May 25, 2013

First Look: College Basketball Contenders

January 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Florida-Gators

Here are the half-dozen teams worth keeping an eye on in our first look at college basketball in 2012-2013 season.

Though we are about at the mid-way point of the college basketball season it’ still very early in the conference season for most teams, so the numbers below will change vastly in the next several weeks.

With that said, Florida is currently the team that meets all criteria of a national champ. The others have flaws, but of course are not excluded at this point.


CBB01142013 –

One would not expect Minnesota’s SoS to remain in the 200s, for example – and that’s what is keeping the Gophers from full contender status.

The other four have offensive efficiency issues which most likely won’t become readily apparent until later in the season and/or later in the NCAA tourney, when defensive minded teams tend to dominate.

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Final Four and Championship Contenders

March 17, 2011 by Leave a Comment

As of this writing there are 64 teams left in the Big East Invitational.  The question is who is going to the Final Four and who will win it all on April 4.  The table below will answer some of your questions.

I’ll help you narrow it down and you can figure it out from there.  Using our proprietary formula I’ve come up with the following candidates for the Final Four.

Final Four Contenders

Team Conference W-L Off Efficiency Def Efficiency RPI
Duke ACC 30-4 5 3 4
Kansas Big 12 32-2 4 12 1
Kansas State Big 12 22-10 50 27 23
Kentucky SEC 25-8 7 22 7
Louisville Big East 25-9 36 5 17
North Carolina ACC 26-7 37 7 6
Ohio State Big 10 32-2 1 10 2
Pittsburgh Big East 27-5 6 21 10
Purdue Big 10 25-7 18 8 12
San Diego State Mountain West 32-2 24 4 3
Syracuse Big East 26-7 17 16 18
Texas Big 12 27-7 19 1 11
West Virginia Big East 20-11 31 29 21

West Virginia and Kansas State are borderline Final Four candidates, and Purdue has dismissed a player after these numbers were finalized.  Can you eliminate them from this list?  Probably, but we’re all about formulas here so they are included.

So, I’ve eliminated 51 teams off the top, leaving us 13 potential Final Four teams.  That’s great and all, but who actually has a chance to actually win the championship?  We adjust our formula a tad and put more emphasis on offensive efficiency.

Title Contenders

 

Team Conference W-L Off Efficiency Def Efficiency RPI
Duke ACC 30-4 5 3 4
Kansas Big 12 32-2 4 12 1
Ohio State Big 10 32-2 1 10 2

Where is Pitt? Right on the cusp, but again, we’re all about formulas and this one leaves Pitt just shy of the OE for a national champion. That’s not to say Pitt couldn’t move up with a good first weekend, but as of this writing they aren’t quite there.

So we’ve narrowed it to 3 teams (with Pitt having a chance to be included next week). Mark it down. A #1 seed will win this year’s tournament.

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