Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The Big East: Great NCAA Tournament Disappointment, or Greatest Disappointment?


There's been a lot of noise in the sports media about the Big East and their record number of bids to the NCAA tournament. A week ago, the chatter was all about how dominant the Big East was this year and how they truly deserved the unprecedented eleven bids earned by teams from Division I-A's largest conference. There were some naysayers, of course, but they were generally at the margins of the discussion. Each of the teams have proven themselves during the grueling Big East schedule. It used to be that if you finished at or above .500 in the ACC, you had a guaranteed bid to the tournament; this year, if you broke even or better in the Big East, you were in.

On paper, the Big East looked dominant: nine of the top 24 seeds were Big East teams. Going by the chalk these teams would make it to the round of 32, with 9-seed Villanova likely to pull an upset over 8-seed George Mason. Even 11-seed Marquette -- pitted against 6-seed Xavier, and having just defeated eventual 5-seed West Virginia in the Big East tournament -- was an upset candidate. Big East supporters dreamed big. Eleven teams in the round of 32! An all-Big-East Final Four!

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Sneak Peek: Game Predictions

Today's sneak peek gives you a preview of the new look and feel for our per-game predictions. There are a few changes to the table to better fit the look and feel of the new site and to convey the same info but with less information overload. Instead of listing the odds of victory next to each game, we're using a color-coding scheme where the likelihood of victory is related to the intensity of the background color.


Home Visitors Home Visitors
 13Arizona36  28Oregon St.30   8Arizona35  36Oregon St.21
 18Arkansas38  44Texas A&M32  23Arkansas38  51Texas A&M24
 98Ball St.31 101Western Michigan29  99Ball St.31 111Western Michigan20
 56Baylor30  31Texas Tech34  38Baylor29  37Texas Tech28
  3Boise St.46  96Toledo22  11Boise St.52 100Toledo7
 50BYU36  86SDSU27  64BYU34  79SDSU21
 58Fresno St.41  78Hawaii34  66Fresno St.38  83Hawaii27
 21California33  53UCLA26  15California34  46UCLA20
 34Cincinnati40 106Miami-OH24  50Cincinnati41 104Miami-OH13
104FIU41 116Western Kentucky32 101FIU34 113Western Kentucky24
  6Florida34  11LSU27   6Florida27  12LSU20
 40Georgia Tech34  73Virginia27  47Georgia Tech28  32Virginia24
 37Georgia34  47Tennessee29  21Georgia31  48Tennessee20
 49Houston34  43Mississippi St.32  61Houston24  20Mississippi St.31
 65Iowa St.27  15Utah34  59Iowa St.24  18Utah31
111Kent St.33 118Akron28 105Kent St.34 119Akron21
 54Kentucky31  19Auburn35  49Kentucky21  17Auburn31
 87LA Tech33  84Utah St.30  85LA Tech34  91Utah St.24
 76Louisville36 107Memphis27  77Louisville35 109Memphis17
 17Miami-FL35  23Florida St.30  13Miami-FL31  16Florida St.24
 33Michigan35  38Michigan St.32  34Michigan34  41Michigan St.24
 29Missouri35  75Colorado27  40Missouri31  58Colorado24
 27North Carolina30  22Clemson29  22North Carolina28  30Clemson24
 32Nevada43 119SJSU24  28Nevada55 116SJSU13
120New Mexico St.30 117New Mexico32 120New Mexico St.25 118New Mexico24
 46North Carolina St.32  66Boston College27  52North Carolina St.31  62Boston College21
114North Texas33  99Arkansas St.35 114North Texas24  98Arkansas St.27
115LA-Monroe32 105FL-Atlantic34 112LA-Monroe28 NAFL-Atlantic27
 74Northern Ill.33  70Temple31  87Northern Ill.21  56Temple31
 59Northwestern31  67Purdue28  65Northwestern31  80Purdue21
 35Notre Dame32  30Pittsburgh31  27Notre Dame28  33Pittsburgh21
  5Ohio St.44  80Indiana24   7Ohio St.42  72Indiana17
 93Ohio33  85Bowling Green31  96Ohio28  94Bowling Green24
 14Penn State31  62Illinois22  14Penn State31  73Illinois13
 26South Carolina24   1Alabama34  26South Carolina17   1Alabama27
 51South Florida32  90Syracuse24  60South Florida31  82Syracuse17
 72SMU36  60Tulsa35 NASMU35  69Tulsa31
 61Southern Miss.34  63East Carolina31  57Southern Miss.34  67East Carolina24
 16Stanford38  20USC31   2Stanford34  25USC21
  2TCU40 102Wyoming17   5TCU45  97Wyoming6
 94UTEP39 103Rice33  92UTEP35 103Rice24
110Tulane29  89Army32 106Tulane24  86Army28
 24Air Force38 108Colorado St.21  31Air Force35 110Colorado St.10
 88Vanderbilt39 113Eastern Michigan26  75Vanderbilt42 117Eastern Michigan14
  8Virginia Tech40  68Central Michigan24   9Virginia Tech35  70Central Michigan10
 81Wake Forest29  45Navy32  45Wake Forest27  55Navy24
112Washington St.22   7Oregon45 102Washington St.10   3Oregon56
 55Washington32  42Arizona St.30  35Washington31  39Arizona St.27
 36West Virginia37  91UNLV25  42West Virginia38  89UNLV17
 41Wisconsin35  64Minnesota29  44Wisconsin34  78Minnesota21

Key
Close
game
                        Certain
victory
                       

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Sneak Peek: Conference Projections

A new feature for next year will be projections for all 11 FBS conferences -- plus all the independent teams -- starting around week five. We'll include current and projected conference and overall standings, plus a breakdown of AdjO, AdjD, and AdjPace for each team. We'll update projected standings for four conferences each day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and provide some commentary and insight about the remaining weeks.

ACC
Atlantic
TeamConferenceOverallAdjusted
NowProjectedNowProjectedOff.Def.Pace
Florida St. 24 4 - 1 0.800 6 - 3 0.667 5 - 2 0.714 8 - 5 0.615 25.4 17.1 163.4
Maryland 77 3 - 1 0.750 4 - 4 0.500 5 - 2 0.714 7 - 5 0.583 16.2 19.8 166.0
North Carolina St. 35 3 - 1 0.750 5 - 3 0.625 5 - 2 0.714 8 - 4 0.667 23.0 18.4 174.3
Clemson 20 2 - 3 0.400 4 - 4 0.500 3 - 4 0.429 6 - 6 0.500 20.9 13.8 165.5
Wake Forest 78 1 - 4 0.200 2 - 6 0.250 1 - 6 0.143 2 - 9 0.182 17.5 21.4 170.4
Boston College 67 1 - 4 0.200 3 - 5 0.375 2 - 5 0.286 5 - 7 0.417 15.5 16.5 164.1
Coastal
TeamConferenceOverallAdjusted
NowProjectedNowProjectedOff.Def.Pace
Virginia Tech 6 4 - 0 1.000 8 - 1 0.889 6 - 1 0.857 10 - 3 0.769 29.2 13.9 158.5
Georgia Tech 36 3 - 2 0.600 4 - 4 0.500 4 - 3 0.571 6 - 6 0.500 24.8 19.9 159.3
Miami-FL 14 3 - 2 0.600 5 - 3 0.625 4 - 3 0.571 7 - 5 0.583 22.9 13.4 170.4
North Carolina 32 2 - 2 0.500 4 - 4 0.500 4 - 3 0.571 7 - 5 0.583 21.7 15.8 159.0
Virginia 81 1 - 3 0.250 3 - 5 0.375 2 - 4 0.333 4 - 6 0.400 15.0 18.7 166.8
Duke 97 0 - 4 0.000 1 - 7 0.125 1 - 6 0.143 2 - 9 0.182 14.5 23.1 172.6
Projected records may not sum to total number of actual games due to rounding errors.

Sneak Peek: Top 25

A preview of our look for next year. We've redone the rankings to look a bit cleaner, and to include rankings for SOS, AdjO, AdjD, and AdjPace directly in the table. We're also going to use color-coding to indicate whether the data is coming from Justin's TFG system (blue) or Eddie's RBA algorithm (red). Feedback and comments are welcome.

Rank +/- Team WinPct SoS Adjusted
Off. Def. Pace
1 -- TCU 0.934 0.452 78 28.0 5 9.1 1 80.7 99
2 -- Boise St. 0.933 0.429 82 28.6 4 9.3 2 82.8 63
3 +1 Alabama 0.925 0.646 8 27.8 6 9.5 3 77.7 118
4 -1 Ohio St. 0.910 0.527 60 25.4 11 9.5 4 80.5 101
5 +1 Oregon 0.869 0.569 38 26.0 10 11.8 7 92.3 1
6 +2 Stanford 0.862 0.599 29 29.6 1 13.7 20 80.9 93
7 -- Oklahoma 0.853 0.602 23 23.4 20 11.2 5 91.8 2
8 -3 Virginia Tech 0.848 0.586 34 27.7 7 13.3 14 78.7 114
9 -- LSU 0.837 0.641 9 24.4 15 12.2 9 78.3 117
10 -- Auburn 0.833 0.662 3 29.1 2 14.9 28 83.4 55
11 +2 Florida 0.807 0.658 4 23.9 17 13.2 13 81.7 79
12 +3 Arkansas 0.800 0.658 5 27.2 8 15.2 31 84.2 45
13 -2 Iowa 0.798 0.564 40 21.1 29 11.7 6 80.8 97
14 -- Wisconsin 0.784 0.547 46 28.8 3 16.7 44 78.9 111
15 -3 Nebraska 0.780 0.507 66 22.2 22 13.0 12 80.1 105
16 +2 Florida St. 0.767 0.652 6 25.0 13 15.2 32 81.4 85
17 +4 Oklahoma St. 0.767 0.534 57 24.4 14 14.8 27 89.6 7
18 -1 Missouri 0.759 0.545 48 20.2 38 12.3 10 85.2 31
19 -- South Carolina 0.755 0.684 1 24.1 16 15.0 29 79.2 108
20 -4 West Virginia 0.750 0.537 55 18.9 49 11.9 8 81.4 86
21 +3 Notre Dame 0.733 0.599 28 19.6 42 12.8 11 84.7 36
22 -2 Utah 0.730 0.488 71 21.9 25 14.5 25 81.0 88
23 -- Georgia 0.716 0.616 17 25.0 12 16.9 47 77.2 119
24 +1 USC 0.710 0.591 33 21.9 24 15.1 30 84.0 47
25 -3 Miami-FL 0.705 0.633 13 19.3 45 13.4 17 85.8 29

New entries: none.

Dropped out: none.