Bracket Analysis 2011

There were a lot of number in that last post, but what can you really get out of it? Here are some key bits o' knowledge.

Ten Most Likely Champions

Seed	Team	Chance
1	Ohio St	0.148
1	Duke	0.136
1	Kansas	0.121
1	Pittsburgh	0.088
4	Texas	0.065
3	Purdue	0.045
4	Louisville	0.039
4	Kentucky	0.039
2	San Diego St	0.033
3	BYU	0.033

This year is dominated by the one seeds and... the four seeds? The strength of the four seeds shows up throughout this bracket.

Best Final Four Odds By Region

	EAST	Odds		WEST	Odds
1	Ohio St	0.368	1	Duke	0.357
4	Kentucky	0.148	4	Texas	0.207
7	Washington	0.13	2	San Diego St	0.152
3	Syracuse	0.112	3	Connecticut	0.097
2	North Carolina	0.095	5	Arizona	0.048

	SWEST	Odds		SEAST	Odds
1	Kansas	0.318	1	Pittsburgh	0.325
3	Purdue	0.177	3	BYU	0.178
4	Louisville	0.155	4	Wisconsin	0.131
2	Notre Dame	0.14	2	Florida	0.105
6	Georgetown	0.042	5	Kansas St	0.04

Each Region's 4 seed is better than it's two seed? Maybe I was too early in praising the selection committee. Also notable are Washington's strong Cinderella chances.

Most Likely First Round Upsets

		UDOG	OVER	FAV	ODDS
1	11	Marquette	6	Xavier	0.583
2	9	Villanova	8	George Mason	0.545
3	9	Illinois	8	UNLV	0.541
4	10	Michigan St	7	UCLA	0.53
5	11	Gonzaga	6	St Johns	0.497
6	10	Forida St	7	Texas A&M	0.495
7	12	Utah St	5	Kansas St	0.489
8	10	Penn St	7	Temple	0.474
9	9	Tennessee	8	Michigan	0.469
10	11	Missouri	6	Cincinnati	0.465

I know everybody likes 12-5 upsets, and everybody wants Arizona and Vandy to lose. But that's not what's good this year, instead it's time to look at the 11-6 games. They've got the best bang for your buck.

Over/Underachievers

Compared to how their seed usually does, here are the top 5 over/under achievers by number of wins better/worse than usual, and by number of times as many wins (i.e. Belmont can expect 2.16 times as many wins as a normal 13 seed, but still not many).

	5 UNDER	Wins		5 OVER	Wins
2	North Carolina	-0.716	7	Washington	0.902
2	Florida	-0.655	4	Texas	0.654
6	Xavier	-0.63	4	Louisville	0.514
1	Pittsburgh	-0.575	11	Marquette	0.512
1	Kansas	-0.545	4	Kentucky	0.441
	5 UNDER	Perc		5 OVER	Perc
14	St Peter's	0.483	13	Belmont	2.16
6	Xavier	0.507	7	Washington	2.06
10	Georgia	0.511	11	Marquette	2.02
13	Morehead St	0.537	11	Gonzaga	1.69
12	Memphis	0.56	11	Missouri	1.65

As we saw before, 4 seeds are good here while 2 seeds are bad. 11 seeds also show strongly, as does Washington. If you're looking for someone to make a run this tournament, Washington and Marquette may be the way to go.

There you have it, the expected trends at a glance going into the tournament. Not all of these are going to happen, and I'll probably feel like a fool, but expect at least some of these trends to show up.