Harvard's Upset

There is something about Ivy League schools in the NCAA tournament. In 1995, UCLA won the NCAA title. In 1996, much of the roster had turned over, but UCLA still earned a 4-seed and the Bruins were heavily favored in their first round against Princeton. Pete Carril, the legendary Princeton coach had announced his retirement prior to the game, and the Tigers pulled off a perfect game plan. They worked the clock. They played solid defense. They executed Carril’s classic back-cuts on offense. And in the final seconds, a back-cut led to a lay-up by Gabe Lewullis that finished off the epic win.

At the time it didn’t feel like just another win. I know that victories by 13-seeds hardly qualify as stunners these days. This wasn’t as big a seed upset as 15-seed Norfolk St. beating Missouri last year. The novelty of a defending champion losing is also a lot less special these days. With so many quality players leaving for the NBA, it hardly felt earth-shattering when Robert Morris defeated defending champion Kentucky in the NIT this week.

But at the time, the contrast in basketball power made this one of the biggest NCAA upsets of all time. Here was UCLA with all its legacy and all its resources, losing to a school that didn’t even offer athletic scholarships. It proved that basketball, when played right, and coached right, could be won by any team on any given day.

Thursday’s win by Harvard over New Mexico didn’t have that same dramatic feel. The ending wasn’t close. New Mexico doesn’t have the history or tradition of many power conference schools. (In fact, in many ways it was disappointing that New Mexico wouldn’t get a chance to extend one of the most dominant seasons in school history.)

But there was still something special about this win. Harvard is the quintessential academic school. It ranks in the Top 10 in just about every possible educational category from endowments, to department ratings, to future job earnings of graduates. Harvard students aren’t supposed to win in the NCAA tournament. And yet they did. And not only did they win, it didn’t require a buzzer beater.

Harvard didn’t have to execute some unorthodox strategy. This wasn’t Cornell executing yet another version of Carill’s back-cutting offense in their NCAA win. This wasn’t some completely perimeter focused-team. Tommy Amaker is a more traditional coach. And his team won playing basic basketball. They threw the ball into the paint to Kenyatta Smith and he scored over Alex Kirk and Cameron Bairstow. They attacked the paint and kicked the ball out for three. And most importantly, while they ran clock, they mostly moved the ball with the intention of scoring. Running a traditional based-attack, Harvard beat one of the big boys.

Some will say this is not your vintage Harvard team. Tommy Amaker encouraged the school to relax some of its admission standards to upgrade the basketball program. And those relaxed standards led to a horrific cheating scandal last year that caused the team’s co-captains to be dismissed before the season. But in many ways, that made Thursday’s outcome even more remarkable. Harvard had just one senior in the rotation this year. This was supposed to be a rebuilding year until the suspended players re-enrolled next season. But instead, one of the youngest teams in the nation, playing in a conference without athletic scholarships just defeated the regular season and post-season champion from one of the top conferences in the nation. By any measure, this is a special win. And the image of Wesley Saunders stealing the ball and clinching the victory is the tournament’s signature moment to date.

No Other Slippers

For most of the day, we didn’t seem to be heading towards any Cinderella team.

1pm: “I feel sorry for Bryce Drew, but this game is over.” – Charles Barkley at half-time of Michigan St. vs Valparaiso.

11pm: “Hey, I love 38 point games as much as the next guy…” – Ernie Johnson on Syracuse’s second half-lead against Montana.

And those weren’t the only small conference teams to struggle. A lot of people picked Belmont to upset Arizona based on their ability to knock down three point shots. But given Arizona’s size across the board, Belmont struggled to even get open looks. South Dakota St.’s Nate Wolters was an NCAA hero in his four year career, but Trey Burke hounded him defensively, and Wolters managed only a 3 of 14 shooting night while his team lost convincingly. If that shooting percentage sounds bad enough, New Mexico St. shot 28% as a team against St. Louis. And we’re not even going to talk about how much the basketball gods must hate Akron. Not only did Akron lose its point-guard prior to the game against full-court pressing VCU, then Akron was stricken with the flu this week. The game was ugly from the start. (If anyone picked Akron to win in your pool you should thank them for their donation. But wait, that’s probably the person who will win the whole thing.)

That isn’t to say there wasn’t some Cinderella drama throughout the day. It started with Bucknell-Butler. There was the brief moment when Bucknell took a 37 to 31 lead in the second half. We got a chance to learn about Bucknell’s 6’7” Joe Willman. He was the perfect example of a small conference senior forward playing his best game in the NCAA tournament. He knocked down the jump shots that gave his team the lead, and he even chipped in with three blocks. Willman certainly was not an outstanding athlete. But those blocks really showed that a lot of playing the post is experience and positioning. It isn’t always raw athleticism.

The close game was short lived however.  Butler had started 0-14 from three, but when Butler’s Andrew Smith and Rotnei Clarke finally nailed a pair of outside shots, Butler got on a run and somehow made the final margin a blowout.

Memphis vs St. Mary’s was closer in the final margin, but it wasn’t necessarily a more compelling upset possibility. Memphis has been one of the most fun teams to watch this year because of their fast-pace and the explosive dunking and shot-blocking of DJ Stephens. But while Stephens got his blocks, I only caught one that really showed his explosive leaping ability. And St. Mary’s slowed the game down enough that we didn’t really get to see Memphis’ exciting athleticism in action. At least the ending was a signature moment, and the sheer excitement in Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery’s voice had to make everyone smile.  They both were amazed as St. Mary’s banked in a three to pull within two points. And they were down-right giddy at the subsequent turnover on the inbounds. Mathew Dellavedova’s attempt at a game-winning three was off-the mark, but these two brilliant announcers made it worth all the replays they gave it later in the day.

Gonzaga vs Southern also had its share of close moments. At one point Southern’s Madut Bol’s and Derick Beltran hit back-to-back threes to cut the lead to 41 to 40, and Doug Gottlieb noted that the crowd was starting to get behind the 16 seed. The smell of a historical upset was in the air. And after a pair of Brandon Moore free throws made it 54-54, you could just sense the people getting home from work, turning on their TVs, and getting glued to the action. But that is when Kevin Pangos took over. Pangos hit a three pointer, a dish for a three, and a ridiculous fake-drive, step-back three pointer that put Gonzaga ahead for good.

Davidson vs Marquette was even better, but again the underdog came up short. I loved this game because it showed that sometimes you have to throw logic out the window and realize that anything can happen. The announcers kept harping on the fact that Marquette was the worst outside shooting team in the NCAA tournament and that if they fell behind, Marquette had no chance of winning. The Golden Eagles simply couldn’t hit the threes they would need to complete a comeback. Meanwhile Davidson was the best free throw shooting team in the country and could easily close out any win late. And yet Davidson somehow squandered a 9 point lead. Marquette’s Vander Blue bucked the team stats and hit a pair of late threes, and Jamil Wilson chipped in one of his own. And a turnover with 6 seconds left allowed Marquette to win it with a Vander Blue lay-up at the end of regulation. It was a dramatic win, but it meant that Cinderella was denied once again. The night would have to wait for Harvard.

Dixon Falls Again

Some fans may view Wichita St.’s dominating win over Pittsburgh as another win for Cinderella. But this was far from an epic mismatch. Rather, it was a contrast of two similar teams. Both teams don’t shoot the ball particularly well, but rely on dominating offensive rebounding and physical play to win games. And for most of the game, Wichita St. was simply the better offensive rebounding team. (Pittsburgh chipped in with some late offensive rebounds to make the numbers look more even, but by then the game was out of hand.) It also hurt that 5^th year Pitt senior Tray Woodall had a 1 for 12, five turnover performance in his final game. Woodall was playing so poorly that Jamie Dixon couldn’t even afford to play him in the last five minutes when the team was trying to come back. No one wants to see a senior go out like that. But this certainly didn’t feel like a fluke.

And it brings up more questions about whether there really is an NCAA curse associated with Jamie Dixon. Once again, his team had some of the best points-per-possession numbers in the country in the regular season. And once again Pitt lost earlier than expected. You can say that you need to have elite talent to win in the NCAA tournament, and Dixon relies more on experience and depth. And yet once again Dixon has not lost to a major conference blue blood. It wasn’t North Carolina or Kansas that took Dixon down. It was another mid-major squad. Will Dixon ever avoid NCAA disappointment at this point? You have to wonder if Dixon left for USC (which is a big rumor) whether the Pitt fans would even be disappointed.

Meanwhile, I don’t understand why Gregg Marshall isn’t on more lists for a power conference head coaching job. He took Winthrop to the NCAA tournament 7 times and finally won a tournament game at that small school. And now he has built Wichita St. into a two-year tournament team. Marshall should be on everyone’s short-list.

But even if there were no small conference Cinderalla’s, there were two major seeding upsets. And both suggested that the Pac-12 may finally be back. Early in the season I talked about all the prized freshmen and key transfers on Pac-12 teams. But they weren’t quite ready in November and December to display the conference’s improvement. Through at least one day of the NCAA tournament, the Pac-12 has made a statement.

I thought for sure Oklahoma St. would handle 12-seeded Oregon. Oklahoma St. has been very good at forcing turnovers this year, particularly star freshman Marcus Smart. And I thought with Dominic Artis still limited by injuries, and the fact that Oregon was not great at hanging onto the ball generally, that turnovers would be the difference in the game. Indeed turnovers were the difference, but it was Oregon that forced those turnovers in the first half and built a big lead. And the combination of turnovers and offensive rebounds had Oklahoma St. head coach Travis Ford fuming in his halftime interview. “We aren’t going to win if they get 21 more opportunities!” Oklahoma St. somehow flipped the turnover margin in the second half, but it was too little too late as Oregon kept the game at a manageable margin and pulled the seeding upset. I say seeding upset, because this was really just one good power conference team beating another.

12-seed Cal’s win over UNLV was a little more exciting. Cal’s never-ending string of missed free throws at the end nearly gave UNLV a chance to win in regulation. But Cal eventually hung on while playing in front of a favorable home crowd in San Jose.

Where is the NBA Talent?

At one point in the day, Charles Barkley was reciting his normal line. “Team X has the best player on the floor. He has to play well and then they should win.” But today basically showed that this is a dumb philosophy in this year’s tournament.

First, there aren’t any can’t miss NBA stars in college this year. There’s a reason no one in the NBA is tanking to win the draft this year. It isn’t clear that the top pick is really much better than the 11^th pick. Trey Burke is my personal favorite player because of his all-around ability to manage the game as a point guard, but Burke was a surprising 2 of 12 from the field against South Dakota St. Meanwhile, UNLV’s Anthony Bennett was completely kept under wraps in one of the night games. Bennett did get to 15 points thanks to the free throw line and did grab 11 rebounds, but he wasn’t impacting the game like he sometimes does. That was because California played a very smart zone defense for most of the game. It led to far too many outside shots for UNLV and far too little utilization of UNLV’s future pro.

But that is the other reason Barkley’s philosophy is wrong. In college, the rules aren’t designed for one-on-one basketball. You can always take one player away. And since no one has Kentucky type talent across the board this year, there is no star you can count on to dominate the game. College basketball is a team game, not a star game.

Expected Win in Field of 64

Finally, I end with my traditional table on each day’s winners and losers. The table lists the expected wins in the field of 64 using the Pomeroy Rankings. Arizona was expected to win 1.17 games before Thursday and their own win increased their expectation to 1.87. New Mexico’s loss (and other adjustments in team rankings based on game margins) further increased that expectation to 2.37.

Contrast that to Michigan. The Wolverines won which increased their expected wins by 0.29, but because VCU won (and won in dominant fashion), Michigan’s win expectations decreased by 0.22.

Indiana didn’t play but their expectation fell slightly because Syracuse won and won in impressive fashion.

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.

Coming Tuesday:  The correct way to measure which teams are hot heading into the NCAA tournament.

The Last Four In

Trying to predict how a group of people will vote is not a scientific process. This is why I no longer make an official bracket prediction myself. But I think a few things factored into the committees final decision.

1) Every year the committee likes to single out a team and punish that team for a poor non-conference strength of schedule, and Colorado had a non-conference strength of schedule ranked 300+ this year. That is exactly what happened in 2007 when Syracuse was left out (for not scheduling enough quality road games), and I am convinced that is what happened with Colorado this year. For a long time we thought Cincinnati would be singled out this year, but they won enough games late to avoid the bubble discussion, and the punishment fell to Colorado.

Is it right to leave a team out for a poor NCSOS? On the one hand, if the short-term goal is to pick the 37 best at large teams, then clearly that is the wrong criteria. But part of the NCAA committee’s goal is a long-term goal. They want to encourage teams to schedule quality opponents so that the process of evaluating and comparing teams is easier. Perhaps leaving Colorado out makes the field “worse” today, but in the long-run, we get a better product when teams schedule quality opponents.

We also saw a record number of teams in the field with 14 losses this year, proving that the committee continues to put more emphasis on quality of opponents rather than quantity of wins.

2) RPI top 50 wins are not everything. UAB won just one game against the RPI top 50, but the committee put a lot of weight on wins against teams ranked 51-100.

Wins against the RPI 1-100:
UAB = 10
VCU = 8
Colorado = 8
Virginia Tech = 8
Boston College = 7
Alabama = 5
St. Mary’s = 3
Harvard = 3

This does not mean I think the committee made the right decision. But if you go back historically, it is not unprecedented. In 2005, UAB had zero wins against the RPI top 50, lost in the second round of the CUSA tournament, and still qualified for the NCAA tournament field. This has happened before.

3) Richmond was not a lock. Various bracket projections are going to count Richmond as a correct pick, but if Richmond loses to Dayton on Sunday, I think the committee swaps Richmond out and puts Dayton on the 12 seed line. I don’t know this for sure, but I think the committee tries to minimize changes to the bracket on the last day, and I think this was their easy choice. The committee chair said on CBS that the ACC tournament final was irrelevant to the decision to give Duke a No. 1 seed, which confirms for me that they would have made the easiest possible last minute decision.

4) The biggest snub of all on Sunday probably had nothing to do with the NCAA. Maryland was not invited to the NIT despite having the 36^th best margin-of-victory numbers in the nation.

Look Back

I know the tendency is to see the bracket and look ahead. But I think it is important to salute all the teams that won championships or earned NCAA bids with their fine play in the last week. For the UConn Huskies to win five games in five days is nothing short of miraculous. The log5 odds said they had just a 2% chance of winning the Big East tournament title when the tournament opened. In fact, their current odds of making it to the Final Four are a much healthier 7.2%. In other words, what Connecticut did was more rare than making the Final Four, and much more special. And as Kemba Walker’s mom, who had been shown on camera all week, hugged Kemba after the title game, you certainly did not have to tell her to celebrate the moment.

Similarly for a team like Penn St. that upset Wisconsin and Michigan St., perhaps the first week of the NCAA tournament will bring more joy. But for the four Penn St. senior starters who came so close to the NCAA tournament two years ago, just making the NCAA field is a tremendous accomplishment.

For Washington’s Isaiah Thomas and his buzzer-beater to beat Arizona, and for Princeton’s Douglas Davis and his buzzer-beater to beat Harvard, these are the moments to be overcome with joy. Only four teams will make it to the Final Four in three weeks. Only one team will win a NCAA title. But along the way, there are numerous champions.

5 Games in 5 Days

How was Connecticut able to win five games in five days? They were relentless at taking the ball to the basket. Take a look at Connecticut’s free throw rate this year. (Free throw rate measures the percentage of free throw attempts per field goal attempt.)

November and December: 42.0
January to end of regular season: 27.7
Big East Tournament: 47.1

This was not simply Connecticut having big leads and their opponents fouling late in the game. Connecticut was extremely aggressive at driving the ball inside in the Big East tournament. Will they keep it going and reach the Final Four? My gut tells me they will not. And it is not just because they are 17th in the Pomeroy Rankings. Butler was similarly situated and made a deep run last year.

But I think it will be very hard for Connecticut not to have an emotional letdown after a tournament like this. I think the fatigue will be more mental than physical. UConn is going to go back home and hear how fantastic they played, and I think it will be very hard to focus on preparing for a first and second round opponent. And that lack of mental focus could be costly. But if Kemba Walker keeps getting into the lane at will, Jeremy Lamb keeps making killer floaters, and Alex Oriakhi hustles for rebounds like he did in New York, anything can happen.

What was in the water in the ACC tournament?

If you have never looked at Ken Pomeroy’s win probability charts, look at what happened in the top half of the ACC tournament bracket:

Miami vs Virginia

North Carolina vs Miami

These were two tremendous comebacks. (The win probability chart for North Carolina vs Clemson was equally crazy, but that chart is not up yet.) Note: You may need to use Mozilla-Firefox to view these charts.

Similarly, we all thought Alabama’s comeback win against Georgia might put them ahead of the Bulldogs, but that was not the case. But the win probability chart still looks crazy on paper: Alabama vs Georgia

The same thing could be said for the Michigan comeback against Illinois: Michigan vs Illinois. It seemed significant at the time, but ultimately, both teams ended up in an 8-9 game in the NCAA tournament. I think the key to the Michigan comeback was that Michigan forward Jordan Morgan got in foul trouble and had to leave the game. Morgan is not a threat to shoot the three, so with Morgan in the game, Illinois forward Mike Tisdale was sagging into the paint and double-teaming whatever Michigan players tried to take the ball inside. But with Morgan out, Michigan put five shooters on the floor, and Tisdale had to step out to defend the three point line. That allowed Michigan to use penetration and cuts to more effectively get the ball to the basket.

TNT and TBS

Poor Charles Barkley. Kenny Smith and Barkley are phenomenal when providing post-game commentary at midnight. But I don’t think Charles was quite ready to be in studio at noon on a Sunday.

I also think you can see the huge difference between the commentators who have followed college basketball all year (Seth Davis and Greg Anthony) and the guys who are checking in for the first time (in Barkley and Smith.) Here was Kenny Smith’s analysis of the Penn St. vs Ohio St. game. “I think that Penn St. is going to use their great guards to pull Ohio St.’s big men away from the basket.”

This might make sense for Michigan or Northwestern. This might make sense for Illinois with Mike Tisdale or Purdue with JaJuan Johnson. But Penn St., despite being a guard-led team, is not a great three-point shooting team. Tim Frazier is a terrible shooter. His contribution to the offense is to drive into the lane and create offense for his teammates. That is great guard play, but it has nothing to do with spreading the floor. I also have to disagree with the notion that Ohio St. would have to adjust to this. Virtually every team in college basketball has at least three perimeter players on the floor. You can probably count on two hands, the number of elite teams that run a traditional three forward set. Kenny Smith’s comment was the type of thing you say when you do not have any idea how the various teams play.

The right thing to say about Penn St. is this. “They slow down the tempo and shorten the game because they have a senior led team that executes phenomenally well in pressure situations. They hope to keep it close late and make more key plays down the stretch.”

Expectations 

In the NCAA tournament we often talk about PASE (performance against seed expectations). Through 26 years of 64+ team fields, here is how the seeds have fared:

But what if instead of looking at seed expectations, we look at team expectations. I.e., take each team’s odds of advancing to each round (using the Pomeroy probabilities) and see how many wins he expects for each team. Interestingly, his probabilities paint a tournament that is much more wide open than past NCAA tournament history would indicate.

Two notes: First, Pomeroy used an exponent of 11 instead of 11.5 in his conference predictions, so I follow that standard here. In other words, these odds will differ slightly from the ones he includes on kenpom.com. 

Second, I don’t want the Round 1 participants to jump up on this list, so I am not counting a win in “the First Four” in these expectations. Winning that game just provides an opportunity to win on Thursday or Friday. I think this approach is less confusing. USC and VCU individually have a lower chance of winning a Friday game than the other 11-seeds. But combined their expectations should be similar to other 11-seeds.

Here are the team-by-team expectations:

Purdue looks like a real solid No. 3 seed in these projections. Some people are going to be scared away because Purdue looked bad in late season losses to Iowa and Michigan St. But their numbers on the season have been phenomenal, and if they face Georgetown in the second round, point guard Chris Wright may not be 100%.

Florida is by far the weakest No. 2 seed in the field. Not only were they blown out by Kentucky in the SEC tournament, this is a team that lost to Central Florida and Jacksonville this year. And this is a Florida team that simply did not win its SEC games by a huge margin. The only thing that saves Florida is that the Southeast region is one of the weakest regions across the board.

North Carolina’s odds of advancing are actually worse than Florida’s because North Carolina got a brutal draw. Not only is North Carolina in the same region as Ohio St. and Syracuse, even the Tar Heels potential second round opponent, Washington, has posted dominant efficiency numbers this year. And Washington enters the tournament on a roll after winning the Pac-10 tournament.

The matchups should be tough, but from an entertainment perspective, the Tar Heels games should be some of the best to watch. Their first round opponent Long Island has the fastest tempo in the field, and their potential second round opponent Washington has the 4th fastest tempo. North Carolina has the 5th fastest tempo in the field.

Speaking of tempo, let’s take a minute to talk about Wisconsin. I could not help but watch Friday Night’s Wisconsin vs Penn St. game and not feel embarrassed for the state of basketball. John Gasaway said it best. This was the slowest game you may ever see. And given that these are two of the slowest paced teams in the nation, they deserved what they got on Friday in a pathetic 36-33 exhibition of basketball. (I felt sorry that Gus Johnson had to call that game.) Wisconsin usually avoids these embarrassing games despite their slow pace, because the Wisconsin offense has been incredible this year. But that does not lessen the ridiculousness of this game.

At halftime, Bo Ryan was interviewed and asked if he was pleased that Talor Battle and Jeff Brooks were held to three points in the first half. Ryan responded by saying, “I’d rather they didn’t score anything. I’d rather see a zero up on the scoreboard.” Of course he did not mean his own team too, but it was still a ridiculous comment.

But here is why pace matters. When you play a slow pace, anything can happen. Wisconsin might be one of the best teams in the nation again this year. But by shortening the game, Wisconsin will give every opponent it faces in the NCAA tournament, a chance to get hot and pull the upset.

And their first round opponent is not just any opponent. On a per possession basis, Belmont was easily the best small conference team in the nation this year. True, they have a limited sample of games against elite opponents, but Belmont was already going to be a popular upset pick. And I think Wisconsin’s pace will leave the door wide open for that outcome.

Memphis freshman point guard Joe Jackson was in a serious swoon down the stretch, scoring in double digits just once in the last nine regular season games. But he took his game to another level in the C-USA tournament, averaging 18.7 points per game, and relentlessly getting to the free throw line. And somehow Memphis is a ridiculous 13-1 in games decided by five points or less. That probably means they are a little over-rated and due to get blown out by Arizona. But in a close games, no one has performed better this season.

One consequence of adding another play-in game for the automatic qualifiers is that the top seeds start to play better teams. UC Santa Barbara is not a push-over by any means, and they have a legitimate shot to upset Florida. Those expectations actually represent a 12.2% chance of advancing to the second round, and a 2.6% chance of making it to the Sweet Sixteen.

By Conference

Whether you have a team in the field or not, chances are you have a favorite conference. Thus heading into the tournament, here are the expected number of wins for each conference, based on the historical performance of the various seeds:

Expected Wins after First Four

As above, I am not counting “the First Four” as wins, only as an opportunity to get a shot at a win on Thursday or Friday.  The 12 seeds are expected to win 0.52 games in the NCAA tournament, so for 12 seeds in the play-in game, I credit them with 0.26 expected wins each.

And here are the conference expectations using the Pomeroy-style odds:

 Who will win it all?

Based on the margin-of-victory numbers, I think the national champion comes out of this group: Ohio St., Kansas, Duke, or Pittsburgh.

You will notice these are all 1-seeds. This may seem exceptionally boring, but we are talking probabilities here. If you want to win your pool you should take a small number of bets that go against the odds. But otherwise you should pick chalk. If you like Wisconsin to make the Final Four, that is not a bad pick by any stretch of the imagination. But if you make that pick, you can pretty much pick chalk the rest of the way, and still have a chance to win your pool.

There is a reason the ESPN experts are going to pick a lot of one seeds. The one seeds are the best in the nation. But let’s take a closer look at the contenders:

Kansas

Watching a game earlier this year, they put up a graphic on the strengths of the various national title contenders. For Kansas, they listed “depth”. And as my injury splits have shown, that is absolutely true. Kansas has had several players miss games this year due to injuries or other issues, and the Jayhawks have not missed a beat. The replacements have stepped in and maintained the high level of play.

But how important is depth to a deep NCAA tournament run? I believe you need some depth in the front court, because there is going to be at least one game in the tournament where the officials call the game extremely close, and your big men will get in foul trouble. But depth in the backcourt is highly over-rated. Last year Duke had the perfect formula. They played three guards, John Scheyer, Nolan Smith, and Kyle Singler virtually the entire game, but they had solid depth in the front-court if they needed it.

This year’s Kansas squad is a little more puzzling. Examining RealGM.com’s last five depth charts, Kansas continues to rotate a lot of player at the guard positions. Moving guards in and out of the lineup can throw off their rhythm in an NCAA tournament setting. More importantly, it is really not very clear what the best lineup for Kansas looks like at this point. When the game is on the line, who should be out on the floor? Last year we knew Sherron Collins was going to take the big shot. But who is that player this year? Bill Self would probably have a different spin and say that versatility is an advantage at this point. And after the big win over Texas in the Big 12 title game, he talked about his team’s “balance”.  But that balance still makes me nervous about picking the Jayhawks.

On another topic, some people like to pick their NCAA champions based on NBA talent, and there is not a lot of talk about the Jayhawks this year. Josh Selby was a top 10 recruit, but he was ineligible and then injured, and has yet to show his full potential. And Marcus Morris is one of the best interior players in the country, but most people seem to think he is a little under-sized for an NBA forward.

All of these secondary factors make me hesitant to pick the Jayhawks. But this is sort of like finding the perfect house, but complaining because the closets are not painted. Kansas is one of the best teams in the nation offensively and defensively, and there is no reason (other than a fluke performance) to expect anything other than a deep NCAA run.

Ohio St.

Ohio St. is definitely the opposite of Kansas. They play a very shallow rotation of only seven players. And while they have adequate front-court depth (in Dallas Lauderdale and Deshaun Thomas), there is no question which players make up the best lineup.

Ohio St. has two players in David Lighty and William Buford who are great three-point shooters, but can also break down a defense with dribble penetration. They have the Big Ten’s all-time three point scoring champ in Jon Diebler. And because of all that great outside shooting, no one can double the post against the Big Ten freshman-of-the-year, Jared Sullinger. Sullinger was a top-5 recruit nationally, and is one of the few dominant big men in college basketball.

So that only leaves one question mark in the rotation, freshman point-guard Aaron Craft. Craft is a quiet scorer. And truth be told, because of Lighty and Buford’s ball-handling, and Diebler’s ability to feed the post, Ohio St. does not even need Craft to play like a traditional point guard. As a team, Ohio St. gave up the fewest steals in the nation, which really speaks to the overall offense, not to Craft’s personal ball-handling.

But what Craft brings to the table is some of the best lateral quickness in the Big Ten. He can consistently match up against the opposing team’s point guard and keep that player out of the lane. And thus even if he is not a scoring phenom, Craft is a vital part of the Ohio St. rotation.

Really, I would have had no trouble picking this team to win it all, until I saw the East region. Like Kansas last year, somehow Ohio St. seemed to get all of the most dangerous teams. Kentucky is far too good for a 4th seed, and it feels like the only reason they got such a low seed is because the committee was too lazy to incorporate the SEC final in its decision making.

Duke

Overall this is just your typical Duke team. They can beat you multiple ways offensively. On the defensive end, they do everything in their power to stop you from taking threes. Their guards (Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler) have a ton of big game experience, but they also have several emerging players as well (Seth Curry, Mason Plumlee). I do not believe this team needs Kyrie Irving to come back to repeat as national champ. They have all the pieces they need and if you watched this team in the tournament last year, you know what they do well.

Pittsburgh

A lot of people are going to jump off the Pittsburgh bandwagon for three late season losses, but I think it really speaks to the depth of the Big East more than the problems with Pittsburgh. Their last three losses were by one point to St. John’s, in OT to Louisville, and by two points to Connecticut on a Kemba Walker jumper in the Big East tournament. These are all elite opponents, and all the games were close.

Watching Kansas win by one point against Oklahoma St. in the first round of the Big 12 tournament, one of the announcers made this comment. “Oklahoma St. does not have Kemba Walker.” Pittsburgh has faced a ton of elite teams in the Big East this year, and it is no surprise that occasionally a Kemba Walker buzzer-beater caused them to lose.

Other people are going to jump off the Pittsburgh bandwagon because Jamie Dixon has never been to the Final Four. I am not quite sure whether that is a reasonable basis or not. On the one hand, some coaches (See Tom Izzo, John Beilein), have consistently outperformed their seeding in the NCAA tournament. So perhaps past tournament performance is indicative of something. But, I really believe Pittsburgh is ready for a deep tournament run.

Everyone wants to try to put a label on this Pittsburgh team (too much this, too much that), but this is just a well-rounded team. They have one of the deepest frontcourts in the nation, one of the best three point shooters in the country (in Ashton Gibbs), and a point guard (Brad Wanamaker) who has a killer ability to get into the lane.

All of the other teams with a high probability of making it to the Final Four have a major flaw that will probably prevent them from winning it all.

- The Texas offense fails far too often, and the defense has struggled late in the year. 

- The Notre Dame defense is just not the caliber of an NCAA champion. They never force turnovers and give up far too many open threes.

- San Diego St. has failed in its biggest games this year.

- BYU is missing one of its better forwards.

- Kentucky is young and far too inconsistent. While I think they match up with Ohio St. better than anyone, I think that in six NCAA tournament games, they will have at least one bad outcome.

- North Carolina has been better since Larry Drew left, but they still are not playing like a Final Four caliber team. Late in the season they only beat Florida St. by two, Miami by two, and Clemson in OT. That’s just not the mark of a team that can be expected to win six games.

I have actually warmed up to Purdue if not for their performance in two late season losses, or perhaps one of the plethora of Big East teams. But while all those teams are decent Final Four picks, I think the national champ will likely be a one seed, yet again. In other news, the sky is blue.

Coming Tuesday: Teams I would be afraid to pick in my bracket.