson. Somehow the game is very calm and controlled for them, while remaining at a fever pitch for opponents.

Ricardo Ratliffe is the perfect example. Teams know that he shoots nearly 70% in the paint so they cannot afford to let him get paint touches, but somehow the Missouri guards are always cutting and using screens and finding a way to get him the ball in scoring position. And Ratliffe probably has the quickest release of any post player in college today. He rarely holds the ball and lets the defense react. He catches the ball and gets it up on the backboard immediately

Having said all that, I’m not in love with Missouri’s draw. Let me get to that:

First, I really like Florida over Virginia. A number of the experts say that Virginia likes to play a pack-line defense and force teams to shoot over the top. Well, Florida is not afraid to shoot over the top. But I actually think that is a little over-rated. Virginia has played the pack-line defense, but still been quick enough to get out on shooters. What concerns me more than anything is how poorly Virginia has played since Assane Sene has gone down. The defense just hasn’t been the same without the 7 footer in the middle, and he is not going to be back for the tournament.

And if Florida advances to face Missouri, that’s a dream match-up on paper. While Missouri has succeeded by playing four guards around Ricardo Ratliffe, that will allow Florida to play four guards around Patric Young. And while Kentucky has almost single-handedly convinced the country that Florida isn’t very good, realistically Florida is almost the mirror-image of Missouri. Missouri might be the favorite, but that game would be very close to a toss-up.

And if Missouri faces Marquette in the Sweet Sixteen, Marquette is another team that has the quickness to stay with Missouri. Plus Buzz Williams clearly takes his scouting to another level in the NCAA tournament. Facing his team after a four day break would be a nightmare.

The Left Side of the Bracket (South)

Duke drew the short straw getting placed in the same region as Kentucky. And the Blue Devils were also clearly the least dominant of the 1 and 2 seeds during the regular season. Give Mike Krzyzewski credit for putting together the right non-conference schedule that got Duke the quality wins they need to be a 2-seed, but even the usually Duke-loving Dick Vitale has said that this is not a vintage Duke team. When Vitale says the Blue Devils might lose in the second round of the tournament, you know they have flaws. Now is probably a good time for me to show another Expected Win chart:

Baylor will be the clear pick to upset Duke for some people based on the large amount of NBA talent on their roster. But as an NBA-centered team, they remind me a lot of recent Texas teams under Rick Barnes. Somehow showing off their game for NBA scouts is more important than winning. Baylor proved some skeptics wrong by beating Kansas in the Big 12 tournament, but if Missouri will make you love college basketball, cheering for Baylor will absolutely drive you nuts. You almost have to beg for Perry Jones III to get a post touch, and while Brady Heslip is a great sharp-shooter, he doesn’t seem to have any feel for when to take threes and when to work the offense.

Dark Horses

- I’ve already written at length about how Wisconsin’s numbers are inflated based on crushing a bunch of small teams early in the season. But I do believe the Badgers are dangerous. My main concern with picking them is that at their slow pace, they open up the door to losing any game. Montana is clearly not in Wisconsin’s league, but in a 58 possession game, against a solid Montana defense, the game will probably be close.

- Wichita St. is the most dominant MVC team since Ken Pomeroy began tracking stats, and they have the kind of 7-foot center in Garrett Stutz that a lot of mid-major teams do not. That is why Seth Davis was professing his love for this team on CBS.

- Vanderbilt absolutely has the talent at every position to beat any team in the country. And they should long savor their win over Kentucky in the SEC final. But the main complaint is that the Commodores have failed to play well against weaker teams. With basically the same lineup they’ve lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament in previous years, and they had many games this season where they struggled with weaker opponents. Sure, I’ll believe you if you say they can beat Syracuse. But can they even get to that game?

- Finally, Florida St. is the team that a lot of people are going to be picking based on the ACC tournament title. But again, they have a potential nightmare match-up if they face Cincinnati. The Bearcats are one of the best teams in the country at forcing steals and Florida St.’s biggest weakness is holding on to the ball. Sure, they might be able to beat Ohio St. But can they even get to that game?

Here are more expected wins in the round of 64 and beyond:

- In case it wasn’t clear how terrible the draw is for Memphis and St. Louis. Memphis has the 9th best Pomeroy ranking, but is 22nd in expected wins. St. Louis had the 15th best Pomeroy ranking, but is 39th in expected wins.

- Southern Miss has some of the worst margin-of-victory stats in the field. Don’t pick them to upset Kansas St.

And here is the last of the list:

Parting Thoughts

- Seth Davis said it well at the end of the selection special, the NCAA committee sent a message that non-conference strength-of-schedule matters. That’s why Iona got in ahead of Drexel. And that’s why Missouri was not a #1 seed. A lot of people will argue with that message. What does non-conference strength-of-schedule have to do with evaluating the quality of a team? Isn’t the goal to pick the best teams? But I’ve been watching this show for 20 years, and the committee has always had this emphasis. They want to incentivize teams to play big games early in the season, and whether it is an explicit criteria or not, it is a criteria.

- I still can’t believe Kevin Harlan weaved in a comment about Peyton Manning during the Arizona vs Colorado Pac-12 final. (Yes, Manning probably won’t be choosing between Denver and Arizona based on the outcome of that game.)

- Finally, only Bob Knight could manage to eat an ice cream cone while calling a college basketball game.

The older I get, the more I see that one of the things I love most about sports is the variety of it, the diversity of it and the CHARACTERS. Men’s tennis is at its best in many years because, for the first time in a long time, the top three or four players all have wildly different styles. The Tim Tebow story was fun on so many levels, but one of those levels was that he was just SO DIFFERENT in how he played — I’d say we are entering a great time for quarterbacks, because Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers and Eli Manning and Drew Brees and Michael Vick and Cam Newton and Tebow and others are not really alike at all.

-- Joe Posnanski

As a basketball fan, I’ve never understood the division that exists between fans of the NBA and the NCAA. While the NBA has the best basketball players in the world, March Madness is compelling in its own right and as entertaining as anything that happens on the professional level.

In the NBA, the owners of the 30 franchises consider turning a profit and getting an equal shot at the top players a right, regardless of how well (or how poorly) they run their organization and the respective size of their fan-bases. Since every losing team is a few ping pong balls from the rights to a LeBron James, Kevin Durant or Dwight Howard, personnel determines scheme in the NBA.

In contrast, the vast majority of the 344 Division I programs in college basketball have little chance of ever receiving a commitment from a McDonald’s All-American. But instead of petulantly trying to sabotage the sport in a misguided effort to legislate fairness, schools try many creative ways of leveraging the talents of the players they can recruit. As a result, scheme determines personnel in the NCAA.

At Syracuse, Jim Boeheim has made a Hall of Fame career out of running a contrarian scheme, in his case an aggressive 2-3 zone. The Orange traditionally have rosters full of “1.5’s”, 6’3+ combo guards lacking the quickness to defend elite PG’s and the size to defend SG’s, and “3.5’s”, 6’8+ combo forwards lacking the quickness to defend elite SF’s and the size to defend PF’s. However, because Syracuse never plays man defense, the athletic deficiencies of their players are minimized.

So while nearly every NBA team runs a fairly similar system of isolations, pick-and-rolls and man defense, an incredibly diverse array of styles can be found in the college game. On one end of the spectrum, teams like Missouri play four guards and pressure the ball 94 feet for 48 minutes, on the other, teams like Wisconsin run a deliberate motion offense, trying to minimize the number of possessions and shoot at the very end of the shot-clock.

In the NBA, the players are too good for the “40 Minutes of Hell” system (which Mike Anderson has brought to Missouri and Arkansas in the last few years) to be successful. Like Mike Leach’s bizarre pass-happy offense in college football, Anderson’s system, which he learned as a member of Nolan Richardson’s staff in Arkansas in the 1990’s, has philosophical holes that professional athletes can exploit. Nevertheless, that doesn’t make them any less entertaining on the collegiate level.

And with 68 teams set to compete in the NCAA Tournament, there are a lot more surprises in the college game. Even programs ranked in the top-15 like Murray State have barely been on national TV this season.

We have a pretty good idea of how teams like the Pacers and the 76ers match up with the top of the Eastern Conference but not whether an undersized Murray State squad can handle the size of an elite team from a Power Six conference. It’s an open question how Isaiah Canaan’s speed and athleticism translates outside of the Ohio Valley Conference. Non-conference play in college basketball generally ends in late December, so it’s almost impossible to gauge how younger teams like Texas, Washington and Tennessee who have found their groove in the last two months will fare in March.

In the NBA, it’s hard to envision a scenario where Chicago, Miami and Oklahoma City aren’t three of the final four teams left in the playoffs. In the NCAA, as many as two dozen teams have a legitimate shot at making a run at the Final Four.

Of course, in terms of entertainment, none of this makes the NCAA necessarily better or worse than the NBA, just different. But, as Posnanski writes, there’s something to be said for the concept of “different” in the modern sports world. Basketball fans of all stripes should enjoy March Madness; the NBA will still be here in a few weeks.