Week of 3/10 Bracketology

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#126      
Piotyr
Let's do a blind analysis exercise. Here are two nitty gritty profiles:

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Which of those would you say has the better resume? It's close, but I'd give the nod to team B. More good wins, no bad losses, tons more Q1 games.

Who were the teams?
B is this Illinois team with a BTT final run. A is...last year's Illini team, which was famously a 3 seed.
 
#127      
fuggles
Since 1980 Illinois has been seeded 4 or 5, 11 times.

3 times we made it out of the first weekend, and 1 of those times was 1981 when the 4 seed got a buy in the first round. We then lost to the 8 seed in the sweet 16.

Personally I don't like those odds. However, past performance does not guarantee future results.
 
#128      
Scoregasm
Piotyr said:
One thing to keep in mind is that with a 4-5 seed, your second round opponent is someone like a St. Mary's or Arizona, where as with a 6/7 seed, you're looking at, say, Iowa State or Kentucky in the second round. Sure, the sweet 16 opponent is tougher, but getting to the sweet 16 is easier.
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Survive the madness and get to the second weekend.
 
#129      
Curbelo Fanboy
OrangeKrush1981 said:
"Open" is a relative term. Some shooters need more space than do others. Some guys have a higher release than do others. Some guys have better footwork and/or handling and so setup their shot better.

We haven't got one outstanding, in-game (B1G-style) shooter on the roster. We have a couple of solid shooters, not excellent. Several marginal shooters who can make THEIR kind of open shot (more time, more space, fixed distance, fixed angle).

Given the on-average mediocre 3-point shooting accuracy of this roster, we should shoot somewhat fewer threes. We'd win more games that way.
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Said another way, our "best" shooter according to the pre season hype is a guy in Humrichous who can't get the same amount of space in the BIG as he did at his prior schools. As such is % comes way down.

Last year's team had a bunch of guys that could get their shots at the high major level & as such their % was pretty steady across all opponents. TSJ wasn't necessarily considered a great shooter but more of a good shooter. However he could get those shots against anybody. Same to a lesser degree w/ Hawkins & Guerrier.
 
#130      
mysterio2525
Piotyr said:
Let's do a blind analysis exercise. Here are two nitty gritty profiles:

View attachment 40417

Which of those would you say has the better resume? It's close, but I'd give the nod to team B. More good wins, no bad losses, tons more Q1 games.

Who were the teams?
B is this Illinois team with a BTT final run. A is...last year's Illini team, which was famously a 3 seed.
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I'm disappointed you used last year's data as your point. (In general like your analysis though on this and other things) There are way more q1&2 opportunities this year for teams than last year if you are in the big ten and SEC. Also in general because of the really weak bubble.

That being said, if Illinois can get more q1a wins by getting to the big ten final they absolutely could be a 4 and steal a 3. Difficult yes but not impossible.

Looking at bracket matrix, Jumping Michigan, Oregon and st. Mary will be easy. We will have just beaten 2 of them in the 4 slot (likely) , Maryland and Purdue and depending on what Wisconsin does we would have a better profile then them. But we would pile up q1 wins when they are done. (Wisconsin only has 6 quad 1 wins now and been feasting on quad 2 teams).

Getting into the 3 zone will be difficult. But look at Texas A&m. They have 7-9 q1 wins but 9-1 q2 wins, NET & kenpom 17. And they are the last 3 seed on bracket matrix. So a few more q1a by Illinois and them losing... We could have a decent resume comparison
 
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#131      
Piotyr
mysterio2525 said:
I'm disappointed you used last year's data as your point. (In general like your analysis though on this and other things) There are way more q1&2 opportunities this year for teams than last year if you are in the big ten and SEC. Also in general because of the really weak bubble.

That being said, if Illinois can get more q1a wins by getting to the big ten final they absolutely could be a 4 and steal a 3. Difficult yes but not impossible.

Looking at bracket matrix, Jumping Michigan, Oregon and st. Mary will be easy. We will have beaten 2 of the times in the 4 slot (likely), Maryland and Purdue and depending on what Wisconsin does we would have a better profile then them. (Wisconsin only has 6 quad 1 wins now and been feasting on quad 2 teams).

Getting into the 3 zone will be difficult. But look at Texas A&m. They have 7-9 q1 wins but 9-1 q2 wins, NET & kenpom 17. And they are the last 3 seed on bracket matrix. So a few more q1a by Illinois and them losing... We could have a decent resume comparison
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It was more a refutation that they could possibly be a 3 seed, as they had basically the same resume last year and got a 3 seed. Current 3-4 seed resumes are Iowa State, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Kentucky, and a slew of B1G teams including Maryland, Purdue and Michigan (which Illinois could play two of by Saturday).

I'll do a more extensive exercise later when I don't have as much real work to do, specifically laying out a full blind S-Curve as of today, to see where Illinois is based on raw data without any consideration for health issues (which the committee can absolutely do!). A win over Maryland and Purdue/Michigan absolutely makes the case that earlier tough losses while missing key players are anomalies and not indicative of the team's true worth.

EDIT: Just as a basic example, currently on Bracket Matrix Illinois is the eighth B1G team in the seed line. The gap between 8th and 2nd/3rd is very slight (you could easily argue they have a better outlook than UCLA, Oregon, Michigan and Wisconsin already), which is already 6 of the 8 teams they'd need to pass to get into 3 seed consideration.
 
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#132      
Deep
fuggles said:
Since 1980 Illinois has been seeded 4 or 5, 11 times.

3 times we made it out of the first weekend, and 1 of those times was 1981 when the 4 seed got a buy in the first round. We then lost to the 8 seed in the sweet 16.

Personally I don't like those odds. However, past performance does not guarantee future results.
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With all do respect these facts have nothing to do with this team, coaching staff, and season.
 
#133      
One Man Fast Break
Illinois has been due for a year where they massively outperform their seed (if they outperform their seed at all, it's usually by 1 spot, aka a 5 that beats a 4, or a 3 that beats a 2 like last year). Maybe this is the year.
 
#134      
fuggles
Deep said:
With all do respect these facts have nothing to do with this team, coaching staff, and season.
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lol. of course not. I should add that what is relevant this year is the very high quality of the projected 1 seeds.
 
#135      
Bigtex
One Man Fast Break said:
Illinois has been due for a year where they massively outperform their seed (if they outperform their seed at all, it's usually by 1 spot, aka a 5 that beats a 4, or a 3 that beats a 2 like last year). Maybe this is the year.
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If memory serves me correctly (too lazy to look it up) Illinois has upset a higher seed 4 times in the history of NCAAT (since moving to 64-68 teams) Yes it time overdue for nice RUN
 
#142      
Navy_illini
Piotyr said:
I think the funniest part of it all is Lunardi raising Illinois from 8 seed to 5 seed in 4 days of updates without Illinois having played a game.
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He is probably starting to look at entire resumes and not just reacting to a game at a time
 
#144      
PleaseMakeABowlGame
#147      
BfosterL
Piotyr said:
Which just lends credence to the theory that doing Bracketology any time before the last week in the season is just pre-emptively biasing your perspective of the actual team quality in favor of some poll-like inertia.
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Probably so, but it sure is fun!
 
#148      
WhiteHorseWings
fuggles said:
lol. of course not. I should add that what is relevant this year is the very high quality of the projected 1 seeds.
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I feel like almost every year analysts go in feeling this way and when a couple inevitably lose early the narrative changes and history overlooks them.
 
#150      
Piotyr
Bigtex said:
BYU hasn’t played conference tourney yet. Play Iowa st tomorrow
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Then Lunardi found something between 4pm and 7pm that he liked about BYU more than Illinois. You can tell this from the arrows next to the team name, the down arrow means Illinois was dropped to a 6 and the up means BYU was bumped up to a 5.

Maybe he was just avoiding a conference second round matchup (the 4 and 5 seeds are like half B1G teams).
 
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