February 21, 2014

Duke and Gonzaga both suffered upsets last night, knocking them each down a seed line. UNC's victory over Duke helps continue the Tar Heels' strong late season push.

I want to talk Blind Resumes. Last night on Sports Center, they did a "Blind Resume" segment with Joey Looney. The first thing out of his mouth after they put the graphic up on the screen with the two resumes was, "So, that first team is Tennessee..." He then proceeded to compare Tennessee and West Virginia (the other "unknown" team). Am I wrong, or is the whole idea of blind resume comparison that you compare two sets of qualifications WITHOUT TALKING ABOUT THE NAMES OF THE TEAMS!!! This brings me to my own Blind Resume experiment, to illustrate what I believe is a significant bias in most bracketologists' methods.

Team 1
Record: 22-4
Conf Record: 11-2
vs. Top-100: 3-4
Non-Conf SOS: 154

Team 2
Record: 21-4
Conf Record: 10-3
vs. Top-100: 3-4
Non-Conf SOS: 130

You might say to yourself (as I do), "These two teams must both be projected at similar seeds." If so, then you might also be as surprised (as I am) that several bracketologists (including Joe Lunardi) have them 8 seed lines apart. Two BracketMatrix entries have them a whopping 10 seed lines apart! Now you can go ahead and figure out which two teams these are, and I'll admit there are several other resume factors which differentiate them (I have them on the 6- and 10- lines, respectively), but good lord let's get real. Team 1 is no better than a 5 seed, and Team 2 no worse than an 11. Kudos to those bracketologists who leave Big Name/Big Conference bias out of their brackets.

*Disclaimer: I actually do root for Team 1 most of the time, and have no significant opinion either way on Team 2.

1's: Wichita State, Arizona, Florida, Syracuse
2's: Villanova, Saint Louis, Kansas, San Diego State
3's: Creighton, Cincinnati, Wisconsin, Iowa State
4's: UCLA, Michigan State, Virginia, Duke
5's: Massachusetts, Kentucky, Ohio State, New Mexico
6's: Louisville, Gonzaga, Connecticut, Texas
7's: VCU, Michigan, Iowa, Colorado
8's: Pittsburgh, George Washington, North Carolina, Oklahoma
9's: Memphis, Arizona State, SMU, Missouri
10's: Saint Joseph's, Toledo, Indiana State, Kansas State
11's: Oregon, Xavier, Stanford, Green Bay
12's: Dayton, North Dakota State, BYU, Southern Miss, Saint John's
13's: Belmont, Middle Tennessee, Richmond, Stephen F. Austin, Harvard
14's: Mercer, Manhattan, Delware, New Mexico State
15's: Boston University, North Carolina Central, Georgia State, UC Santa Barbara
16's: Vermont, Robert Morris, Elon, Weber State, Radford, Alabama State

FFO: California, Baylor, Saint Mary's, Minnesota
NFO: Oklahoma State, Boise State, Arkansas, North Carolina State