Stupid, stupid stats about seed matchups

If you're putting money on one team to make the Elite 8 (and hopefully you are), pick Kentucky. When 12-seeds make the Sweet 16, it usually ends ugly. 12-seeds are 0-16 against 1-seeds; they haven't even come within single digits in 17 years.

2009: Louisville defeats Arizona, 103-64
2008: UCLA over Western Kentucky, 88-78
Kansas over Villanova, 72-57
2005: Illinois over UW-Milwaukee and the villainous Bruce Pearl, 77-63
2003: Oklahoma over Butler, 65-54
2001: Michigan St over Gonzaga, 77-62
1999: Duke over Missouri St, 78-61
1996: UMass over Arkansas, 79-63
1994: Arkansas over Tulsa, 103-84
1993: Michigan over George Washington, 72-64
1992: UCLA over New Mexico State, 85-78
1991: North Carolina over Eastern Michigan, 93-67
1990: UNLV over Ball State, 69-67
1987: UNLV over Wyoming, 92-74
1986: Duke over DePaul, 74-67
1985: St. John's over Kentucky, 86-70

Cornell will try to become just the second 12-seed to make the Elite 8. The only other time it happened, 12-seed Missouri defeated 8-seed UCLA in the only 8-12 matchup in tourney history.

The other three rare matchups are 9-seed Northern Iowa vs. 5-seed Michigan State. I blogged about that two posts ago, so see below for the odds on that. The other two games are 11-seed Washington against 2-seed West Virginia, and 10-seed St. Mary's against 3-seed Baylor.

History says Washington is in trouble--and not just because Seattle sports are universally terrible. The only 11-seed to beat a 2-seed was Dale Brown's 1986 LSU squad that became the lowest seed to ever make the Final Four.
2002: UConn (2) over Southern Illinois (11), 71-59
1998: UConn (2) over Washington (11), 75-74
1991: Duke (2) over UConn (11), 81-67
1989: Duke (2) over Minnesota (11), 87-70
1988: Duke (2) over Rhode Island (11), 73-72
1986: LSU (11) over Georgia Tech, 70-64
1985: North Carolina (2) over Auburn (11), 62-56
Memphis (2) over Boston College (11), 59-57

St. Mary's should feel a little bit better than UW--also not just because Seattle sports are universally terrible. 3-seeds are only 7-4 against 10-seeds. And, like St. Mary's, the last two teams to win were mid-majors.
2008: Davidson (10) over Wisconsin (3), 73-56
2004: Georgia Tech (3) over Nevada (10), 72-67
2003: Syracuse (3) over Auburn (10), 79-78
2002: Kent State (10) over Pitt (3), 78-73 OT
2001: Maryland (3) over Georgetown (10), 76-66
2000: Oklahoma St (3) over Seton Hall (10), 68-66
1999: Kentucky (3) over Miami-Ohio (10), 66-58
1998: Utah (3) over West Virginia (10), 65-62
1994: Michigan (3) over Maryland (10), 78-71
1991: Temple (10) over Oklahoma St (3), 72-63 OT
1987: LSU (10) over DePaul (3), 63-58

Sweet 16 breakdown by conference

The Sweet 16 features representation from 11 different conferences. The Big 10 comes up lives up to its superlative with three teams in. Here's the breakdown:

Big Ten: 3 (Ohio State, Michigan State, Purdue)
Big XII: 2 (Kansas State, Baylor)
SEC: 2 (Kentucky, Tennessee)
Big East: 2 (Syracuse, West Virginia)
Pac 10: 1 (Washington)
ACC: 1 (Duke)
Horizon: 1 (Butler)
WCC: 1 (St. Mary's)
Ivy: 1 (Cornell)
MVC: 1 (Northern Iowa)
Atlantic 10: 1 (Xavier)

2010 Sweet 16 features highest seed total in a decade

If this seems like the most exciting tournament in recent memory, the data backs it up. This year's Sweet 16 has a seed total of 80. The seed total is the sum of all seeds in the Sweet 16. The minimum possible is seed total is 40 (if the top 4 seeds in each region make it). The Sweet 16 seed total of 80 has only been eclipsed 4 times since seeding began in 1979:

89 in 1986: Notable for 14-seed Cleveland State, one of only two times a 14-seed crashed the Sweet 16. Also the year 11-seed LSU became the lowest seed to make the Final Four (matched in 2006 by George Mason).

88 in 1990: Three double-digit seeds made the Sweet 16, and two of them went onto the Elite 8, including 10-seed Texas and the Bo Kimble-led Loyola Marymount squad (11 seed)

88 in 1999: A very ordinary Final Four (three 1-seeds and a 4-seed) belies a crazy Sweet 16, which featured 5 double-digit seeds in the Sweet 16. The lowest was 13-seed Oklahoma. This year marked the beginning of Gonzaga's tourney streak (they made the Elite 8 as a 10-seed)

85 in 2000: In a first round that featured only 3 upsets (one 11-6 and two 10-7), the tourney got crazy in the 2nd round. Eight of the twelve top three seeds lost, including two 8-1 upsets. This was the highest Final Four seed total ever, with one 1-seed (Michigan State), a 5-seed (Florida) and two 8-seeds (Wisconsin and North Carolina)

With no more Arkansas-Pine Bluff, who cares about March Madness?

Yikes, do I suck at blogging...almost as much as Kansas sucks at making me money. Since I never got around to doing a pre-tourney blog post, here's my Final Four:

KANSAS
KANSAS STATE
WEST VIRGINIA
DUKE
with KANSAS over WEST VIRGINIA in the finals

My PRESEASON Final Four from back in November (with their actual finish in parens):
KANSAS (1 seed, 2nd round)
VILLANOVA (2 seed, 2nd round)
PURDUE (4 seed, still alive)
TEXAS (8 seed, 1st round)
with Kansas over Purdue in the finals

I'm a stat geek, so here are some funz factz you might not see anywhere else (yeah, the 2nd round isn't even over, but I'm killing time until dinner reservations):

- Kansas's loss to Northern Iowa is notable for a couple reasons:
- First 1 seed to lose before the Elite 8 since 2006 (LSU over Duke in Sweet 16)
- First 1 seed to lose in the 2nd round since 2004 (UAB over Kentucky, Alabama
over Stanford)
- Kansas loses to a double-digit seed for the 3rd time in Bill Self's tenure.
The other two were also big upsets, both in the 1st round: 14-seed Bucknell in
2005 and 13-seed Bradley in 2006

- Northern Iowa becomes only the 4th 9-seed of the 64-team era to advance to the Sweet 16. They join UAB (2004), Boston College (1994) and UTEP (1992). UAB and UTEP both lost in the Sweet 16, but Boston College made to the Elite 8, where it lost to 3-seeded Florida. Nine-seeds fared better in the pre-64 team seeding era (1979-1984), where St. Joseph's (1981) made a run to the Elite 8 and Penn (1979) made it all the way to the Final Four. History says Northern Iowa should be rooting for Michigan State. 9-seeds are 2-0 all time vs. 5-seeds, but only 1-2 vs. 4-seeds.

- St. Mary's makes the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1959, while Baylor makes it's first Sweet 16 appearance since 1950.

- Cornell gives the Ivy League it's first tourney win since 1998, when the 5th-seeded Princeton Tigers made it to the 2nd round. The Ivy League hasn't been to the Sweet 16 since 9-seed Penn in 1979--a team that made it all the way to the Final Four, where it got crushed by Michigan State and Magic Johnson (but fortunately came away from the loss HIV-free). That Penn team also has the distinction of being the only 9-seed to make the Final Four.

- Non-BCS schools don't earn top three seeds very often, and when they do it doesn't end well. With 3-seed New Mexico's loss today, here are the numbers for mid-majors with top three seeds this century (NOTE: Memphis doesn't count since Calipari paid his players more money than they're making in the NBA):
2010: New Mexico (3) upset by Washington (11) in 2nd round
2008: Xavier (3) loses to UCLA (1) in Elite 8
2006: Gonzaga (3) loses to UCLA (2) in Sweet 16
2005: Gonzaga (3) upset by Texas Tech in 2nd round
2004: St. Joseph's (1) upset by Oklahoma St (2) in Elite 8
Gonzaga (2) upset by Nevada (10) in 2nd round
2003: Xavier (3) upset by Maryland (6) in 2nd round
2000: Temple (2) upset by Seton Hall (10) in 2nd round
Only Xavier in 2008 and Gonzaga in 2006 fulfilled or exceeded the expectations of their seed, and St. Joseph's in 2004 is the only other one to make the Sweet 16. But to be fair, the high-seeded non-BCS schools are perfect in the 1st round.

- With only half of the Sweet 16 filled out (I'm writing this on Saturday evening), we already have 6 conferences represented. Those include:
Big XII: Kansas State and Baylor
Horizon: Butler
Missouri Valley: Northern Iowa
Pac 10: Washington
SEC: Tennessee and Kentucky
WCC: St. Mary's

- Notable that only 3 power conferences have representation. The ACC, Big East and Big Ten will likely all be there by tomorrow. But only two more small conferences also have hopes of making it to the 2nd weekend, including the Atlantic 10 (Xavier - 6), and the Ivy League (Cornell - 12). I would--and have--put my money on Xavier. If Xavier and Cornell both win, that means 11 conferences will have representation in the Sweet 16--the most of the 64-team era.

- Ohio over Georgetown marks the first 14-3 upset since 2006, when Northwestern State overcame a 17-point deficit to Iowa.

- Robert Morris made it close, but Villanova's win means it will be at least 10 years since the last 15-2 upset (Hampton over Iowa State)

And finally, the stat of the day:
- CBS paid $6 billion for it's deal with the NCAA to televise the tournament. That's just slightly more than Kentucky boosters paid for John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe and Daniel Orton.

More stats as they come. If you don't hear from me, it means West Virginia lost and crushed my hopes & dreams.

Today's homoerotic sports moment is brought to you by Andrew Doobay

It's Official!

My Final Four picks will finally be up later this week, but here's a bit of news to tide you over:

After months of intense debate, the Baseball Boogie beats out the Black Sox Scandal and Gene Keady's combover as the most embarrassing moment in American sports history. The Baseball Boogie wins extra points for demonstrating the dangers of mixing the 1980's and cocaine.

"More Than A Game" or "LeBron: The Pre-Knicks Years"

Where was I again? Oh, that's right. Basketball. As my #1 fan Cobie Whitten (who, oddly enough, also happens to be the woman who gave birth to me) noted, it's been a while since the last post. Where have I been? Let's just say I ran into a spot of trouble in an unsuccessful bid to cancel my mail. But now I am free, just in time for the new season and the blog posts, they will be a-flowing.

It's a proven fact that my basketball analysis is more insightful than the fat kid from "Two And A Half Men" is obnoxious. No doubt all two of you (hi mom!!!) are foaming at the mouth for predictions and pontifications about the upcoming season, and rest assured, they will come. But today I'm going to mix things up with a movie review. In addition to reigning supreme as the roundball Nostradamus, I also "work" for a "production company" in the entertainment industry. As such, I had the privilege of attending a preview screening of MORE THAN A GAME, a documentary that follows the St. Vincent-St. Mary's high school basketball team. Said team starred a crab-dribbling gent named LeBron at small forward.

Given the facts that MORE THAN A GAME is: A) A documentary and B) A documentary about basketball, a HOOP DREAMS comparison is unavoidable. Really, the two films exist on different planes. HOOP DREAMS is arguably a perfect documentary. It tells an intimate story that exposes a social condition, the roots of which go much deeper than basketball. Most impressively, HOOP DREAMS delivers its message in an authentic and sincere manner, pronouncing the subject and diminishing the filmmakers in a way I haven't seen before or since. Oh, and in response to my 4 year old cousin Julian: Yes I do love HOOP DREAMS so much, and yes I would marry it if it were legal to do so in the state of California.

MORE THAN A GAME (thankfully) doesn't aspire to social commentary. Instead, it focuses on a great team's quest for immortality. The goal--a national title--is as tangible and uplifting as a paint-by-numbers Hollywood drama. Basically, it's The Mighty Ducks II in docu form, and I mean that in the most loving way possible. Despite what you see in the trailer, the ad campaign, and the title of this blog post, MORE THAN A GAME is not the LeBron story. It is very much the St. Vincent-St. Mary's story, a buddy picture about four (and later five) friends who stuck together together in an era where high school hoops has become as mercenary as the NBA. As the film progresses the LeBron mystique becomes ubiquitous, but it's always filtered through the lens of the team: How the fame, the media, the pressure affect the boys and their friendship. For example, when LeBron is declared ineligible for receiving a Wes Unseld jersey--possibly because it was an illegal gift, possibly because of LeBron's poor taste in NBA legends--the biggest threat isn't to LeBron's draft status or his professional reputation. Instead, the focus stays on the team. How can they win the next game, let alone the national title, without their star?

The story plays like a well-structured movie. Seriously, you'd think Coach Joyce read the team Robert McKee before games. The cast includes the Fab 4: LeBron James, Dru Joyce III (aka Little Dru), Sian Cotton and Willie McGee. Four friends from Akron who played for Dru Joyce Jr.'s AAU team all make a pact to stay together through high school. When Little Dru can't make the cut on the local high school powerhouse, all four choose to go to lesser-known St. Vincent-St. Mary--a whitebread Catholic school no doubt filled with kids like Stuart Minkus. From there the movie hits all the right plot points and act breaks: The rise out of obscurity, the hubris-induced loss in the state finals of their junior year, to the redemptive third act where the Fab 5 win the national title in their last game together. There's character drama--between Little Dru and his father, between the team and the media, between the four boys and Romeo Travis, an introverted Forward who joins the team in high school as the Fab 4 become the Fab 5. The final game even features a halftime speech so heartfelt it would make Emilio Estevez shed a tear. Big kudos to the filmmakers for making a believable underdog story out of a team that was the unquestionable favorite in almost every game they played.

What hurts the movie most is the haphazard way it was developed. In a Q&A after the screening, the director explained how MORE THAN A GAME started out as a student film, then morphed into a feature-length documentary that didn't fully come together until years after the the Fab 5 graduated. The film does a great job of providing archival footage, home movies and game tape, but there's a noticeable lack of actual footage shot by the film crew. All the interviews are retrospectives (most filmed within the last year), which help add perspective to the story but definitely sap some of it's emotionality. The filmmakers joined the party late, and it makes the story feel like a nostalgic memory, lacking in urgency and tension.

The editing more than makes up for the conceptual gaffes. The movie clocks in well under 2 hours but still manages to juggle all six characters and neatly tie up the threads. The soundtrack was good, much better than a doc like this should be able to afford; I'd wager my WaMu stock that LeBron and his Executive Producer credit had something to do with that. Lots of effects, lots of highlight clips--it felt like a combination of an AND 1 mix tape and a Sportscenter highlight reel, which perfectly matches the uptempo pace of the film. Check out the trailer to see what I mean.

Of the two other people who were with me, one hates LeBron and the other only watches basketball because she thinks D-Wade is hot. We all loved the movie. So did the rest of the crowd...although the Ohioans (?) in the room didn't seem to appreciate my asking the director if he knew when LeBron planned on making a formal commitment to the Knicks. I guess I won't be welcome in Cleveland any time soon. Too bad.

MORE THAN A GAME. Go see it. I offer the iron-clad 100%-money-back guarantee that it will be better than this.

Tyler to Public Education: Kiss My Tuchus

As all (20.453+(382/2))^0-1 of you who read this blog probably know, high school kind-of phenom Jeremy Tyler is foregoing his senior year to go to Europe and play professionally. Why is he doing this? Possibly he wants to make oodles of money. Possibly he got tired of waiting for Mr. Kotter to come back. No one knows. Alright, plenty of people know, but that robs my opening paragraph of all its intrigue, so I'm keeping that last sentence as-is.

Tyler probably thinks he's going to be swimming in money, much like Scrooge McDuck in the opening theme of DUCK TALES. He's probably right, since European ballers get almost as much scouting attention as "student" athletes. At the end of the day, if Tyler performs then he'll get drafted and if not, he won't--same as if he went to college. Might as well earn a few clams in the process. And he certainly won't suffer for lack of attention.

Yes, the Euro game is much much better than D-1 ball. Yes, Tyler is probably getting in over his head, a la Brandon Jennings. Yes, you deserve twenty lashings for thinking BETTER OFF TED is funny. But we beat the pinkos, goddammit, and in this country--oh wait--well, in one of those quasi-socialist countries across the pond, a man (and/or woman!) deserves just compensation for doing his job, irregardless of his age or his choice of facial hair.

But let's be honest: This isn't about high school, this is about the one-year rule preventing high school grads from going straight to the NBA. If Tyler didn't have to wait a year after HS from jumping, I'd bet pesos to dollars (that's right, the dollar sucks) that Tyler stays out his last year and lands a lottery pick in the draft. But since NCAA bylaw 32.89.000010 states that only Gary Williams circa 1988 can profit from NCAA ball, Tyler made a decision that not only could hurt himself in the long run, but also hurts the game. More so, the whole shenanagan exposes the term "student athlete" as the biggest oxymoron since "The Good German".