Write On Sports LLC - "March Is Coming In Like A Lion…" by Troy Somero

March Is Coming In Like A Lion…

2007-02-26 23:52:24 | By: Troy Somero

Superstitionalists often formulate their opinion on when the spring season will arrive based on whether or not Puxatony Phil sees his shadow on February 2nd. This year Phil saw his shadow, signaling that spring is arriving shortly (even though Phil made his prediction almost four weeks ago and much of the country is experiencing winter weather this week). One can, however, look at the calendar to determine when spring will truly arrive – March 21. By the same token, college basketball fans can accurately predict when March will arrive based on viewing the calendar, or by turning on ESPN this week and seeing that this is Judgment Week. A true connoisseur of the game, however, knows that March is approaching when the number of upsets rapidly increases in college basketball.

This past week of college basketball bared witness to upsets in 13 of the 46 games involving ranked teams – a 28% clip. This is roughly the same upset rate that occurs in the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament every March. Below is a list of all of the upsets in the time span between Monday, February 19 and Sunday, February 25, with the rankings from the ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Poll released on the 19th in parentheses and home team highlighted in BOLD CAPS.

2/20

MICHIGAN STATE 64, (2) Wisconsin 55

UNLV 60, (13) Air Force 50

PROVIDENCE 64, (18) West Virginia 61

2/21

MIAMI, FL 68, (19) Virginia 60

MISSISSIPPI STATE 83, (21) Vanderbilt 70

TENNESSEE 69, (25) Alabama 66 – Overtime

2/22

(24) OREGON 64, (11) Washington State 59

Loyola, IL. 75, (15) BUTLER 71

2/24

LSU 66, (3) Florida 56

TCU 71, (13) Air Force 66

SAN DIEGO STATE 74, (22) BYU 66

Auburn 86, (25) ALABAMA 77

2/25

MARYLAND 89, North Carolina 87

A couple important facts stand out about these upsets. First, only two ranked teams lost at home this past week: Butler and Alabama. Second, all of these games were in-conference games. (In fact, the only out-of-conference game during this time span that was played by a ranked team was (17) Duke's 67-50 victory over St. John's on Sunday.) Therefore, these upsets are collectively not really that big of an upset at all. In conference play any team is fair game when it is playing on then road. In addition, it is much more difficult to beat the same team twice in a season than it is to beat a team once in a season. (Note that it is exponentially harder to beat the same team three times in a season, as will be made evident next week during conference tournament play when teams like Memphis and Winthrop – both undefeated in conference play as of today – lose in their conference tournaments). However, the sheer plethora of ranked teams being knocked off by lower-ranked or unranked opponents this past week begs the question, "What are the ingredients that go into an upset this late in the regular season?"

In order to determine what statistical advantages can lead to a late-season conference win, while at the same time ignoring home-court advantage since it will not play a role in conference tournaments for most of teams listed above, I looked at eleven categories that seemed to have at least one major deviation in one of the 13 games highlighted above. For example, Alabama committed 16 more turnovers than Tennessee in their game last week, so I decided to look at turnover margin across all of last week's upsets. Below are the statistics I chose alongside their (greatest positive, greatest negative), and average differences across all 13 games*:

3-Point Field Goals Attempted: (+9 – Washington State/Oregon, -25 – West Virginia/Providence) -9.92

Free-Throws Attempted: (+12 – West Virginia/Providence, -8 –Virginia/Miami) +5.62

Rebounding Margin: (+13 – 3 games, -12 – Tennessee/Alabama) +4.38

Field Goal Percentage Margin: (+16.0% - Air Force/TCU, -12.2% - Washington State/Oregon) +3.97%

Free-Throws Made: (+12 – North Carolina/Maryland, -7 –Virginia/Miami) +3.54

Assist Margin: (+6 – Alabama/Auburn, -3 – 3 games) +2.15

3-Point Field Goal Percentage Margin: (+22.3% - Virginia/Miami, -32.4% - BYU/San Diego State) +1.93%

3-Point Field Goals Made: (+3 – Virginia/Miami, -9 – BYU/San Diego State) -1.17

Bench Scoring Margin: (+29 - Tennessee/Alabama, -21 – Vanderbilt/Mississippi State) +1.15

Turnover Margin: (+7 - North Carolina/Maryland, -16 - Tennessee/Alabama) -1.08

Free-Throw Percentage Margin: (+29.8% - North Carolina/Maryland, -28.0% - Air Force/TCU) -.53%

The averages from the first five categories represent significant statistics – statistics that deviate from zero by more than 3 and therefore played a significant role in the making of these upsets. The averages from the second six categories represent less-or-insignificant statistics – statistics that deviate from zero by less than 3 and therefore played a less-or-insignificant role in the making of these upsets.

From the crunching of the numbers it appears as if the team that has the best chance to pull of an upset in a conference tournament will be the team that relies less on the three point field goal. A margin of -9.91 for the first statistic listed indicates that the winning underdog shot almost 10 less three-pointers per game than the losing favorite. This is a huge statistical difference. Much of this can be related to the fact that teams like Air Force, West Virginia and BYU shoot an inordinate amount of threes due to their respective offenses. Look for this statistic to play an even more significant role in the mid-major conference tournaments, where many more of the offenses rely on three-point shooting, living and dying from trey-to-trey.

The second most important fact in determining an underdog's ability to win in-conference is that the underdog needs to go to the foul line more frequently than its opponent. As indicated above, underdogs that won attempted an average of 5.62 more free-throws per game than their favored opponents. This statistic goes hand-in-hand with the three-point attempt margin: a team that attacks the rim more often will have more free throw attempts and less three-point attempts.

Thirdly, an underdog will win an intra-conference battle if it dominates the boards. The winning underdogs had an average collective rebounding margin of +4.38. Like the two aforementioned factors, this statistics is dependant on aggressiveness and an emphasis on interior play. A team that shoots fewer threes and more foul shots than its opponent will also, more likely than not, out-rebound its opponent.

These feisty underdogs were also successful because of efficient shooting. In the 13 games highlighted above, the winning team out-shot the losing team by an average margin of +3.97% from the field. Again, this margin relates to the overall style of play of a successful conference underdog: because a two-point field goal is an easier shot to make than a three-point field goal, a team that shoots more short-range shots will have a better field goal percentage and will thus give itself a better chance to win.

The final significant factor in determining the success of an underdog appears to be free-throws made. The conference underdogs that won last week made 3.54 more foul shots per game than their favored opponents. This statistic likely stems from the fact that the winning teams also attempted more foul shots than their opponents. At the same time, however, the winning team was still efficient from the charity stripe. It is beneficial for a team to attempt more free-throws than its opponent, but if the team cannot make these extra free-throws then it is all for naught.

The second group of statistics outlined above – assists, three-point field goal percentage, three-point field goals made, turnovers, and free-throw percentage – are much less positively correlated with victory for an underdog than the five statistics outlined in the preceding paragraphs. Most of them are still positively correlated to an underdog winning (meaning that if the statistics favors the underdog, the underdogs chances of winning increase), but the "positivity" is negligible for the most part.

Now we can answer the question presented earlier in this article: What are the ingredients that go into an upset this late in the season? The major ingredient appears to be style of play. For a team to pull of an upset or two late in the season inside of its own conference, the team must pound the ball inside in order to shoot higher percentage shots, get to the foul line more often than its opponent, and dominate the glass. Obviously, it is a tremendous help if the upset-minded team can protect, distribute, and shoot the ball from all part of the court with ease, but if such a team relies too much on the perimeter and not enough on hard-nosed basketball it will likely find itself watching its conference championship game from home next week.

*These positives and negatives are a ratio of winning team to losing team. For example, Providence won and out-rebounded West Virginia by 7 rebounds, so the margin here is +7. In the same game, Providence has 4 less bench points than West Virginia, so the margin here is -4.

*******

The analysis presented above is meant to apply to conference play, not the NCAA Tournament. The dynamic of an NCAA Tournament upset and a Cinderella run in late March (as outlined in my last article) is inherently different in a variety of ways from a late-season upset involving two teams that have already played during the regular season.

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