How to avoid picking a Bust
Dan Loman
In our previous blog post, we outlined some indicators for early round upsets by double-digit seeds. This time weāve switched gears to identify some at-risk higher seeded teams you might want to avoid.
One of our top pieces of advice to win your pool is to focus on one or two big picks, and hitch your wagon to them. Of course, if you get those picks wrong, youāre dead in the water. How can you avoid picking the wrong favorite? This blog post is here to help.
For this analysis, I bluntly defined two populations: Disappointments are teams who won at least 1 game fewer than expected (like Tennessee and Arizona last year). They make it out of the first round, but hurt your bracket if you had them going too far. Busts are teams who won at least 1.5 games fewer than expected, and comprise of the most notable high seeds that killed your bracket (like Virginia). I used the same features as the previous model to assess the likelihood of a team falling into one of these groups: advanced team stats, miscellaneous data from Kenpom.com, and proxies for momentum.
Hereās what stuck out among the Disappointments:
They are 3 happy. Yesterday we saw that Cinderellas tend to be better 3-point shooting teams, so why is the opposite the case here? Itās all about variance; if a team is the underdog, theyāll need a few good 3 point shooting games to advance, while a team that landed a high seed largely off the strength of their shooting only needs one bad shooting night to be bounced early. Michigan St. is a great example of this last year, when they shot just 8/27 from 3 against Syracuse despite shooting 40% there for the year.
They rely on (undersized) bigs. High seeds in our database that failed to live up to expectations tend to get more scoring out of their big men than guards. This falls in line with some prior research weāve done here, that suggested that teams are helped by strong lead guard play. They fared worse when the bigs were undersized, like with Creighton and Villanova in 2014 (Dougie McBuckets!).
In this yearās field, Virginia Tech, Auburn and Houston are teams you might want to be wary of penciling in to the second weekend or Elite 8. The Hokies check both of those boxes by taking 45% of their shots from deep and hitting at a 39.4% clip, and by only playing one guy in their rotation over 6ā6āā. Bruce Pearlās Tigers have proper size but take nearly 50% of their shots from 3, while Houstonās tallest rotation player is 6ā8ā.
And here are the top qualities of Busts:
They play a high variance style. Similar to Disappointments but with a major distinction: the top predictor of teams that lose much earlier than expected is that they play with a slow pace. Slower pace means fewer possessions, which increases the variance of outcomes. Thatās great for the underdog, but potentially bad news for the favorite. Busts also shoot more 3s and have a higher offensive rebounding percentage, suggesting they crash the boards more.
They lack size. A high variance style can be countered by overwhelming a lesser opponent with size, like Bo Ryanās Wisconsin teams who always played slow but had NBA size up front. Be wary of āsmall giantsā.
Though we still think Virginia is a strong title pick based on their overall team quality and undervaluation by the market, they do exhibit the biggest red flags among favorites in the field. They play at by far the slowest pace in the country, are great at shooting the 3 and crash the boards more often than last season. The good news for the Cavs is that recency bias is overstated and historical team tourney performance doesnāt matter, so they are no more or less likely to repeat their historic loss from 2018. Michigan St. is another team that shows similar qualities, but they arenāt nearly as slow as UVA.
One of the more interesting teams in the field is North Carolina. The Tar Heels have little risk of falling early due to their blistering pace, but could be a vulnerable second weekend team due to the amount their offense relies an undersized big man - 6ā8ā Luke Maye. Duke and Tennessee seem like the safest options to at least not go home earlier than expected. Both teams are big, donāt rely too much on outside shooting, and Duke plays at one of the fastest paces in the country.
Avoiding major busts is crucial to succeeding in your pool. From all of us at Bracket Voodoo, good luck and happy bracketing!
