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Get inside March Madness with SI.com's Luke Winn in the Tourney Blog, a daily journal of college basketball commentary, on-site reporting and reader-driven discussions.
3/14/2008 01:46:00 PM

Vegas Versus The Seeds

Drake
John Biever/SI

BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- I met up with Jacob Wheatley-Schaller, the author of the esteemed Vegas Watch blog, on Wednesday at Madison Square Garden. He was on Spring Break from his second life, as a junior business major at Emory, and had come by to catch a few Big East tournament games. One thing we discussed: While pollsters and bracketologists aren't risking their jobs when they rank and seed teams, oddsmakers in Las Vegas can cost their employers money if they misjudge a squad -- a fact that suggests their assessments are likely to be most accurate.

Jacob then proposed an idea: What if we compared the rankings from the Las Vegas Sports Consultants (which ran in the DC Sports Bog this week) against where SI.com had them projected in its most recent NCAA tournament bracket, and examine the biggest discrepancies? Here's what he found:

LVSC
Rank		 Team Seed SI Seed
Rank		 Diff.
28 Drake 5 18.5 -9.5
23 Purdue 4 14.5 -8.5
22 Southern Cal 4 14.5 -7.5
11 Texas 2 6.5 -4.5
19 Notre Dame 4 14.5 -4.5
14 Xavier 3 10.5 -3.5
5 Memphis 1 2.5 -2.5
25 Gonzaga 6 22.5 -2.5
4 Tennessee 1 2.5 -1.5
8 Georgetown 2 6.5 -1.5
3 UCLA 1 2.5 -0.5
15 Connecticut 4 14.5 -0.5
27 Pittsburgh 7 26.5 -0.5
6 Duke 2 6.5 0.5
1 North Carolina 1 2.5 1.5
9 Stanford 3 10.5 1.5
9 Wisconsin 3 10.5 1.5
20 Michigan State 6 22.5 2.5
7 Louisville 3 10.5 3.5
15 Indiana 5 18.5 3.5
23 Kansas State 7 26.5 3.5
1 Kansas 2 6.5 5.5
21 Mississippi State 7 26.5 5.5
12 Washington State 5 18.5 6.5
15 Marquette 6 22.5 7.5
29 Arkansas 10 38.5 9.5
13 Clemson 7 26.5 13.5
25 Arizona 10 38.5 13.5
29 Davidson 12 46.5 17.5
15 West Virginia 9 34.5 19.5



NR Vanderbilt 5

NR Butler 6



Which means that the most overseeded and underseeded teams are:

Overseeded Seed LVSC
Vanderbilt 5 NR
Butler 6 NR
Drake 5 28
Purdue 4 23

Underseeded Seed LVSC
West Virginia 9 15
Davidson 12 29
Arizona 10 25
Clemson 7 13


Some thoughts on this, from both Jacob and myself:

• This is another red flag for Vanderbilt. The 'Dores could end up as a No. 5 seed in the Dance, but LVSC doesn't even rank them in its top 30. Says Jake, "The Commodores are 25-6, but did not challenge themselves out of conference, and have struggled mightily on the road, only 2-6 against SEC opponents. They have also been fortunate in close games, with four of their 10 SEC wins coming by three points or fewer."

• It also raises doubts about the bracket's two mid-major darlings, Drake (which is seeded significantly higher than its LVSC rank) and Butler (which isn't ranked at all by the LVSC). The money in Vegas is not on the little guys.

• Says Jacob, "The oddsmakers are also not high on Purdue, one of the year's best stories. This is likely caused by a 9-2 Big 10 record in games decided by eight points or less. The LVSC doesn't think Purdue can continue to win the close ones at such a high rate -- and that December home loss to Wofford also hurts their case."

• The two teams Vegas says you're not paying enough attention to are West Virginia and Davidson. The Mountaineers will probably be an 8 or 9 seed, while Vegas thinks they're more like a four -- probably because of all the close losses they've suffered against good teams (such as Georgetown, Tennessee and Oklahoma). And the Wildcats, who have won 22 straight since playing a brutal non-conference schedule, might be a double-digit seed, while Vegas considers them on par with a 7 or 8.
posted by Luke Winn | View comments (1) |

1 Comments:

Post a Comment
Posted: March 15, 2008 5:33 PM   by Anonymous Anonymous
So winning close games means that you are overrated and losing close games means you are underrated? I would think that winning the close games would come in handy come tourney time.
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