48 teams down, the Sweet 16 remain
03/25/2008
Paulsen Home / Sports Channel / Bullz-Eye Home
With a newborn at home, I’m supposed to be on paternity leave, but mother and baby are doing well so I have some time to put together a quick recap of the first weekend of action as it relates to my picks from a week ago. If you followed those picks, chances are you’re doing pretty well in your pool. Yahoo says that my picks are currently in the 86th percentile, which puts us right in the thick of things. Moreover, all four of our Final Four picks -- North Carolina, Kansas, UCLA and Texas -- are still alive, along with six of our Elite Eight picks. Duke and Georgetown blew their games against West Virginia and Davidson, respectively, but those losses don’t hurt us too much.
At this point, I’m really regretting two picks. First, I went with the hot team (Pittsburgh) over the superior Points Per Shot (PPS) team (Michigan State) and it cost me a win. Also, I chose to go with Georgetown over Wisconsin in a potential Sweet 16 matchup despite Wisconsin’s Sagarin advantage, and it came back to bite me. The Badgers are still playing while the Hoyas are sitting at home. We could lose some ground if Wisconsin moves on.
Oddly enough, the Drake and Clemson Sweet 16 picks don’t hurt us because the #12 and #13 seeds won both games in those pods, so no one is really getting any bracket points there. I doubt too many people still have Western Kentucky and Villanova alive in their brackets.
For those who aren’t keeping count (and I hope that’s most of you), teams with a Sagarin rating advantage of two or more points are 31-7 (82%) thus far in the tournament. That’s not quite as good as last year (86%), but it’s still nothing to sneeze at. In games where I used the seeding to pick the winner (because the Sagarin rating was within two points), my picks went 2-1. In games where I used PPS, my picks went 2-2, though had I gone with the Spartans, it would have given PPS a 3-2 advantage. Next year, I may try to tweak that PPS based on the team’s strength of schedule. Lastly, I used location to pick two games, Davidson over Gonzaga and Stanford over Marquette, and both were winners. For that reason, I regret not taking Mississippi State over Oregon (which was played in Little Rock, favoring the Bulldogs).
For those of you in “second chance” brackets, here are my remaining picks using updated Sagarin numbers.
Elite Eight: North Carolina, Louisville, Kansas, Wisconsin, Memphis, Texas, UCLA, Xavier
I picked Tennessee last week but after looking like crap against American and a big scare against Butler, I have absolutely no confidence that they’ll beat Louisville. Meanwhile, the Xavier/West Virginia game should be a tight one, but I think the Musketeers have the inside presence to contain West Virginia’s frontline. I am worried about the Texas/Stanford pick, but since the game is in Houston, the Longhorns have a geographical advantage. The Lopez twins are a load inside for Stanford, however.
The rest of my picks remain unchanged. I still say that North Carolina, Kansas, Texas and UCLA will make it to the Final Four and that Kansas will beat UCLA in the Final. North Carolina is looking strong, but they’ll be tested against Washington State and in a potential matchup with Tennessee or Louisville. UCLA isn’t inspiring much confidence, but they’ve found ways to win the tight ones all season. (Besides, Josh Shipp is bound to make a shot one of these days, right?)
Send questions and comments to jpaulsen@bullz-eye.com.