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Peter Tiernan has been using stats to analyze March Madness for 22 years. He writes for CBSSports.com and has also contributed to ESPN.com and SI.com. His insights into the NCAA basketball tournament can help you build a better bracket.Sign-up questions? Click here.
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Pete:
Ready to roll. Chargers suk bad….time to move on to hoops!
Hi Pete, nice to see you back, looking forward to another fun year. surprises are already starting: Indiana/Butler
Pete, Good to be back, looking forward to another fun hoops season. Just curious if you plan on adding in some injury tracking information. Would really be helpful to see how a team’s performance (win/loss, offense/defensive effeciency) is affected when key players are in and out of the line-up.
Dan – I have never been able to get valid enough data going back far enough to draw any definitive conclusions about the impact of injuries. That said, I’m sure the loss of key players (like Fab Melo last year) has an impact on a team’s performance. Tell you what, if you come up with 10-15 teams that had key injuries heading into the tourney, I can do an analysis of those teams and see if they beat or fell short of seed expectations.
Thanks Pete, I noticed on Kenpom.com that he has a injury notice feature this year in the individual player section. I also noticed that ESPN’s BPI Index provides a breakdown of each teams games when key players are not playing. I don’t recall seeing this information on either of those sites last year. Definetly worth a look.
That will help for the regular season. The question is, what sort of influence does it have on tourney outcomes.
Pete, totally agree but knowing information when a key player is out and/or coming back into the line-up will help put the regular season effeciency #’s and the won/loss record into better context for predictive purposes heading into the tournament.
I see where you’re coming from, Dan. Agreed. I think about Duke…and their loss of Kelly, and the diminished abilities of Curry. Interesting point.
Doug Gottlieb (sp?) is always talking about “matchups”, has any statistical study been done to check what type of team matches up poorly against another?
40wnks – I did an analysis on head-to-head match-ups for toss-up games (opponents within 3 seeds of each other). Certain stats are better than others at indicating the winner. That’s as close as I’ve come to a study of head-to-head match-ups.
It sure seems like the referees affect the outcome in the Big 10 games more than other conferences. Is my perception skewed since I watch more Big 10 basketball as an alumni or is there anything to it? Keep up the good work!
I’m a Big Ten fan too (down in dreaded Ann Arbor). While I would agree that Big Ten reffing seems pretty atrocious, there have been some awful games lately. Last night’s Big East games were bad. That Charlotte debacle was ridiculous. My biggest problem is consistency. If it’s a foul in the first five minutes, it’s a foul in the last five minutes. And I hate ticky-tack calls out on the wings–while they beat the hell out of each other under the bucket.
Excellent site Pete!! Great to be back with you!
Sir Mirabella…you know that you never have to pay. BTW – just about to do three hours of “TV”–CBS Sports on-line content and CampusInsiders podcasts. Still need to get together. Your Gators are looking tough this year. They rate out as the most efficient team in the country. Their problem, though, is losing close games.