NCAA Fullcourt Report - March 19
by Steve Merril
This is the first time since 1995 that no team seeded #10 or worse has made the Round of 16 and it is only the second time it has happened since the field was expanded to 64 teams in 1985.
Last year’s NCAA Tournament had the biggest Cinderella story in recent memory as #11 seed George Mason made a Final Four run, while none of the #1 seeds made it past the Elite Eight. With all the parity in college basketball, there were expectations of more upsets and underdog runs this year, but the exact opposite occurred on the very first day of the tournament as the pointspread favorite went 15-1 SU (13-2-1 ATS). Favorites also performed well on Friday and went 12-4 SU (9-7 ATS). Overall, the pointspread favorite was 27-5 SU in the first round.
Round 2 saw pointspread favorites go 12-4 SU, but only 7-9 ATS as oddsmakers did a solid job of setting the lines. Overall, the higher seed has won 38 of the 48 tournament games this year, with the pointspread favorite winning 39 of 48 outright.
Despite the lack of upsets, it is still impossible to predict all the games correctly. There are millions of online contest entries at ESPN and no one has a perfect bracket remaining. In fact, every contestant had at least two losses by the end of Round 2. There are eight people currently tied for first place with exactly two losses (out of 48 games) and these eight contestants have Kansas (3), Ohio State (1), North Carolina (1), Memphis (1), Texas A&M (1), and Vanderbilt (1) as their national title picks.
While the upsets have been mild, the fact remains this is still a wide-open tournament with numerous teams capable of winning it all. While momentum is an overrated factor heading into the postseason, it is actually a very strong indicator once the tournament has begun as the past nine national champions have each won their first two NCAA Tournament games by at least 10+ points apiece.
There are five remaining squads this season that fit this predictive criteria; Kansas, North Carolina, Memphis, Southern Illinois, and USC. It will be interesting to see if this historical indicator holds up for a tenth straight year.
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