084: Reasons
Bid bandits, feels like '87, and WABStick.
Committees make decisions and in order to make decisions, you need reasons to justify those decisions. If you’re a team playing to compete in the NCAA Tournament, you don’t want to give the committee a reason.
The degree of giving the committee a reason can vary. For example, Virginia squandering a five-point lead to NC State with a win probability north of 95 percent might cost the Cavaliers an at-large bid1.
Houston getting embarrassed by Iowa State might dramatically change the course of the one seeds. And North Carolina losing to NC State might cost it a more favorable seed.
A bid thief is a team that qualifies for the NCAA Tournament automatically by winning its conference tournament title, while not expecting to make the NCAA Tournament without that conference title.
NC State, Oregon, New Mexico, and Drake are the bid bandits, though New Mexico and Drake still had chances at an at-large bid too.
Temple and UAB will steal a bid today by winning the American Conference Championship. The same is true in the Atlantic 10 with VCU or Duquesne.
Here is a list of the automatic qualifiers and bid bandits of the the 11 conferences where a thief was possible, and the actual automatic qualifier in those leagues if a thief did not win.
The SEC, Big Ten, Atlantic 10, and American all wrap up the conference titles later today. The Ivy League does too, however, they’re not listed on the table.
The bubble is strong this season. Of course, bubble strength is relative. A fun offseason project would be to compute the bubble strength and try to compare it to previous seasons.
Feels like ‘87
NC State smacked North Carolina to open the championship game of the ACC Tournament en route to earning its automatic bid and its first ACC title since 1987.
Carolina’s defense is probably better than its offense, which is sort of an awkward feeling for fans of UNC. The Heels made only eight of 20 two-point shots in the second half and three of 18 three-point attempts. RJ Davis scored 17 points on 17 shots in the second frame. The supporting cast was not supportive either.
A bigger problem is NC State put up a 60.8 effective field goal percentage. The third worst mark by Carolina’s defense this season2. The Wolfpack made ~60 percent from two-point land, including DJ Horne and DJ Burns making a combined 15-of-20 two-point shots.
Five wins in five days is something else. At one point, NC State had a minimum win probability of 2.4 percent against Virginia on Friday night. My goodness.
Salute to the ‘Pack. A loss like that stings for Carolina, but it’s supposed to hurt when there are stakes. It beats the hell out of whatever last March was for Carolina.
1 Seed Discourse
The discourse is going to be unpleasant today. I do think you can make a credible argument for Iowa State and North Carolina as the final one seed.
WABStick tends to agree. It’s close and I think it will reveal a lot about what the committee thinks of the non-conference slate and conference slate.
The Cyclones are living large on two wins against Houston, and the Big 12 being a bull market3. Iowa State’s best non-conference win is likely a neutral site victory over VCU (+0.37 WAB) or home win against Iowa (+0.32 WAB)
Carolina won 19 of 23 games against ACC opponents, but again, the entire league did not #AccomplishGreatness gave the committee reasons. UNC’s best non-conference win is at home against Tennessee (+0.59 WAB).
Happy Selection Sunday
Remember, team strength and predicted seed can result in over-seeded and under-seeded teams. This matters in March.
Ryan Campbell, @5th_Factor, continuing to dive into these metrics ahead of the selection show tonight. Stay tuned for more updates this week once a bracket is revealed and give Ryan a follow.
Thanks for reading this far, and subscribe if you so choose.
And one last plug, if you want to compare résumés of two teams using wins-above-bubble, check out a free tool I built with Ryan Campbell (@5th_Factor). You can even see WAB by quadrant now on the results tab.
Virginia up three with three fouls to give is brutal. A confounding season for Virginia and it might cost them a bid.
Tennessee: 62.7, UConn: 70.8 were the only other better effective field goal percentage performances against the UNC defense this season.
Iowa State finished 16-5 against Big 12 opponents, and 10-6 in quadrant one games (all came from the Big 12 opponents).
Does UNC want to be a 1-seed in the West with a 2-seed Arizona team that has a former UNC player and coach.? I'll believe Purdue makes the Final Four when I see it. The 2-seed in that regional will be interesting.
The ACC Champ has averaged 3.53 games and 2.61 wins in the NCAA tournament since 1985. Champs other than UNC or Duke have averaged 2.33 games and 1.47 wins. If UNC or Duke is the champ the averages are 4.13 games and 3.35 wins. Duke only: 4 games and 3.19 wins. UNC only: 4.38 games and 3.38 wins.