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.
The Pomeroy % represents the chances that Team A will win the game according to Ken Pomeroy’s Pythagorean calculation.
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.
