In the Zone

With Syracuse in the Final Four, attention turns to its vaunted—and it is always referred to as "vaunted"—2-3 zone defense. Louisville, which might get to the Final Four again today, also plays a fair amount of zone defense.

Most coaches, including Bo Ryan, play a man-to-man defense, and play it exclusively. Many fans, and some sportswriters, gripe about this. They say it'd be good to have zone defense as an option, since it clearly can be played well. Why would a great coach like Bo Ryan turn up his nose at a defense that clearly works?

When Mike DeCourcey broached this topic on Twitter last night, the consensus among the philistines seemed to be that most coaches don't play any zone because it's not manly enough, or something. As if guys like Bo Ryan care about anything other than winning. And does anyone actually believe that Bo Ryan cares people's perception of him? Of course he does not. All he cares about is winning.

So why would a coach who cares only about winning refuse to even practice zone defense? There's an easy answer, and I think I'll let Chorl—er, Jim Boeheim explain it:

The short history of our zone is we started out as a man-to-man team with some zone and over the years our zone got better, but we still played man. The problem when you play man, you have to spend an hour on your man defense every day and when you play your preseason games, your non-conference games, if you're playing man your zone isn't getting better. 

So finally it dawned on me, after about 27 or 28 years, finally, takes me a while, that if we played zone all the time and didn't waste time playing man to man and put some wrinkles in the zone because we had more time to practice it, that our defense would be better.

The reason most coaches play only man-to-man is the same reason Boeheim plays only the vaunted 2-3 zone: because practice time is limited. If you don't specialize in a particular base defense, your chances of playing really good defense go down. That's the full story.

Just like Boeheim adds "wrinkles" to his zone, Bo Ryan adds wrinkles to his man-to-man defense to account for personnel and game situations. For example, a "man-to-man" defense that switches all screens looks a lot like a ... zone defense. And that's what the Badgers did all year this year.

It was amusing to me that while this conversation was happening on Twitter during the OSU - WSU game last night, OSU was on a 13-2 run—fueled almost exclusively by nervous turnovers (bad offense) from WSU. But suddenly WSU switched to a zone defense. Literally seven seconds later, OSU got a wide-open three pointer from the corner. It missed, but there was no box-out and OSU got an offensive rebound and putback attempt. That missed too, but there was another missed box-out and OSU got another offensive rebound and scored. WSU didn't play any more zone the rest of the game.

So you have to wonder—how much practice time did Gregg Marshall waste teaching his players how to play that awful zone defense that he used for one awful defensive possession? However much it was, it was too much.

Can a player goaltend his own shot?

I saw one of the more spectacular plays I have ever seen in the KU vs MI game the other night. Kansas's Kevin Young did what would be considered a goaltend if he wasn't a freak of nature. On a fast break he went up for a lay up and lost the ball as he was going up. In the same play as the ball was traveling down he tiped the ball which then went into the basket. Since this was all in one crazy freak of nature motion, no ref even thinked to call a goaltend, but the shot left his hand and was going down when he touched it and directed it into the goal.

Look at it again and tell me this isn't a goaltend.

Separated at birth?

Boeheim

Chorlton

The Majik Man ...

... has become the Trajik Man. Paul Imig's article has some really brutal details of how playing football destroyed parts of Don Majikowski's body (back, shoulder, and ankle) and damaged his brain.

An All-Big-Ten Final Four?

Eamonn Brennon writes that all four Big Ten teams making the Final Four is not out of the question:

Yes, those four remaining Big Ten teams aren't just the league's four best, they also happened to be conveniently spaced into each of the tournament's four regions, meaning it is entirely conceivable all four could find themselves on the way to the Georgia Dome by this time next week.

How conceivable? On the Official Eamonn Likelihood Scale of 1 to 10 -- with 1 being "Eamonn uses a treadmill in the next two weeks" and 10 being "The PR people in the Big Ten league office have spent all week doing the 'Florida Gulf Coast Manager Dance'" -- I'd put it at about a two.

That might be generous: The Las Vegas odds on an "all-Big Ten Final Four" have moved from a pre-tournament 250-to-1 to their current 62-to-1, which, for everyone reading this column not named Aaron Craft, is significantly less than my arbitrary scale above. Then again, those are the kind of odds Lloyd Christmas would have killed for.

He then goes on to make the case for each team. And he's right that each team has a legitimate chance to make the Final Four. The problem is that when you multiply their chances together, it's a very small number. That 62-to-1 bet Vegas is offering is—like all Vegas offerings—a sucker's bet.

Here's why. Earlier this week I reran my bracket simulator with the latest Kenpom data. This is just like Pomeroy's Log5 method, just somewhat less accurate and a little bit more fun. My results say that the four B1G teams have these odds of making the Final Four:

Indiana: 48.9%
OSU: 47.9%
MSU: 14.9%
Michigan: 16.4%.

To get the chances of all four making it, you just multiply those percentages together. The result: 0.5% chance. That's 5 out of 1000.

The problem here is that both MSU and Michigan will probably have to win two very tough games to make the Final Four. MSU will face Duke, then probably Louisville. Michigan will face Kansas, then almost certainly Florida. The chances of both teams winning both those games are pretty small. It could happen, but it probably won't. And, even if it does, IU and OSU are each more likely to lose a game than they are to win two.

In fact, it's actually significantly more likely that none of the Big Ten teams will even make the Elite 8! The chance that each Big Ten team has of losing in the Sweet 16 is:

Indiana: 34.4%
OSU: 35.4%
MSU: 52.7%
Michigan: 47.4%

So, the chances of all of them losing in the Sweet Sixteen is the product of those percentages: just about 3%. More than five times more likely than all of them making the Final Four.

In most of my simulations, two or three Big Ten teams make the Elite Eight, and one or two of them make the Final Four. Crazy things could happen, of course. But if I was betting on something crazy, I'd be betting against the Big Ten, not for it.

Big Time?

UW recently committed to play Alabama in the season opener in September 2015 at Cowboy Stadium. Badger fans have been clamoring for years for the team to upgrade the non-conference schedule and now they have got their wish. On the face of it this makes sense. The new playoff format will look at strength of schedule, and if the Badgers hope to ever have a chance to make it in, they will have to play some quality teams. Playing in a big time game like this will certainly be a moneymaker, and the exposure could help recruiting. If the Badgers pull off the win then it should be a big boost to the program, while a loss isn't anything to be ashamed of, so there doesn't look like there's much to lose.

Here's where my pessimism takes over.

I understand wanting to challenge the best, but UW is just not on a level with the Alabamas, Ohio States, and Floridas of college football. In 2015 the schedule will already be getting tougher because UW will also likely be playing a 9 game Big Ten regular season schedule. This leaves only 2 cup cakes on the schedule. I know fans hate watching 3 non-BCS schools come to Camp Randle, but UW has made it to bowl games most every year for the past 20 years and those cupcakes wins have helped in several years.

The Badgers have only missed a bowl game in 2 seasons since Barry's breakout Rose Bowl win after the 1993 season. The Badgers went to only 2 bowl games in all the seasons from 1970-1993. UW has had a great run lately with 7 seasons with 9 wins or more in the last 9 seasons (with last years 8 win season resulting in a Rose Bowl). In the 11 seasons before that, the Badgers had 3 Rose Bowl seasons with at least 10 wins, but just one other 9 win season. They had 2 losing seasons, and made it to mediocre bowls in 5 other years.

So the question is will the Badgers be able to continue the run of unprecedented success they have had in the past 9 years, or will the be the up and down program they were most of the Alvarez years, or will they go back to a Big Ten bottom dweller. I doubt this program could be dismantled by any coach enough to return it to the pre Alvarez era, but look what Rich Rod did to MI. Can UW continue as a perennial 10 win program? I sure hope so, but I doubt it even if they continue to schedule cupcakes. With a tougher schedule I think this team will be OK in the years they have a good team, but in the down years this team could easily lose enough games to miss a bowl game.

Would you rather see your Badger team shoot for the stars, schedule like a champion, and maybe make the playoff, but probably flame out? Or would you rather see them win games (albeit against some cupcakes) and get to a bowl game every year, although it may be a mediocre one?

After Alvarez won a Rose Bowl and got the program going he shot for the stars on the recruiting trail and found that he finished 2nd and 3rd a lot on those big time recruits while also missing out on other good recruits he could have got if he weren't holding out for these big talents he missed on anyway. He paid a price but learned a lesson and UW has used a pretty good recruiting formula ever since and has had great success. I wonder if UW is starting to make another overreach and get away from the things that have made them successful in an attempt to join the big boys.

In the formative years of my Badger Fandom UW hired Don Morton who was a big hire at the time (1987). He brought in his veer option offense and expected to be a national power within 3 years. He scheduled like it too, bringing in powerhouse Miami for a home game in 1989. Morton was a disaster and I remember sitting at that Miami game as they just destroyed UW 51-3 in a half empty stadium. UW had kicked a field goal on the first drive of the game, and I remember the student section sarcastically chanting "We scored first" after UW was down by about 30 points and obviously out classed. Morton was fired that year.

Gary Anderson is taking over a much better program, and Alvarez is still there so I don't expect Anderson to be the next Morton. I'm just not sure if the changes being made to the offense, defense, and now scheduling are going to be for the better.

Bye Bye Tubby

Minnesota fired Tubby Smith today.

He surely deserved to be fired. As I detailed recently, he had terrible stretches—losing at least 9 of 15 games—in every one of his six seasons. In the last three seasons, when his program should have been coming together, he was even worse: he had 5-10 stretches in each season. Those stretches, when Tubby seemed to have no answers ("We just need to stop turning the ball over," he said over and over again this year, apparently unaware that this was something basketball coaches have to teach), surely doomed him. And deservedly so.

I can't decide whether I'm glad Tubby is gone. Before this season I declared that Minnesota would never be better than mediocre as long as Tubby was their coach. But the guy won an NCAA title and made several deep runs in the tournament with Kentucky. It was always possible that he'd put together one good year. Now, with him gone, I tend to think Minnesota will be praying for mediocrity. It's a real possibility that they'll be a second-division program for a generation. Having  ruined the the reputations of two high quality coaches, Minnesota will now likely have to hire up-and-comers and hope for the best. Good luck with that. Who knows, maybe they've got a Dick Bennett or Bo Ryan toiling away at Minnesota-Duluth?

"Hot" Teams Continue to Struggle

When I compared simulations using the Kenpom data to simulations using Dan Hanner's last-10 games data, these were the eight teams whose chances of making the Sweet 16 increased the most:

None of these teams made the Sweet 16.

I don't want to make too much of this. Even using the the full-season data, the chances that none of these eight teams would make the Sweet 16 was very small (less than a 2% chance).

On the flip side, here are the eight teams whose chances of making the Sweet 16 were most decreased using the last-10 data:

Four of the top five coldest teams are still alive.

More Torvistically significant results.

New Odds

Here are the new odds for the NCAA tournament, based on my Kenpom simulations:

A few Big Ten related notes:

—Just 9 of 1000 simulated brackets ended up with all 4 Big Ten teams in the Final Four. That compares to just 5 of 1000 in the pre-tournament simulations. Florida is obviously still there blocking Michigan most of the time.

—Most simulations (426) end up with just one Big Ten team in the Final Four. And there's still a 19% chance that none of the four remaining teams make it to the final weekend.

—The champ is from the Big Ten 27.3% of the time. That's actually down from 28.2% pre-tournament. The loss of Wisconsin hurts there, as does the remaining presence of big favorites Louisville and Florida.

2013-14

Next year's team ought to look quite different than this year's. Coming into this season and prior to Gasser's injury this team had a pretty predictable rotation. 3 returning senior starters in the frontcourt and 2 experienced junior guards looked to get most of the minutes. Kaminsky and Dekker gave them depth in the frontcourt and Marshall and Jackson figured to fight it out for backup minutes in the backcourt. Next year's team is not so easy to figure out, and could go a number of ways. I'm sure by November we'll have a good idea of what the next Badger's will look like, but here's my take as I look back at the returning players.

Gasser- This is the big question. Everything I hear is that his recovery is going well and he hopes to be ready for opening practice in the fall, but you never know. Not everyone can recover like Adrian Peterson, and in fact almost no one does. Most people take a full 2 years to get back to normal, and some never do. I hope he fully recovers and never has this injury again, as it has been painful enough for Badger fans to watch Curt Phillips suffer this same injury over and over again. I'm thinking positive at this point, so I'll assume he plays next year like the Gasser of old. If he does then I expect him to return to the starting lineup, but where does he fit in? Does he take over the point as was planned prior to his injury, or is there enough at the point that he can stay off the ball? My guess is that he plays off the ball and starts as part of a 3 guard lineup that will be the norm next year.

Why 3 guards? That's where the talent is. Bo likes to play big, but he also plays his best players and those will be guards. The Badgers will have 6 true guards on scholarship next year which is probably a high for Bo with the Badgers (Brust, Jackson, Gasser, Marshall, incoming freshman-Koenig, Hill). That does not include 2 wings which could be called guards depending on your semantics (Dukan, incoming freshman-Dearring). That leaves only 5 scholarship frontcourt players (Dekker, Kamisnky, Anderson, incoming freshman-Hayes, Brown).

Kaminsky- He is next year's Gasser, in that he will be the player they can least afford to lose. With so few frontcourt scholarship players and 2 of them true freshman, there is nothing to rely on if he is not there. Without Kaminsky the Badgers would be in the same place they were this year with Jackson and Marshall, relying on inexperienced players not ready for the role they are being asked to play. Kaminksy's decision not to redshirt as a freshman, and the valuable experience he gained the last 2 seasons will hopefully pay off next year as he takes on a much bigger role. He should be the anchor of the frontline for the next 2 seasons.

Frank had a pretty solid season in his backup role to Berggren. He showed enough flashes for me to have pretty high hopes for him. He will not be the dominating defensive force that Berggren was, but he could be an effective defender and I like some of his offensive numbers this year. He only shot 44%FG, and 31%3ptFG, but about half his shots came from 3. I expect him to shot more 2s next year in the post. He also had an impressive assist to turnover ratio of 26-9, or about 3-1 which is great for a guard, let alone a center. He won't do that again next year with more touches, but he seems to be and effective and willing passer which will be important in feeding Dekker and Brust for 3s.

Brust- Most players tend to max out as Juniors, at least statistically, and I expect this to be the case with Brust. His game will no doubt improve, and he may even start driving the ball with his left hand, but I doubt his numbers will be significantly better. Seniors tend to get the most attention from opposing defenses, and since he will be the leading returning scorer he will draw plenty of attention. Dekker's presence will certainly help him to get some open shots, but he will be option 2 and everyone will know it. He shot 42%FG, and 39%3ptFG this year and I find it hard to believe he will be better than that next season. Hopefully he will continue his fantastic rebounding for a guard, as they will need it if they play small. He was also very good moving the ball and had a 2-1 assist to turnover ratio.

Dekker- Sky is the limit. Offensively he put up great numbers as a freshman 48%FG, 39%3ptFG. If he can can continue those high percentages with an expected increase in shots then he could be the Big Ten Player of the year. He will be the focus of the offense, and the focus of every defense, so I expect there to be some tough games and some glorious games. His defense just kept getting better as the year went on, but he will need to become a great rebounder for this team to be successful. Evans, Berggren and Bruiser effectively cleaned the glass while Dekker averaged just 3.4 per game. He will have to be committed to rebounding in year 2.

Jackson- The numbers don't tell a pretty story. He averaged 2.8 assists/game, but also 2.1 turnovers. He shot just 37%FG despite taking just 1/3 of his shots from 3 point range. He was not good from 3 either, making just 29%. Some of the poor FG% was due to taking tough shots when the shot clock ran down, but he just isn't a great shooter. Traevon should have been playing about 5-10 minutes a game this year as a backup 2 guard to Brust, instead he was the starting point guard. He did make great strides as the year went on and he isn't afraid to take big shots. He was an effective defender and lead the team in steals. Call me crazy, but I think Traevon keeps his starting job as the point guard next season. After railing on him all season for all the unforced turnovers, the poor passing into the post, and the terrible shooting I think he will be the best option. He made great improvement over the year and I think his defense keeps him in the starting lineup. I'll admit that I think Marshall has more ability and Koenig will be more talented, and I kind of hope I'm wrong and one of them supplants him, but at this point I still think he's the 5th starter.

Marshall- Trevon Hughes or Rob Wilson? 2 players at UW who showed flashes of great potential as freshman, but just weren't ready for big time college basketball. Trevon shot just 31% as a freshman and had twice as many turnovers as assists. He played too fast as a freshman, but by his sophomore season he had slowed down and took over as the starting point guard. Rob Wilson shot 33% as a freshman and had 17 turnovers vs 4 assists. I still remember his fearlessness as a freshman when he drove the lane in a preseason tournament vs UConn and challenged Hasheem Thabeet at the rim. Wilson did not slow down his game, and did not play a meaningful role until his breakout game in the Big Ten Tournament. Unfortunately that was in his senior season, and his basketball career was otherwise undistinguished. Which of these paths will Marshall take? He shot just 36%FG, but he also shot 37%3pt FG and 2/3s of his shots were from 3. He had an amazing performance at Iowa going 7-10, 3-4 from 3, for 20 points in 15 minutes. If he can slow down his game the door is open for him to shine in year 2 at UW. If he can't then he may become the next Rob Wilson.

The rest- I don't expect Dukan, Anderson, Bohannon, or Showalter to do anything more than compete for backup minutes with the 5 incoming freshman. Perhaps one of them will surprise me, but I'm not holding my breath.

Predictions for next year- Torvik already came out with his that Dekker will join the 1000 point club in his sophomore season. He scored 335 in his freshman season. If UW plays the same number of games (35) he would need to average 19 points per game, a tall task.

I'll go with a more modest prediction for now. UW will rank under 250 in the country in possessions per game.

This may be my last UW bball post for a while. I'll have to go back to the Bucks I guess. Sigh

Who's next

I coined this mantra while doing battle in the Torvik's family basement while wearing hockey gear far to large for me. Perhaps Bo heard about my epic battles and stole the idea of always looking to the next battle, game, opportunity, etc. but he may have started this before my time.

Torvik correctly told me at the Big Ten Tournament that we all know how this season is going to end, with the Badgers losing a game because they can't make any shots. The only question was when that game would come, and unfortunately it happened in the first round so we don't get any more basketball this season.

I am already looking forward to next season, but here's a little reflection on the season that just concluded.

The loss of Gasser probably cost this team a few wins over the course of the season, and they may have been good enough to win a Big Ten Championship if he had been healthy. In the end, Bo's greatness just wouldn't allow this team to fold when he went down. As always he figured out a way to get the most out of every player on his team, and continued the 2 most remarkable streaks in WI basketball history: consecutive top 4 big ten finishes, and consecutive NCAA appearances.

In addition to the streaks, Bo as always did something remarkable that no Badger fan would have ever thought possible. This year UW played 4 teams that were ranked in the top 6 at the time UW played them. One on the road, one at home and 2 on a neutral court. UW's record, 4-0. Unbelievable.

Here's a look back at this year's seniors. I'll see if I can do another post on the returning players.

Berggren- Was the best defender in the Big Ten, and played well on the offensive end. Berggren was the best player on this team, but never became a dominating offensive inside presence for this team. He was a dominating presence on defense with 73 blocked shots, and many more alters. He was the core of the best defense in the Big Ten and Bo's best defensive team at UW. He shot 47%, which would have been better if he had not shot just 25% on 3s, which made up 27% of his shots. He will have a future in pro basketball. Certainly overseas, and maybe someday in the NBA.

 

Evans- Again a great defender, which was obvious from the moment he stepped on the floor as a freshman against Purdue with the task of guarding Robbie Hummel and effectively shut him down in the second half of that game. Evan's became a great offensive tease when in his junior year he became the teams 2nd leading scorer. He shot a respectable 44% that year, and was 2nd on the team in free throw attempts. Of course all of that came crashing down with this year's dismal offensive season. 39.5%FG, 42.6%FT and 8.3% 3ptFG. To Evans credit, he went to great lengths to get himself out of the slump including his jumpshot free throws. Even more than that, unlike so many other kids that mope and let the other parts of their game suffer when they don't make shots, Evan's defense was top notch all season long whether he made shots or not.

 

Brusier- At the beginning of the season I expected this to be the year Gasser took over this team and filled the leadership role Jordan Taylor had filled in past seasons. When he got hurt I asked the question, Who's team will this be now. I had hoped it would become Dekker's team as his game grew, but that role for him will have to wait a year. Evans, Jackson, and Brust all had their moments during the year, but in the end no one asserted themselves on this team. That's where Bruiser comes in. No one will ever confuse Bruiser with some of the other stars UW has had, as his production was minimal at best 6.4PPG, 40%FG, 28%3pt%. Perhaps I'm just trying to send him out on a positive note here, but when has there been a player with so little production (Bruiser was only the 6th leading scorer on the team in his Junior and Senior seasons) that has been such a frontline leader. If this team had a personality, it was his. He couldn't shoot, but was fearless in taking any shot big or small. He wasn't a shut down defender, but constantly scrapped and got beat up in the process. He was the face of a team despite being one of it's least productive members. The stat sheets will remember him in the realm of the Jarmusz's in UW history, but in this season that probably wouldn't do justice to his contributions.

 

Another great UW season has brought me all kinds of joy. Thanks to all the coaches and players, and I can't wait until next season.

Hotness and Coldness Didn't Matter in Round 1

After Round 1, the average Kenpom bracket got 20.034 picks right, and the average bracket using Hanner's last-10 games data got 19.367 picks right. This is largely because 6 of the 8 games where they diverged the most (including the top 4) went against the hot (or for the cold) team.

Here's how the thousand Kenpom simulations did against the thousand Hanner simulations in Round One:

# Right		Kenpom		Hanner
27		1		0
26		8		2
25		23		7
24		39		21
23		81		55
22		130		97
21		149		133
20		182		178
19		148		162
18		121		139
17		69		95
Average:		20.034		19.367

I've consulted my wife, an epidemiologist, and the preliminary opinion is that these results are not "statistically significant" (whatever that means). They are, however, Torvistically significant—which in some (very small) circles is considered much more important.

StatWatch: 1000-Point Scorer

One of the things we've been following here is whether the Badgers will manage to get a 1000-point scorer out of this senior class. The run to the Big Ten tournament final has given Ryan Evans a shot, but it will take a run to at least the Sweet 16, and probably the Elite 8. He now has 956 points in his career, so needs 44 points. It's unlikely he'd get there in three games, but possible. Four more games gives him a real shot.

I said back in January that the universe was at work on this stat. If I'm right, that means an Elite Eight run (or more) for the Badgers so that Ryan Evans get to 1000.

Torvik's Bracket

For posterity's sake, here are my NCAA tournament picks. I've entered a few pools, but these are my picks for the one I put money in. The scoring is 1,2,3,4,5,6 (I think?) and there is a 3 point bonus for correctly picking any 12-seed or lower to win in any round. Thus, Davidson to the Elite 8 and Cal to the Sweet 16. Thought about La Salle but went homer with Wisconsin.

Midwest

Louisville over Missouri
Oregon over St. Louis
Mich. State over St. Mary's
Duke over Creighton

Louisville over Michigan State

West

Gonzaga over Pitt
Wisconsin over La Salle
Arizona over New Mex.
OSU over Notre Dame

Ohio State over Gonzaga

South

Kansas over UNC
Michigan over VCU
Florida over Minnesota
Georgetown over SDSU

Florida over Michigan

East

IU over NC State
Cal. over Syracuse
Davidson over Bucknell
Miami over Illinois

Indiana over Davidson

Final Four

Louisville over OSU
Florida over Indiana

Florida over Louisville

I don't actually think Florida will win (If I was just picking a champ I'd pick either Louisville or Indiana) but I think picking Florida gives me the best chance to finish top three in a big pool.

I have had a heck of a time deciding who to take in the bottom half of the East bracket, so I decided to just go with a bunch of upsets for fun's sake. This more or less guarantees that it will be Miami over Marquette in the Elite Eight.

Hot v. Cold Matchups

One more post comparing the full-season data to the last-10 data, and it will be a quickie. Here are the first round games that are most affected by using the last-10 data:

To explain, this means that Missouri won 21.4% more often using the last-10-games data than it did using the full season's data. Put another way, it won 214 more times in the 1000-game simulation. Specifically, it won 530 times in the original simulation, and 744 times in the last-10 simulation. If you were on the fence about any of these games, you might consider going with the the hot (or against the cold) team. (Keep in mind that UCLA lost its second-leading scorer, though.)

Which Conference Will Win the Title?

The Big Ten is the best conference in college basketball. But it's put-up-or-shut-up time. Although the Big Ten has been strong for a few years in a row now, there's been little to show for it in March or (especially) April. The conference has produced just one champion—Michigan State in 2000—in the last 23 years. More recently, as Eamonn Brennan notes, Big Ten teams have struggled in the second weekend of the tournament: Big Ten teams are just 3-10 in the Sweet 16 since 2008. The Badgers alone are 0-3. If they make it this year, they'll likely go to 0-4, but it will still be a great accomplishment. You really can't blame the Badgers for this paltry record because winning championships isn't a realistic goal for a team that doesn't attract multiple NBA-level talents at a time. No, this is on Indiana, Michigan State and Ohio State. Those are the glamour programs, and when they're up they have to finish. I'm looking at you, Tom Crean.

Anyhow, I mentioned yesterday that using Ken Pomeroy's numbers—under which the Big Ten is the clear number one conference—there's still almost a one-in-four chance that no Big Ten team makes the Final Four. But what are the odds that a Big Ten team cuts down the nets in Atlanta? According to my simulations, the odds are about 27.4%. If we use Dan Hanner's data from only the last 10 games, however, the odds go down significantly. This is mainly because Gonzaga and Georgetown get so much better under those metrics, so they steal championships from everyone else. But Michigan is also awful under Hanner's numbers. It goes from a dark-horse title contender (2.6% chance) to a complete pretender (0 titles in 1000 simulations).

Here's a breakdown of each conference's chances using the full-season data and using just the last 10 games:

Note: This post has been updated after I discovered an error in my calculations. Specifically, I failed to update Michigan State's numbers for the Hanner simulation, which led them to be artificially low. This makes the Big Ten's numbers slightly better.

Who's Hot? And Does It Matter?

Dan Hanner has done the work of providing the adjusted Pythagorean winning percentage for almost all of the tourney teams over the last ten games. The idea is that this can show us who is hot heading into the tournament, and who is not.

It was easy enough for me to to rejigger the Bracket Generator technology and run 1000 simulations to see how using this different data would change the results for each team.

MIDWEST

In the Midwest, the hot team is St. Louis and the cold team is Oklahoma State. As shown in the chart below,  St. Louis made the Sweet Sixteen 23.2% more of the time using Hanner's numbers than it did using Pomeroy's full-season numbers, and Oklahoma State made the Sweet Sixteen 14.6% fewer times. (These are raw percentages. In other words, if St. Louis made the Sweet Sixteen 50% of the time under the original simulation, it would have made the Sweet Sixteen 73.2% of the time in the new simulation. The number shown is the difference between the team's chance using the full-season numbers and the team's chance using the last 10 games.)

WEST

Gonzaga was the huge winner in the West, and overall. In fact, using just the last 10 games, Gonzaga is the clear number two favorite to win it all, just behind Louisville. New Mexico also makes big gains, particularly in the early rounds. Pitt and Arizona suffer mightily.

SOUTH

Michigan and Florida get killed in the South. Georgetown and Kansas rise.

EAST

The East doesn't have any changes quite as dramatic as the other regionals. Cal, Davidson, and Illinois would be much more likely to get to the second weekend, at the expense of Syracuse and Miami. The big story would be Davidson, which over its last ten games is playing like a legitimate Elite Eight contender. It's looking like pretty much anyone could come out of the bottom half of that bracket to earn the privilege of losing to Indiana.

I'm actually suspicious that this new data means much. After all, why disregard the first 25 games of the season? But it's fun to play around with.

Note: I updated the Midwest numbers to account for an input error regarding Michigan State. Same gist except that Michigan State is better now.

More Simulation Results: Big Ten Teams

Here are some more results with my 1000 tourney simulations using the Bracket Generator technology, specific to the Big Ten:

—The Final Four featured four Big Ten teams five out of a thousand times (0.5%). Three times it was OSU, MSU, IU, and Michigan; twice it was UW instead of OSU.

—Three Big Ten teams made it 46 times (4.6%).

—Two Big Ten teams made it 34.4% of the time.

—One Big Ten team made it 45% of the time.

—In all, at least one Big Ten team made it to the Final Four 76.1% of the time. That means no Big Ten teams made it 23.9% of the time.

—The champion was a Big Ten team 28.6% of the time.

Ole Miss: Preliminary Thoughts

I think this is a very good match-up for Wisconsin. In general, a cocky major-conference team that thinks they will win on talent (rather than effort) has almost no chance of beating Wisconsin in the tournament.

Getting into the nitty-gritty, Ole Miss reminds me a little of Illinois. Like Illinois, they are a team that relies on threes but isn't especially good at making them. This is especially true of their main offensive threat, Marsall Henderson. He is an all-world chucker. For example, he went 3-18 against Mississippi State recently. From three. Yet he shoots just 35.7% on threes. So he will shoot, and he will take bad shots. Make him uncomfortable, but let him shoot, box out, and play the percentages.

On the other hand, he was 10-31 from three in the SEC tournament and Ole Miss still cut down the nets.

Like Illinois, Ole Miss is relatively soft on the defensive glass. In SEC games, opponents rebounded nearly a third of their misses. Systemically, Wisconsin emphasizes transition defense over offensive rebounding. But Evans, Bruesewitz, and Berggren are all wily seniors who know how to get on the offensive glass without fouling and without jeopardizing the transition defense. If the Badgers are cold—which is a prerequisite to any losing scenario—they can still win by rebounding a third of their misses.

Ole Miss has a chance: play zone and hope the Badgers build a house of bricks. If that happens, this is a 50/50 game. In that scenario we see the Badgers lose if they combine a cold-shooting day with Marshall Henderson getting hot and the ball bouncing Ole Miss's way on rebounds. But even if the Badgers are cold we could still see a comfortable win if they crash the class and/or stifle Ole Miss's offense—both of which are more likely to happen than not.

I'll take the Badgers, 68-59.

Simulation Results

I've been having fun with my Bracket Generator technology. Here are some noteworthy results from my 1000 simulations:

—Only 1 team (Southern) failed to make the Sweet 16 at least once in the 1000 simulations. (My simulation treats First Four match-ups as a single team, so Liberty piggy-backs on North Carolina A&T here.)

—All four 1-seeds made the Final Four only about 1.5% of the time.

—All four 1-seeds missed the Final Four about 15% of the time.

—55 different teams made the Final Four.

—33 different teams won the Championship.

—16 teams won the Championship at least 10 times out of the thousand (i.e. have a 1% chance at the title). Of these, five are from the Big Ten, five are from the Big East, two are from the ACC, one is from the Big 12, one is from the SEC, one is from the WCC, and one is from the Mountain West.

—Just four teams won at least 5% of the titles: Louisville (21.3%), Indiana (16.4%), Florida (18.9%), and Gonzaga (7.4%). That still leaves over a 1 in 3 chance that one of those four teams doesn't win the title.

—If one of those four teams doesn't win, it will probably be either Ohio State (4.8%), Duke (4.7%), or Kansas (4.2%). No other teams won more than 2.5% of the time, and the top seven together won 77% of the time. That's still almost a 1 in 4 chance that someone else wins.

—The champion came from either the Big Ten, the Big East, or the SEC 76.8% of the time.