Which NCAA Men’s Tournament Teams Are Better First-Round Picks than Their Seed Indicates?
Which NCAA Men’s Tournament Teams Are Better First-Round Picks than Their Seed Indicates?
Judging the juiciest stat-picks the committee gave us in this year's Round of 64.
One of my favorite exercises after Selection Sunday is to look for “stat upsets” — games where the lower seed actually has a better chance of winning (based on statistical measures such as the venerable Ken Pomeroy ratings). Oftentimes the selection committee will serve us up some instant, obvious first-round upsets as a product of looking at things like the NET rating and other factors beyond predictive metrics.
This year, there are a few games in the Round of 64 that fit this criteria, if we look at win probabilities based on a logistic regression off of KenPom ratings:
Midwest No. 9 TCU (56%) over No. 8 Utah State
West No. 9 Michigan State (56%) — yes, there is Sparty again — over No. 8 Mississippi State
West No. 11 New Mexico (56%) over No. 6 Clemson
The relative dearth of those types of games this year, however, does make it more difficult than usual to identify value picks in the first round. So I thought about looking at things in a different way: Which teams have better odds in the Round of 64 than the usual winning percentage for their seed?1
At 79%, East No. 6 Brigham Young has a much better chance of beating No. 11 Duquesne than the long-term average of 56% for 6-seeds since 2002. The same goes for East No. 5 (and 2023 national finalist) San Diego St. against No. 12 UAB, with a win probability (83%) far higher than the average of 61% for 5’s.
Those two games stand out for featuring win probabilities that exceed the usual seed average by 20+ percentage points, and five other games see the favorite carry a probability 10+ points higher than the seed average:
Midwest No. 5 Gonzaga (73%) over No. 12 McNeese St.: +12.0%
West No. 11 New Mexico (56%) over No. 6 Clemson: +11.6%
West No. 10 Nevada (49%) over No. 7 Dayton: +11.4%
East No. 4 Auburn (89%) over No. 13 Yale: +10.3%
South No. 5 Wisconsin (71%) over No. 12 James Madison: +10.1%
Most of these games just involve favorites being more heavily favored than usual — though that is useful for deciding which tempting upset combo (11-over-6, 12-over-5, etc.) to avoid. Meanwhile, here are the upsets at each lower seed that are more probable than the first-round norm:
No. 9 seeds (average: 46.4%)
Midwest No. 9 TCU (56%) vs No. 8 Utah St.: +9.6%
West No. 9 Michigan St. (56%) vs No. 8 Mississippi St.: +9.4%
East No. 9 Northwestern (49%) vs No. 8 Florida Atlantic: +2.6%
No. 10 seeds (average: 37.3%)
West No. 10 Nevada (49%) vs No. 7 Dayton: +11.4%
South No. 10 Boise St./Colorado (47%) vs No. 7 Florida: +9.6%
East No. 10 Drake (46%) vs No. 7 Washington St.: +8.4%
Midwest No. 10 Virginia/Colorado St. (40%) vs No. 7 Texas: +3.0%
No. 11 seeds (average: 44.0%)
(Yes, 11-seeds have a better winning % than 10s since 2002.)
West No. 11 New Mexico (56%) vs No. 6 Clemson: +11.6%
Midwest No. 11 Oregon (46%) vs No. 6 South Carolina: +1.5%
No. 12 seeds (average: 39.3%)
None! (The best pick is West No. 12 Grand Canyon (34%) vs No. 5 Saint Mary's, at -5.4%.)
No. 13 seeds (average: 21.4%)
Midwest No. 13 Samford (26%) vs No. 4 Kansas: +4.3%
No. 14 seeds (average: 10.7%)
South No. 14 Oakland (13%) vs No. 3 Kentucky: +1.9%
East No. 14 Morehead St. (11%) vs No. 3 Illinois: +0.7%
Midwest No. 14 Akron (11%) vs No. 3 Creighton: +0.5%
No. 15 seeds (average: 8.3%)
South No. 15 Western Kentucky (10%) vs No. 2 Marquette: +1.6%
No. 16 seeds (average: 2.4%)
South No. 16 Longwood (3%) vs No. 1 Houston: +0.7%
What are the big takeaways here? Certainly give any of the 10-over-7 choices a long thought… but maybe you can get ahead this year by not going for the classic 12-over-5 picks. I know those are always the featured dish on any platter of upsets, and they’re so tempting — but this year, the committee didn’t really serve us great candidates for those delicious upsets.
Filed under: College basketball
Going back to the 2002 season.