NCAA TOurnament Regional Predictions

Another round of March Madness is upon us.  I've got charts for each team's chances to advance to the Final Four for their region.

 

Out of the East its no surprise Villanova has the best chance to advance.  They've been the programs top team almost all year and they dominated conference opponents all season.  They do face some steep challenges in WVU or Wichita State, both teams that rank in Ken Po's top 25.  They also have to deal with Purdue possibly, but the Wildcats should make it to another Final Four.

 

KU is the 1 seed, but an uneven season has them with just a 9.6% chance to reach the Final Four in the region.  The program still loves Auburn despite tehir late season struggles, but I am pretty confident Duke can get past Michigan State and get to the Final Four here, largely due to their ability to not give up freebies.  Just 22% of opponents Field Goals generate a free throw attempt, second best in the nation.

 

Virginia is an overwhelming favorite, but that is in danger thanks to an injury to Deandre Hunter should have expectations tempered some.  Virginia is the slowest tempo school in the nation, so losing their fourth best scorer is going to chip away at that facade.  If they stumble, Cincinnati has a good chance to advance thanks to Tennessee being the best team in their half of the bracket. 

 

Xavier has possibly the smoothest chance to get to the Final Four, but they'll face a tough matchup against UNC.The Tar Heels clean up the offensive glass, and are a seasoned team.  Xavier does rank 32nd in FT/FGA, and they don't give up freebies ranking 12th at just 24.8%.  Ohio State is a popular pick to get upset early, but the Buckeyes are one of the best shooting teams in the country (55% on all 2 point attempts).  Look for them to possibly be the best upset chance against Xavier.

NCAA 2018 First 4 Games Predictions

This should actually be a fairly competitive set of games to start the tournament off with.  While Radford should handle LIU-Brooklyn, it should still be a fairly close game.  UCLA and ASU both were huge bubble teams, and it'll be important for the PAC 12 to have both of them get wins.  They face tough competition though. 

Team 1	Team 2	Margin	Team 1 Chance to Win
Long Island	Radford	Radford by 5	32.50%
St. Bonaventure	UCLA	St Bonaventure by 1	52.50%
NC Central	Texas Southern	Texas Southern by 3	62.60%
Arizona State	Syracuse	Arizona State by 1	51.50%

Star Wars Armada: Fixing the Station Assault Objective

A couple weeks back Party Potato of the FFG forums posted a topic detailing the popularity of different objectives.  He had garnered the data from the Armada Warlords builder, so it is of course a bit unofficial.  However, there is some good firm data as well as plenty of anecdotal evidence that some of the new objectives FFG introduced with the Correlian Conflict have been duds.

One that needs some real tweaking is Station Assault.  I've written before about this objective, and its still ne of my favorites to try and get to work.  The issue is that far too often the first player will wipe out a station quickly and end up completely negating the second player's advantage.  And many times end up being able to pop both quickly and actually garner and 80 point lead over the second player.  This is likely going to be true moving forward with Cymoon ISDs being able to pretty reliably put out 7+ damage at long range.Squadron wings could always do damage, but now a Sloane list could potentially remove a station in one activation.

So how can we update the objective to bring it more into line with the better Assault objectives, like Most Wanted and Advanced Gunnery?  The most obvious choice is to remove the points scored for the first player. The first player basically starts in an 80 point hole, but can pull a bit more even by removing at least one station.  A second straightforward option is to use at least one armed station card instead.  3 extra hull is nothing to sneer at, and the station being able to trade back a few blows would allow the second player to take advantage of the choice a bit more.  To balance, the stations might need to fire at the start of the round, like how Planetary Ion Cannon works.

The objective could also be changed to allow the stations to be deployed closer together and other obstacles.  Being able to keep them closer to some other obstacles could obstruct more shots and help to force enemy ships to maneuver more to get into a good firing position or open themselves to more fire from the second player.

Perhaps a balance of the first two suggestions would be the best to bring this objective forward.  Maybe drop the points to 30 points a station, and make one armed.  That would at least make it playable going forward with the other Assault objectives.

NBA Power Rankings March 12th

The Jazz, Blazers and Sixers all continue to make moves up post the deadline.  The Jazz have won 6 in a row, and even though the quality of opponent has been bad, they've soundly beaten those teams.  The Celtics and Thunder both righted themselves a bit this week as well, moving back up but still trending negative right now.  If next week both teams are able to get back to single digit downturns we'll know they've turned a corner.  The Warriors drop a couple of spots largely due to so many injuries this past week, leading to a pair of spotty losses. 

Team	Rank Pre Deadline	Rank Post Deadline	Difference
Houston Rockets	1	1	0
Toronto Raptors	2	2	0
Golden State Warriors	3	5	-2
Boston Celtics	4	14	-10
Oklahoma City Thunder	5	17	-12
Minnesota Timberwolves	6	11	-5
Philadelphia 76ers	7	4	3
San Antonio Spurs	8	16	-8
Washington Wizards	9	12	-3
Utah Jazz	10	3	7
Indiana Pacers	11	15	-4
Denver Nuggets	12	9	3
Portland Trail Blazers	13	6	7
Detroit Pistons	14	22	-8
Los Angeles Clippers	15	10	5
Cleveland Cavaliers	16	20	-4
Milwaukee Bucks	17	18	-1
New Orleans Pelicans	18	13	5
Charlotte Hornets	19	21	-2
Miami Heat	20	7	13
Dallas Mavericks	21	19	2
Los Angeles Lakers	22	8	14
New York Knicks	23	28	-5
Memphis Grizzlies	24	30	-6
Brooklyn Nets	25	24	1
Orlando Magic	26	23	3
Atlanta Hawks	27	27	0
Chicago Bulls	28	26	2
Phoenix Suns	29	29	0
Sacramento Kings	30	25	5

NCAA Tournament Power Ranks

A quick post here going through the teams that made the tourney and how they all stack up.  It feels like pretty much every team got where they needed to be.  I'm still not certain how you can take OU over USC or St. Mary's, but the tournament committee is going to do what they do.

Team	Rank
Villanova	1
Virginia	2
Duke	3
Auburn	4
Purdue	5
North Carolina	6
Michigan St	7
Cincinnati	8
Xavier	9
Ohio St	10
Tennessee	11
Clemson	12
Texas Tech	13
Kansas	14
Kentucky	15
West Virginia	16
Wichita St	17
Butler	18
TCU	19
Gonzaga	20
Michigan	21
Arizona	22
Houston	23
Florida	24
Nevada	25
Rhode Island	26
Seton Hall	27
Florida St	28
Arkansas	29
Virginia Tech	30
NC State	31
Creighton	32
Texas A&M	33
Kansas St	34
Alabama	35
Miami FL	36
Oklahoma	37
Syracuse	38
Arizona St	39
Texas	40
Missouri	41
St Bonaventure	42
UCLA	43
Davidson	44
Loyola-Chicago	45
Providence	46
Buffalo	47
San Diego St	48
S Dakota St	49
Murray St	50
New Mexico St	51
UNC Greensboro	52
Marshall	53
Bucknell	54
Georgia St	55
Montana	56
SF Austin	57
Col Charleston	58
Penn	59
Iona	60
Wright St	61
UMBC	62
Radford	63
Lipscomb	64
CS Fullerton	65
Long Island	66
TX Southern	67
NC Central	68

NBA Heat Map March 10th

Spending today watching the college game, but needed to get the Heat Map done for the weekend.  The Jazz continue to win by stifling defense, and the Grizzlies continue to sink into oblivion.  The Warriors were the hottest shooting team over their last 7, while the Bulls and Pistons were at the bottom there.

Team	Wins	ORtg	Drtg	Assist_Ratio	OREB	DREB	REB	TO	TS	Pace	PIE
Memphis Grizzlies	-1.82	-1.45	0.07	0.08	-0.08	1.90	-0.30	0.73	-1.38	-0.25	-1.31
New York Knicks	-1.30	-0.18	2.28	-0.08	0.94	-0.47	-0.48	-0.82	-0.94	-0.11	-1.47
Phoenix Suns	-1.30	-1.17	0.64	-0.57	-0.77	-0.47	-0.71	0.04	-1.05	2.02	-1.16
Atlanta Hawks	-0.79	-2.23	-0.22	-1.33	-1.23	0.00	-1.25	2.12	-1.27	2.14	-1.67
Brooklyn Nets	-0.79	0.20	0.77	1.33	-0.38	-0.25	-0.85	-0.19	0.18	0.32	-0.41
Charlotte Hornets	-0.79	0.34	1.58	0.03	-1.26	0.52	-1.71	-1.63	0.07	-0.17	-0.85
Chicago Bulls	-0.79	-1.72	0.50	-0.79	-0.38	0.31	-0.30	0.62	-1.57	0.05	-1.31
Dallas Mavericks	-0.79	-0.66	0.21	-0.03	-1.77	-0.81	-2.02	-0.36	-0.42	0.23	-0.81
Detroit Pistons	-0.79	-0.79	-0.08	-0.79	1.42	0.39	0.60	0.04	-1.57	-1.24	-0.92
Milwaukee Bucks	-0.79	-0.43	0.27	-0.79	0.01	-2.11	-0.94	0.85	-0.04	-0.90	-0.39
Orlando Magic	-0.79	-0.84	-0.20	0.57	-1.95	-0.47	-1.43	0.44	-0.12	-1.13	-0.50
San Antonio Spurs	-0.79	0.25	0.44	0.24	0.19	-1.42	-0.39	-1.29	-0.23	0.61	0.18
Cleveland Cavaliers	-0.27	0.63	1.02	0.13	0.28	0.35	0.20	-1.40	-0.08	-0.36	-0.35
Denver Nuggets	-0.27	1.06	1.45	0.95	0.37	-1.85	-0.35	0.73	1.55	0.55	0.29
Minnesota Timberwolves	-0.27	0.77	0.44	-1.01	-0.05	0.13	-0.03	-1.23	0.33	0.17	0.12
Philadelphia 76ers	-0.27	0.04	0.21	1.00	0.67	0.18	0.83	1.42	0.48	-0.31	0.07
Sacramento Kings	-0.27	-0.77	0.33	-0.79	-0.11	-0.73	-1.03	-0.54	-1.12	-1.40	-0.83
Indiana Pacers	0.24	-1.15	-1.20	-1.99	0.67	0.44	0.83	0.91	-1.16	-0.88	-0.04
Oklahoma City Thunder	0.24	-0.41	-0.22	-1.50	1.75	-0.12	0.92	1.19	-0.60	0.38	-0.48
Washington Wizards	0.24	0.07	-0.47	1.39	1.42	0.91	1.64	1.19	0.14	-1.28	0.53
LA Clippers	0.75	1.02	0.23	-0.14	0.37	0.09	1.33	-0.25	1.11	1.56	0.73
Los Angeles Lakers	0.75	0.88	-0.02	0.57	-0.35	0.13	0.33	0.04	1.18	1.25	0.53
Miami Heat	0.75	0.88	-0.64	0.24	1.81	-0.56	0.83	-0.65	0.07	-0.44	1.06
Boston Celtics	1.27	1.85	-0.16	0.95	0.04	0.52	1.01	-1.29	1.59	-0.40	1.41
Golden State Warriors	1.27	1.24	-0.99	2.15	-1.35	-0.73	-0.12	-0.07	2.00	0.28	1.70
Houston Rockets	1.27	1.17	-0.60	-1.06	0.58	0.13	0.74	0.62	1.55	-0.37	0.91
New Orleans Pelicans	1.27	0.52	-0.02	0.95	-1.44	-0.30	-0.48	-1.17	0.70	1.88	0.69
Utah Jazz	1.27	-0.75	-3.04	0.57	-0.47	2.07	1.55	1.54	-0.04	-1.38	2.07
Portland Trail Blazers	1.78	0.65	-1.49	-1.33	0.94	2.50	1.55	-0.82	-0.08	0.14	0.84
Toronto Raptors	1.78	0.99	-1.09	1.06	0.13	-0.30	0.02	-0.77	0.70	-0.96	1.37