St Louis bracket: log5 prediction

As I did for the Big East tournament and as I did for the NIT last year and the NCAA tourney in 2008, I will be running log5 analysis based on the Pomeroy ratings for at least as long as the Hoyas are in the field.

Here are the percentage odds for advancing to the next round for each team:

Seed  Team           2nd Round  Sweet 16  Elite 8  Final 4
1     Kansas            98.3      83.4     64.1     47.3
16    Lehigh             1.7       0.2      0.01     0.0005
8     UNLV              46.6       7.2      2.7      0.9
9     Northern Iowa     53.4       9.2      3.7      1.2

5     Michigan State    85.8      36.9      9.2       3.7
12    New Mexico St.    14.2       1.8      0.1      0.04
4     Maryland          86.3      57.5     19.8     10.4
13    Houston           13.7       3.7      0.3      0.05

6     Tennessee         52.5      20.0      6.8      2.6
11    San Diego St.     47.5      17.1      5.5      1.2
3     Georgetown        88.5      60.4     30.5     11.4
14    Ohio              11.5       2.5      0.3      0.03

7     Oklahoma St.      40.4      10.6      3.8      0.8
10    Georgia Tech      59.6      20.0      9.0      2.4
2     Ohio State        95.4      68.9     44.0     19.0
15    UCSB               4.6       0.5      0.2      0.009

By the Pomeroy ratings, the Hoyas are the 4th best team in the region at 11th overall, behind 2nd-ranked Kansas, 4th Ohio State, and 10th Maryland, and would likely have to beat two of those three to reach Indianapolis. The upside is they do seem to have lucked out in drawing Tennessee as a #6 seed, for whom the Pomeroy ratings are much lower than the poll voters or RPI. Of course, their mid-season turmoil may be having an effect on KenPom's stats.


Another way of judging how strong a bracket the Hoyas placed them is swapping them with the #3 seed in the other regions. Here's how they would fare by log5 in each region:

#1 Seed        2nd Round  Sweet 16  Elite 8   Final 4
Syracuse          93.2      56.8     27.9      15.3

Kentucky          89.4      56.9     29.8      14.2

Duke              89.0      60.2     37.5      14.2

So, the bump gained by playing Tennessee is smaller than it seems at first, and the downside of the bracket is being in a region with one of the two strongest teams in the field (Kansas/Duke) without the benefit of a particularly weak #2 seed in KenPom-terms like Duke got in swooning Villanova.

The cumulative effect is the Hoyas' chances of making the Final 4 are only 80% of what they'd be in the next strongest region.


I also ran the log5 odds for each of the other Big East teams that made the tourney, sorted by region:

Seed  Team           2nd Round  Sweet 16  Elite 8  Final 4
1     Syracuse          93.8      65.4     47.3     28.2
3     Pitt              88.4      41.0     14.4      5.9

6     Marquette         50.9      33.4     13.1      8.5
2     West Virginia     94.4      57.6     39.9     20.0

9     Louisville        36.4       5.3      2.1      1.1
6     Notre Dame        47.1      17.5      7.6      2.2
2     Villanova         94.6      62.1     32.4     10.5

The odds of #2 seed West Virginia making the Final Four, by getting by teams like New Mexico, Wisconsin and/or Kentucky, are comparable to #2 seed Ohio St.'s chances of making it out of the Midwest.  But Villanova's odds are only about half as likely.  Similarly, Georgetown rates a better chance than fellow #3 seed Pitt, and #6 seed Marquette rates better than #6 seed Notre Dame.

Notes: log5 predictions are made using Pomeroy ratings based on games through Sunday, March 14.
No adjustment has been made for any home court advantage - all games are assumed neutral court.


And a gentle reminder, efficiency ratings and the predictions derived are not destiny.