When doing a postmortem on any fantasy football season, I like to look at how a particular player performed on a per game basis adjusted for his strength of schedule (SOS). DTs are no different, except that they all played the same number of games. SOS will have an impact, but the per game aspect of it won’t make much of a difference.
Keep in mind that I used the following scoring system:
DT/ST TD = 6 points Safety = 2 points INT = 1 point Fumble = 1 point Sack = 1 point
Rick Pitino joined the March Madness coverage and got into a little debate with Charles Barkely, who obviously isn’t a big fan of the Big East.
I love Pitino’s statement at 0:50 that “Notre Dame will not lose tonight” (to Florida St., whom they did lose to…badly).
The Big East is currently 9-9 in the tourney with two teams still alive (UConn and Marquette). Based purely on seeding, we would expect the conference to be 14-6 with five teams (Pitt, Notre Dame, Louisville, Syracuse and UConn) still alive. Barkley is right that the Big East didn’t have a powerhouse team like the Big Ten (Ohio St.) or the Big 12 (Kansas) does, but it is a good conference top to bottom. Marquette is a good example. They beat a solid Xavier team and then upset Syracuse. Sure, it would be more impressive had they beaten a non-Big East team to make it to the Sweet 16, but it’s still an impressive run for an 11-seed.
If UConn and Marquette go quietly into the dark night against SDSU and North Carolina, respectively, then we can really wonder about the conference’s strength, but if UConn wins and Marquette gives the Tar Heels a good game, isn’t that enough?
It’s interesting — when Barkley made that comment about the Big East having solid but unspectacular players, I looked at a first round mock over at NBADraft.net, and the only Big East player projected to go in the first round is Kemba Walker. (There are six Big East players projected to go in the second round.) DraftExpress also shows one first rounder (Walker) and six second rounders.
Check out the scoreboard in the background as the Hawks broadcast comes back from commercial. The arena cameraman put LeBron and Dwyane Wade on the Kiss Cam.
If you’ve read my annual March Madness bracket column or if you are a stathead in general, you’ll know what the title of this post means. If you don’t, check out my column and come back.
Here are the next eight matchups representing Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. The Sagarin advantage represents the spread in Jeff Sagarin’s predictor ratings. If the number is positive, it means that Team A is the Sagarin favorite. If the number is negative, then it means Team B (and the lower seed) is actually the favorite.
Over the last four years, teams with a 2+ point advantage in Sagarin’s “predictor” rating have won 156 of 198 games (78.7%). Over the last two years, if a team had at least a 65% expected win rate according to Pomeroy’s Pythagorean calculation, they won 61 of 76 games (80.2%).
I’ve also included the spread for each game at the World Sports Exchange. Oftentimes the spread is very close to the Sagarin spread.
Team A
Team B
Sag Adv
Pom %
Spread
San Diego State
Connecticut
1.4
59.4%
+1
Florida
BYU
-2.5
43.7%
-2.5
Duke
Arizona
8.9
83.8%
-9
Wisconsin
Butler
7.4
80.0%
-4
North Carolina
Marquette
3.0
63.6%
-5
Kansas
Richmond
9.7
82.0%
-10.5
Ohio State
Kentucky
6.2
76.0%
-5
Florida State
VCU
3.9
64.7%
-4
It’s interesting that Florida is a 2.5-point favorite according to the sportsbook even though they are a 2.5-point underdog according to Sagarin. That probably has to do with the sportsbook trying to take into account the loss of Brandon Davies, but his absence sure didn’t hurt BYU against Gonzaga.
Conversely, SDSU is a 1.0-point underdog despite being a Sagarin favorite.
