I send this out in a weekly email to a few friends from Peter Tiernan’s old site, bracketscience.com. It was the best site I’d ever used for March Madness purposes. Pete is the creator of the Seed Guide, which he lovingly updated and worked on with frequency. Bracket Science collected all of Pete’s work. Pete’s gotten out of the game for now, but I and the fans of Bracket Science work together each year to continue his studies.
One of my favorite Tiernan works was his Champ Check, a list of qualities that every NCAA Basketball champion since 2000 (other than 2014 Connecticut) held. They are below:
- A one, two or three seed
- Member of a Power conference: ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 or SEC
- Either went to the previous year’s dance or have an All-American
- Led by a coach with more than five tourney trips and at least one Elite Eight run
- Averaging more than 73 points per game
- Allowing fewer than 73 points per game
- An average scoring margin of at least seven points per game
- A schedule among the 75 strongest in the country
Based on those stats, here are your championship contenders based on this week’s AP Poll Top 20: Kansas, Villanova, Arizona, Louisville, North Carolina, Oregon, Notre Dame.
Notable non-qualifiers: Gonzaga (100+ SOS), Baylor (72.5 PPG; how is this still possible in 2017?), W. Virginia (89 SOS), Kentucky (allowing 73.9 PPG), Virginia (68.9 PPG scored), Wisconsin (92 SOS), UCLA (allowing 76+ PPG), Cincinnati (87 SOS), Florida State (no Elite Eights for Leonard Hamilton), Butler (no Elite Eights for Chris Holtmann), Maryland (no Elite Eights for Mark Turgeon), Saint Mary’s, South Carolina.
If you think this is an unusually small list of qualifiers, you’re not alone. Of course, give it time and some non-qualifiers close to qualifying may jump into the group. Duke will be a notable one when they jump back into the top 20.
Some more stats that we’ve used before – KenPom efficiency (every champ minus 2014 had above a 112.2 OE and below a 95.4 DE) and rankings (18th or higher in OE, 49th or higher in DE). Here’s your contenders based on these stats.
EFFICIENCY: Gonzaga (122.9/89.7), Louisville (116.9/86.7), Virginia (119.1/88.9), Villanova (122.5/93.8), WVU (123.1/94.5), Kentucky (122/93.9), Florida (118.5/90.8), Baylor (116.5/90.3), Wisconsin (116.7/91.1), Purdue (120/94.7), FSU (118.8/94.7), SMU (118.4/95.2), Wichita State (117.6/94.5), Oregon (115.8/93.6), Cincinnati (114.9/92.9), Arizona (116.9/95.1), Iowa State (115.1/95.3).
RANKINGS: Gonzaga (4th/4th), Virginia (17th/3rd), Villanova (6th/15th), WVU (3rd/19th), Kentucky (9th/16th), Kansas (5th/36th), UNC (7th/35th), Purdue (12th/22nd), St. Mary’s (10th/44th), Duke (14th/32nd).
Ranked in all three: Villanova
Ranked in two: Kansas, Arizona, Louisville, North Carolina, Oregon, Gonzaga, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Purdue
One: Notre Dame, Florida, Baylor, Wisconsin, FSU, SMU, Wichita State, Cincinnati, Iowa State, St. Mary’s, Duke
I look forward to seeing how this develops over the rest of the season. I’ll also post more of my work in CBB tournament analytics as the season ends, including a typical amount of first-round upsets, how to single out a pretender at a high seed, and more.
gyrateplus: the website 