Which NCAA Men’s Tournament Teams Are Better (Or Worse) Overall Picks than Their Seed Indicates?

Following up with a search for Cinderellas and other sneaky picks.

Are the Auburn Tigers — led by Johni Broome — going to make another Final Four run? (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

In the immediate aftermath of the NCAA men’s tournament brackets being revealed yesterday, I did a post about the teams that have better — or worse — odds of winning in the first round than their seeds traditionally had in the past. (This was based on probabilities using Ken Pomeroy’s ratings.) I won’t rehash those findings here, except to say that BYU and San Diego St. had the most elevated chances overall, and New Mexico and Nevada ranked highest among seeding underdogs.

As a follow-up today, I decided to expand that approach beyond just the first round, and look at teams who have higher — or lower — odds of reaching each round than the norm for their seed since 2002. To that end, I ran a Monte Carlo simulation using KenPom ratings once again (I would also encourage people to check out my old boss Nate Silver’s revival of the old 538 model here), and compared those odds with the 2002-23 averages:

Which teams are extra likely (or unlikely) to advance for their seed?

Some random thoughts that jumped out to me:

• UNC is very negative here! Part of that is because they were rated significantly lower (+24.7) than the other 1-seeds, particularly Connecticut (+32.2) and Houston (+31.7). And part is that they might immediately have a dangerous Michigan State team lurking in the Round of 32, with Alabama and Saint Mary’s being no picnic after that — and that’s all before even escaping their half-regional pod of the bracket.

• Just a quick related note: Arizona also benefits from this downstream, since they are the 2-seed in UNC’s region and would benefit from the deck being cleared in front of them. (The Wildcats also have a higher rating than the Tar Heels anyway, though it’s fair to have trust issues with them.)

• In fact, most of the two seeds — Iowa State and Tennessee included in addition to Arizona — have better title odds than typical 2’s of the past. But the 3’s are looking uniformly worse than usual.

• Houston has a surprisingly difficult early path, with their odds of reaching the Sweet 16 sitting below the 1-seed average due to a possible collision course with Duke (or Wisconsin). But if the Cougars survive that, they could be in solid shape with Marquette and Kentucky rating as the weakest 2 and 3 seeds, respectively. (Even if there are reasons to think Kentucky might punch above its rating weight.)

• Do we trust Purdue to avenge last year’s embarrassing first-round defeat and go on a championship run, a la Virginia in 2019? That’s one of the big questions of this bracket. The Boilermakers have better Final Four odds than the typical 1-seed, though their comparatively lower rating than UConn or Houston leaves them with lower overall title odds than the average 1-seed. As someone who bet on Virginia that year and saw it pay off, I can say it is a really fun feeling, and I might be inclined to try to repeat it with Zach Edey and company.

• Auburn could be a Final Four sleeper. The Tigers showed up earlier as one of our unlucky teams who might be waiting to turn things on, and Bruce Pearl has a history of tourney overperformance.¹ Despite the seemingly daunting task of facing two defending Final Four teams in the first three rounds, San Diego State isn’t as strong in the ratings as it was last season. UConn looms large if you are thinking of picking Auburn, to be sure, but the two teams are not that far apart by the metrics, meaning the Tigers could provide great value in a pool.

• Your best Final Four bets at each non-chalky (but still somewhat feasible) seed number:

  • No. 3: Midwest No. 3 Creighton (14.7%); West No. 3 Baylor (12.8%)

  • No. 4: East No. 4 Auburn (19.1%); South No. 4 Duke (14.2%); West No. 4 Alabama (11.9%)

  • No. 5: Midwest No. 5 Gonzaga (7.8%)… though it might not be a great year for the 5’s to go on deep runs — the typical average Final Four % for 5’s is 8.3%.

  • No. 6: East No. 6 BYU (4.6%); South No. 6 Texas Tech (4.4%)

  • No. 7: South No. 7 Florida (3.4%)

  • No. 8: West No. 8 Mississippi St. (2.4%)

• Searching for Cinderella? Teams seeded 9th or worse with the highest second-weekend odds include New Mexico (23.9%), Michigan St. (21.4%), Nevada (14.3%), Oregon (13.1%), N.C. State (12.9%) and TCU (12.4%). But among those, 11-seeds Oregon and N.C. State actually carry much worse Sweet 16 chances than the typical 11 does. The Spartans are the only team seeded 9th or lower with Sweet 16 odds more than 5.3 percentage points above the norm; in addition, TCU, New Mexico and Akron (a 14-seed!) are the only teams in that group with odds exceeding the norm by at least 3 percentage points.

• And by the way, maybe forget about the 12-5 upsets and, more generally, 12th-seeded Cinderellas this year. None of the 12 seeds have Sweet 16 odds that match the historical baseline for a 12. (Grand Canyon is the closest, running 1.5 percentage points below the norm because of a brutal draw in the same mini-pod as Saint Mary’s and Alabama.)

• Utah State and Florida Atlantic have tough assignments as 8-seeds. Not only do they have to face 1-seeds Purdue and UConn, respectively, if they make the second round, but the 9-seeds they drew are also unusually tough. The Aggies are outright underdogs to TCU in the ratings, and the Owls are basically in a coin flip against Northwestern.

Did I miss anything that jumped out to you? Play around with the interactive table and leave a comment below.

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Filed under: College basketball

1. We won’t talk about 2022.