Alex Rodriguez March Madness Prediction
Intro
As someone with very little college basketball knowledge, I don’t expect much from my predictions but with some analytics concepts I picked up I hope to make some shocking predictions. Last year based on my gut feeling I predicted the NC State final four run. I hope to make a similar run with at least one of my runs this year. I used a couple of different indicators of previous tournament success to help me understand better how the tournament works. I hope that with these metrics I can improve on my overall guesses from last time.
Final 4
For my teams I chose to compete in the Final Four I went with Duke, Tennesee, St John’s and Iowa State. I feel that these are all solid teams with proven tournament-experienced staff. Additionally, when looking at a major indicator of tournament success, the week 6 AP poll we see nearly all of these teams are ranked in the top twenty-five with most of them being in the top 5. St John’s while not ranked is shown to have received multiple votes to be included in the top 5. Additionally, St Johns very much overperformed the expectations they had all season and may not have fully demonstrated their improvement within the first 6 weeks. All of these teams also have great efficiency and pacing. They all are located within the trapezoid of excellence, a section of the efficiency vs pace graph that many teams that have made deep runs were located on. All of these teams are located in this zone which I feel can indicate their ability to make a deeper run in this tournament.
Champ
I think the championship game will come down to the Iowa State Cyclones and the Duke Blue Devils. Both of these teams have been proven to be strong teams all season. Both teams are in the top 15 for point differentials Additionally both Iowa State and Duke were ranked in the top 5 for the week 6 AP poll with Iowa State and Duke being seen as the third and fourth-best teams in the country respectively. A major concern with Iowa State however is injuries. After losing a major point scorer in Keshon GIlbert Iowa State seems to be weaker. They were unable to have the same success they had last year in the Big 12 tournament without him and lost to some major teams such as Huston and BYU. However, I think that the experience of playing these bigger teams without a full roster and the mistakes they made will help the team learn and be able to adjust their game plan moving forward. I think with the right adjustments the team can not only be successful but be able to be more unpredictable for opposing teams to gameplan around. I believe with this unpredictability and the previous indicators of Iowa State’s success the Cyclones can bring a championship back to Ames for the first time.
Sleepers
I believe the two teams are poised to make major runs despite being not as highly ranked. Both Vanderbilt and Unconn have proven to be skillful teams this year. Vanderbilt has a great situation to make a run. The opponents I see them face are incredibly similar to what Vanderbilt has faced and with the greater role that the guard positions have in the March Tournament, I think that Vanderbilt with its incredibly deep guard room that is starting to get healthy again can upset Alabama if they can get them to play into their advantages. As for the University of Connecticut while not at the level it was last year still poses a major threat for a deep run in this tournament. With an incredibly experienced coaching staff that has dominated the past decade in the tournament, Uconn has the potential to make some waves. With a head coach that is 14-4 in this tournament, it is clear that this team will be prepared and understand the intricacies of tournament play. This combined with a week 6 AP poll ranking of 18th (an increase of a whole 7 places) shows that the Huskies are very undervalued with the 8th seed. Don’t be surprised if they upset the beast that is the Florida Gators.
