Mapping the NCAAs

While my forte is the NBA, I am an equal opportunity cartographer. The NCAA tournament provides endless routes for creativity; there has been more great stuff in the blogdome this week than ever before. Allow me to add a bit of visual stimulation to the mix; if you like what you see, crank that hype button. (And pick Cornell over Stanford, lest you invoke the wrath of Andy Bernard.)

(This work, by the way, would be impossible without the fine, fine work of Ken Pomeroy, Kyle Whelliston, and Arthur Guinness.)

The Regions

Let's start off by addressing each region. The ideal landing spot for your favorite team is the top right corner. The better a team's offense (as measured by Pomeroy's adjusted offensive efficiency), the further to the right they lay. The better a team's defense, the closer to the top of the map. Bad offense -- to the left. Bad defense -- to the bottom.

Here is the East bracket.

So your upper-right quadrant holds the region's powerhouses: North Carolina, Louisville, Tennessee, Washington State ... Indiana? Yep. Indiana was (statistically) better than Butler and Oklahoma, who earned higher seeds. Of course, the post-Kelvin malaise knocked the Hoosiers down a few pegs; even so, they've got a team which can do some damage.

At the other end... there are some terrible defensive teams in this thing. American, Boise State, Mt. St. Mary's, George Mason. Tennessee, in particular, should be able to put up a real mess of points this week.

Onto the Midwest.

We'll talk more about Kansas in a moment. For now, consider that cluster of similar squads lower than Wisconsin (the best defensive team in the nation): Georgetown, Clemson, Kansas State. All three are pretty good offensively, pretty good defensively... not spectacular in either. If you're a fan of one of those teams, you call that balance. If you aren't, you wonder what their identity is.

One more note about the cluster: Yep, Kansas State. USC has a slightly better defense, but K-State's offense is seriously superior. (And USC is a 3-1/2 point favorite as of this writing. Hmmmm....)

Next: The South.

Memphis has a tremendous defense and passable offense; Texas has a tremendous offense and passable defense. (And who figured Oregon'd have the 4th worst defense in the region?) This bracket's 'bad quadrant' boasts three really terrible teams: Texas-Arlington, Austin Peay and Cornell. Keep Temple's showing in mind.

Finally, the West.

A few things of note here (besides the heartrending awfulness of Mississippi Valley State): UCLA doesn't look that much better than Duke on paper; Georgia's offense is worse than that of Belmont (?!); and #5 seed Drake's defense makes the team appear a touch worse than #10 seed Arizona.

The Cinderellas 

The regional maps had a few notes of a surprise, but let's now tinker a bit of actual analysis. The theory: The teams best placed for a ridiculous upset are those who 1) play slow [because the greater the number of possessions a game contains, the better the opportunity for rational results to outweigh flukes], and 2) have an offense capable of scoring. I will admit: This is basically premisely on a hodgepodge of mishmoshed whoseitwhatsits and broken shards of actual analysis. In other words, it could very well be flying out my righteous ass.

Disclaimer in tow, let's map all teams seeded #12-16, with the x-axis representing tempo (again via Pomeroy) and the y-axis representing adjusted offensive efficiency.

Only one of these potential Cinderellas (Temple) has an offense above the mean of all 65 teams. But a good deal of them play slow basketball. (Gee, what a shock.) Using a dose of common sense combination, we'll use this theory to consider Temple, Maryland-Baltimore County and George Mason as the best-suited bracket busters.

Of course, this is but one part of what creates UPSET CITY BABY. Maryland-Baltimore's opponent (Georgetown) loves to play slow and wins at that pace; Temple plays an underseeded Michigan State squad who defends quite well.

G-Ma$e, though? Their opponent: Notre Dame, a quick-tempo'd (check), defensively-inferior (check), mildly inexperienced team. The immediate popularity of the Mason upset pick on Selection Sunday resulted in a certain refusal of the conventional wisdom for folks who filled out their brackets Monday and Tuesday. "Everyone's picking Mason, I've got to go the other way." You might want to rethink that.

The Favorites

Bracket pools are not won on the First Thursday and Friday (though they can certainly be lost). You win cash in the Final Four, so let's look at the #1-4 seeds from each region.

Vanderbilt does not belong in this conversation. Tennessee's offense is not unprecedented this season. Texas and Memphis could really give us one helluva game, as could Louisville/Tennessee and Georgetown/Wisconsin. UCLA is really good. But...

...

Rock. Chalk. Jayhawks.

Kansas looks VASTLY better than any other squad. It's not even close. As we all well know, anything can happen in the tournament. But I'm taking Kansas, and I feel pretty comfortable about that.