Madness Explained: A Comprehensive Overview of Why Teams Make the Division I Men’s Basketball Final Four (2019 Update)

Bryan Fuller / MGoBlog

HOW’D WE DO LAST YEAR (AND THE YEAR BEFORE)?

2019 UPDATE: Last year was not a good one for the criteria picks. None of the suggested teams (Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina, Purdue) made the Final Four, though there was solace in Villanova, the top team according to the championship criteria, winning it all. I’ve left the 2017 results intact below; thus far the criteria has one really good year and one really bad year under its belt.

2018 UPDATE: Not bad, actually. Two of our criteria picks (Gonzaga, North Carolina) made the Final Four, and a third, Oregon, had only 0.5 criteria DQs. South Carolina, the token sleeper, only had 2 criteria DQs. Following the criteria to a tee also got us 28 out of 32 first round games correct and the biggest upset, seed-wise, of the 2nd round, 8-seed Wisconsin over 1-seed Villanova.

It was not perfect – it was also not meant to be. Onward and upward.

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If you’re here, you’re probably familiar with the original research and 2018 update; I will spare you the tedium of wading through the same article again and cut right to the chase this year. Here are how the 2019 Final Four and championship contenders stack up, according to the criteria:

FINAL FOUR CONTENDERS (3/18/19):

Virginia – 1 (AdjTempo rank of 353)

Gonzaga – 0

Duke – 0

Michigan State –  0

Michigan – 1 (AdjTempo rank of 320)

North Carolina – 0

Kentucky – 0

Tennessee – 0

Texas Tech – 1 (unranked in preseason AP poll)

Purdue – 1 (3PA/FGA rank of 40)

Virginia Tech – 2 (3PA/FGA rank of 37, AdjTempo of 337)

Wisconsin – 4 (AdjOE rank of 52, AdjTempo of 332, unranked in preseason AP poll, FTR of 219)

Auburn – 2.5 (AdjDE rank of 45, 3PA/FGA rank of 8, FTR of 199 is close)

Florida State – 0

Houston – 3.5 (3PA/FGA rank of 73, FTR of 228, unranked in preseason AP poll, caution required with Luck rank of 50)

LSU – 1 (AdjDE rank of 62)

Kansas – 1 (Luck rank of 15)

Mississippi State – 1 (AdjDE rank of 51)

Kansas State – 3 (AdjOE rank of 102, FTR of 226, AdjTempo of 342)

Marquette – 2 (3PA/FGA rank of 98, unranked in preseason AP poll)

According to this criteria, the best Final Four bets (per region) are as follows: Gonzaga, Duke, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Don’t hesitate to go with Virginia in the South, though (only 1 criteria DQ and would be a clear favorite against Tennessee on a neutral court).

CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENDERS (3/18/19):

Virginia – 0

Gonzaga – 0

Duke – 0

Michigan State – 0

Michigan – 1 (didn’t win a title)

North Carolina – 0

Kentucky – 2 (EM rank of 7, didn’t win a title)

Tennessee – 2 (EM rank of 8, didn’t win a title)

According to this criteria, the best bets for champion are as follows: Virginia, Gonzaga, Duke, Michigan State and North Carolina.

Madness Explained: A Comprehensive Overview of Why Teams Make the Division I Men’s Basketball Final Four (2018 Update)

Bryan Fuller / MGoBlog

HOW’D WE DO LAST YEAR?

Not bad, actually. Two of our criteria picks (Gonzaga, North Carolina) made the Final Four, and a third, Oregon, had only 0.5 criteria DQs. South Carolina, the token sleeper, only had 2 criteria DQs. Following the criteria to a tee also got us 28 out of 32 first round games correct and the biggest upset, seed-wise, of the 2nd round, 8-seed Wisconsin over 1-seed Villanova.

It was not perfect – it was also not meant to be. Onward and upward.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?

NOTE: This study was originally published in March of 2017. The bulk of its contents have been left mostly intact, with one new addition to the criteria and all of the pertinent team information updated. This is all a long way of saying: if you feel like you’ve read this before, you probably have.

First and foremost, the only teams listed in this study are teams that made the Final Four (the champions are in bolded text in the spreadsheet). The figures of “Efficiency Margin” (EM), “Adjusted Offensive Efficiency (AdjOE)”, “Adjusted Defensive Efficiency” (AdjDE), “Luck”, “Adjusted Tempo (AdjTempo)” and “3PA/FGA” are all pulled from the database of Ken Pomeroy. Here are links both to his website and to an explanation of what the aforementioned statistics measure:

Ken is a preeminent mind in the field of basketball analytics and has created tempo-free and opponent quality-adjusted formulas that measure team quality in Division I Men’s Basketball. Unless otherwise stated, the teams in this particular study range from 2002-2016 exclusively because those are the only years in his database. All of the data used (except for Luck and 3PA/FGA, which were unavailable) was recorded pre-NCAA tournament and thus provides a valid analog to the numbers we will use in March to fill out our brackets.

Madness Explained: A Comprehensive Overview of Why Teams Make the Division I Men’s Basketball Final Four

Bryan Fuller / MGoBlog

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?

NOTE: THIS STUDY IS ACCOMPANIED BY AN EXCEL SPREADSHEET LISTING ALL FINAL FOUR TEAMS FROM 2002-2016.

First and foremost, the only teams listed in this study and its accompanying spreadsheet are teams that made the Final Four (the champions are in bolded text in the spreadsheet). The figures of “Efficiency Margin” (EM), “Adjusted Offensive Efficiency (AdjOE)”, “Adjusted Defensive Efficiency” (AdjDE), “Luck”, “Adjusted Tempo (AdjTempo)” and “3PA/FGA” are all pulled from the database of Ken Pomeroy. Here are links both to his website and to an explanation of what the aforementioned statistics measure:

Ken is a preeminent mind in the field of basketball analytics and has created tempo-free and opponent quality-adjusted formulas that measure team quality in Division I Men’s Basketball. Unless otherwise stated, the teams in this particular study range from 2002-2016 exclusively because those are the only years in his database. All of the data used (except for Luck and 3PA/FGA, which were unavailable) was recorded pre-NCAA tournament and thus provides a valid analog to the numbers we will use in March to fill out our brackets.

Harbaugh vs. Romer II

Patrick Barron / MGoBlog

(You should probably read the prior installment of this series before this one in order to understand the context and motivation of this article.)

I collected the data on Jim Harbaugh’s fourth-down decision making for the 2016 season and the results were staggering enough that I had to have the co-founder of this site check my work. We ultimately came up with a “success rate” of 91.1%, counting decisions that didn’t follow the Romer chart but were deemed correct by yours truly given the larger context of the game. If you went purely by the Romer chart, our success rate is 76.8%. Using either metric, this is a substantial improvement from last season.

Harbaugh vs. Romer

Patrick Barron / MGoBlog

I’ve always subscribed to the theory that success in college football requires four ingredients, all of which are necessary but not sufficient for success — in other words, to win the type of games Michigan has the intention of winning under Jim Harbaugh, we’ll need excellence in all four: recruiting, player development, scheme, and in-game coaching.

Michigan has recruited at a high-level under Harbaugh and will continue to do so. The program’s foremost recruiting analysts attribute this to the combination of the staff’s ability to sell the university’s greatest assets (academics, tradition, Ann Arbor, life after football, etc.) while at the same time constantly putting the Block M in the national spotlight. Be it with the Jordan brand contract, Signing of the Stars, or having Derek Jeter, Michael Jordan, and Charles Woodson all on the Big House field during the team’s home opener. When you combine Michigan’s resources with Harbaugh’s incredible work ethic, it isn’t hard to imagine more prospects with a stature similar to Rashan Gary’s pledging to the Wolverines.

Evaluating Michigan Baseball Through Advanced Statistics

Entering last season’s three-day, double-elimination Big 10 Championship as the number five seed, Michigan Baseball was in the midst of a transition year of sorts.

With starting second baseman Jacob Cronenworth, third baseman Travis Maezes, catcher Patrick Kendall, centerfielder Jackson Glines and designated hitter Kevin White all having departed, there were holes to fill up and down the roster.

While the 2015 team went on to win the Big 10 Tournament as the number three seed and make an NCAA appearance, the 2016 incarnation of the team was not quite as lucky.