Basketball Statistics Blog

Friday Press Clippings:
How Often Does the Nation’s Best Team Win the National Championship?

From Sports Reference
By Neil Paine
Download source here: ' How Often Does the Nation’s Best Team Win the National Championship? ' by Neil Paine

"... In a variation on a running theme (one that’s especially pertinent given the early departures of Syracuse, Kansas, & Kentucky from this year’s tourney), I wanted to know how often the “best” (i.e., most talented, most dominant over the entire season, etc.) team wins the NCAA Tournament. ... "

"... But rather than just make a guess, I once again set up a Monte Carlo simulator and ran a series of “test seasons”. To do this, I used the 2009-10 D-I basketball schedule, excluding postseason & conference tournament games, as well as games involving non-D-I schools.

For each school, I assigned them a random “strength rating” from a normal distribution based on the average SRS scores of their conference members since 1980:... "

"... Do this for every team in the country, and estimate the chances of one team beating another at home using this equation:... "

"... Now we have all the components in place to put together the field for a simulated NCAA Tournament. The selections go like this: the 32 conference regular-season champions get automatic bids (ties are broken by RPI); the remaining 32 at-large slots are filled by the 32 best non-conference champs by RPI. Overall seedings are then made, ranking all tourney selections by RPI, and the regions are seeded according to an S-curve. ..."

"... As you can see, I tracked the global “talent ranking” of the eventual champion for each simulated season; in this case, it was Kentucky, who ranked 9th in team talent (in case you’re wondering, NC State was #1, but they were toppled by Arkansas in the Round of 32). Repeat this process 1,000 times, and how often does a team of each talent ranking win it all? ..."

Read more articles in Sports Reference.

To read Today's 'Press Clippings' in Spanish, click this week above on the 'Español' tab or afterwards click here: ' Encuentros en la segunda fase. Baloncesto de formación ' por Gabriel Alemany Sánchez-Moscoso .

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