Final Four Odds and Matchup Charts

A wild weekend sets up a very intriguing set of games for the Final Four.  Virginia blew a lead as their offense settled into a funk against the tremendous zone of Syracuse, while Villanova finished strong in both halves to be able to move past KU (who actually shot better than the Wildcats from the field). 

I've currently got UNC with a 36% chance to win the Tournament now, with Nova at 33% and Oklahoma at 23%.  The pesky Orange have a 7% chance of winning it if they can get past UNC (27% chance)

Currently only UNC provides a negative EV according to Vegas, with Villanova being pretty harshly underrated with the best EV mark currently.  They've also certainly got the tougher draw, in needing to stop the one man wrecking crew known as Buddy Hield.

Elite 8 Charts

A pretty boring Sweet 16.  Only the lower ranking games had any real excitment, with all the others ending as double digit blowouts.  We've still got three 1 seeds left, so hopefully we get some fireworks in before the Final Four.

 

The Jayhawks continue to be the most consistent team in the tournament, looking good throughout their game against Maryland.  The game started close, but KU was able to strangle the Terrapins offensive game at the start of the second half and pull away.  Villanova though poses a very real challenge, especially after how thoroughly they were able to beat a surprising Miami squad.  A game that saw the 'cats shoot 76.6% TS% will have them looking for the upset here.  In a toss up, Im sticking with the most consistent team.

 

The Tar Heels should have little issue dispatching the pesky Irish.  Notre Dame's downfall is a defense thats fairly porous, ranking only 128th in Defg% and failing to force turnovers, at just a 14% clip.

 The Cavaliers showed little trouble in frustrating an Iowa State offense that routinely put up big points.  They forced 12 turnovers, or 17% of Iowa State's possessions.  Syracuse has been a sticky team, after being left out in most prognostications of who would make the tourney.  If Virginia can be as efficient as they were tonight, this should not be close.

 

The second most intriguing matchup, the Ducks will meet the Sooners for the first time in the Tourney since 1939.  The Ducks do well not letting teams get to the line, posting a stingy FT/FGA rate.  But they are not always great on closing out on the perimeter, and Buddy Hield will make them pay.  The Sooners boast the second best 3 point percentage in the nation.

Sweet 16 Charts

After a pretty exciting first few days, the tournament has settled back into a bit more predictability, with the only real surprise matchup of Syracuse and Gonzaga as teams into the double digits surviving (and its not exactly like these are mid major nobodies).  This means we get a lot of great matchups throughout the rest of the tournament, and everyone will be tested before advancing. 

 

I had this matchup at start the tournament,  and I think it will be a great game.  Both teams operate at a good pace, and they match up well statistically.  I've still got Duke with a 58% chance to win, but this one should be good.

 

The two surprise teams remaining, the Zags and Orangemen are another pair of evenly matched squads.  The Zags though have proven to be the better team in the tournament so far, completely dominating a very good Utah squad.

 

A match up of old blue bloods, the Tar Heels have been great the past month, and after a slow start against Florida Gulf Coast they pasted Providence with a 114.9 ORTG.  I still have them into the Finals, with Indiana coming off a pair of tough games.

 

A sigh of relief swept through Cyclone nation as they avoided getting sent home early again, easily beating the would be Cinderella UALR.  Virginia also had a big sigh of relief, as they saw Michigan State go out int he first round, leaving them the undisputed top seed in the region.  These two teams play different styles, with Virginia ranking 351st in adjusted temp, and Iowa State at 56th.   I think Virginia advances, largely due to their consistent shooting.

 

This is the most lopsided game remaining by the programs standards, with KU boasting a 62% chance to advance against the Terrapins.  KU though actually boasts a worse effective field goal percentage, but they get to the line far more often, which should help them march on.

 

Miami is a bit of a surprise to still be here, but they jumped all over Wichita State and then held on to advance.   This game should see some good offensive work, with both teams ranking in the top 15 for adjusted ORTG, and the Canes have faced a lot of tough competition with a Pythagorean SOS ranking third.  Nova though is on another level, especially defensively.

 

In what looks to be the most evenly contested game, the Irish will try to get past the Badgers who are flying high after their last second victory over a very good Xavier team.  The Badgers again get to the line better than their opponent, and allow fewer trips to the chairty stripe than the Irish.  Badgers advance in a very, very tight game. 

 

 The Aggies have no real weaknesses in their game, but they will have to take down Buddy Hield if they wish to continue their run.  Overall the Aggies match up well, with their only real weakness being an inexplicable sixty some percent free throw percent team.  The Sooners have more holes, but Hield posts a 66.6% true shooting rate, which should be enough again to get to the Elite 8

NCAA Mens Odds to the Final 4

 For each of the regions, I created a quick chart showing the teams odds of reaching the final four.  I'll add some charts for the Sweet 16 matchups that detail the actual matchup a little better, but I currently have KU, UNC, MSU and OU (sure, Duke is slightly favored, but I'm taking Buddy Hield to advance)

 

 

 

NFL Punters: Is there a difference

Watching the Broncos this season, one of the most oft heard complaints is about Britton Colquitt, the punter.  His average through the first fifteen weeks of the season was at 43.58 yards per punt, and Broncos fans were finding him lacking.  However, it bugged me that almost every qualifying punter in the league was averaging somewhere in the 40 + yards per punt region.  How much of difference can you truly glean from looking at the averages?

Using some data from the NFL Savant website, where they have gathered play by play data for the NFL this season, I pulled out every punt through week 15 and how far it traveled.  From there I computed the descriptives for each punter.  hen, performing an ANOVA test, I was able to conclude that there was in fact a difference amongst punter means.

ANOVA Results
Yardage
	Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
Between Groups	6578.996	31	212.226	2.749	.000
Within Groups	164029.928	2125	77.191
Total	170608.924	2156

 I also then tested for a difference in variances, ie whether or not the difference in means could be accounted for by the variance in their punts.  This was not the case though, as the Levene test gave us the inclination that punter to punter variance is the same

Test of Homogeneity of Variances
Yardage
Levene Statistic	df1	df2	Sig.
1.282	31	2125	.138

Followign this gives us that we needed to do some Post Hoc work to determine exactly where each punter falls in the hierarchy of the league.

Tier	Punter	Average
1		48.39
	J.HEKKER	48.39
2		47.93
	M.BOSHER	47.93
3		45.65
	K.HUBER	46
	P.O'DONNELL	43.95
	B.ANGER	45.9
	P.MCAFEE	47.81
	D.COLQUITT	45.71
	B.COLQUITT	43.58
	M.DARR	47.48
	R.QUIGLEY	43.66
	S.KOCH	47.84
	B.PINION	43.96
	M.SCIFRES	44.7
	T.WAY	45.59
	B.KERN	47.17
	C.JONES	45.75
	C.SCHMIDT	45.59
	R.ALLEN	45.65
	S.MARTIN	46.07
	T.MORSTEAD	44.94
	M.KING	44.27
	A.LEE	46.66
	B.NORTMAN	45.83
	D.JONES	47.41
	T.MASTHAY	43.68
	B.WING	44.84
	J.RYAN	45.82
	S.LECHLER	46.93
4		42.27
	D.BUTLER	42.37
	J.BERRY	42.19
	J.SCHUM	42.25
5		42.05
	J.LOCKE	42.05

The above table breaks down the Tukey test results.  There is a decent break down of punters in the league, with there being 5 different groupings.  However, much like place kickers where there are some very good, and some very bad players earning money in the league, a majority of them all fall together, with a bit of luck helping to determine a punt travelling either 45 or 43 yards on a play.

This of course is a fairly rudimentary analysis.  A punt that travels 35 yards might force a fair catch when one that goes 60 outkicks the coverage units and allows a big return.  IT would be interesting to see as well with more detailed data if some punters are sacrificing some distance for more control, like pinning in a returner on the sideline versus kicking it straight down the middle.

College Football Rankngs

After 5 weeks of play, its time for preseason projections to be removed from the program's system.  Team's are who they are now, no longer can fans be buyoed by the small sample size of games and plays. 

Top 10:

1. Alabama
2. USC
3. Oklahoma
4. Michigan
5. Ole Miss
6. Boise State
7. Stanford
8. Georgia
9. Baylor
10. Texas A&M

The only two here in the Top 10 that I really have any issue with are Boise and Georgia.  Boise I think is sneaking in by virtue of blowing out a bad Virginia team, and following it up by blowing out Hawaii.  Georgia is a very dangerous team, but Lambert has been a mixed bag.  When the game has been close, he's been quite good completing 67% of his passes for over 8 yards per attempt.  But he's also only thrown for more than 150 yards once this season, and when his team really needed a great performance against Bama he fell very flat. 

The Bottom 10:

1. North Texas
2. Georgia State
3. UTEP
4. New Mexico State
5. Wyoming
6. Kansas
7. Charolotte
8. Old Dominion
9. Idaho
10. South Alabama

Both of the bottom two schools are currently rated as worse than an average FCS opponent.How far the Mean Green have fallen.  In 2013 this team was able to average more than 30 points a game, and play solid defense.  This year they gave up 62 points to Iowa, and are currently averaging just .216 points per play.  I'm very disappointed in Georgia State.  I really thought this fledgling program could take a bit of a step forward, but a loss to an FCS school after dropping the opener to FBS newcomer Charlotte has doomed this campaign to never reaching the 3 win mark.

College football Over and Under Achievers So far

So, I really should post more.  However, life continues to get in the way, as work schedules and house moving have conspired to keeping my normally free weekends quite packed.  I have however carved out enough time to look through some of the programs ratings, and see how far some teams are from the preseason projected rating, for better or for worse.

At the Top:

1. Air Force
2. UNLV
3. MTSU
4. Boston College
5. Ole Miss'

Most of these teams are playing much better than the program had predicted them to be, which is most of them were supposed to be pretty dreadful instead of slightly above average.The Falcons have certainly looked like a very solid team in the first three weeks, crushing FCS Morgan State, and running away from San Jose State.  However, it was probably the absolute stuffing of Michigan State's run game that has brought the most shock, as Sparty managed just 1.8 yards per carry and suffered 8 tackles for loss to the Falcons surprisingly stingy defense.  UNLV is really a surprise on this list, but its mostly because the program expected them to be god awful, and they've only been miserable.  The small sample size is also probably helping them with that 80-8 win over Idaho State surpassing what they should have done against an FCS school.  Ole Miss is here largely for beating Alabama (predicted National Champion) handily.

Those at the bottom:

1.  Oregon
2. North Texas
3. Washington State
4. New Mexico State
5. Georgia State

 As Bill Connelly mentioned in his article, Oregon's defense has yet to stop anybody.  The offense is averaging an acceptable .443 points per play (only good enough for 45th in the nation), while ranking 108th by allowing .543.  North Texas has the distinction of being one of the five teams rated worse than an FCS school (on a neutral site, an FCS school would be favored), and is the second biggest underachiever by just a small margin.  Wazzu actually lost to an FCS school, at home this year, and Georgia State opened the season by dropping a game to FBS newcomer Charolotte.  That loss is really disappointing, since I had Georgia State going over 2.5 wins this year, and its going to be tough to get it now.