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History suggests one of the No. 1 seeds revealed in the early NCAA Tournament bracket will win the title

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1 year ago

February 18, 2022

Every February since 2017, men’s college basketball gets a one-time-only peek behind the curtain to see what the NCAA Division I men’s basketball selection committee thinks about the best teams before we get to Selection Sunday.

That time comes again on Saturday, when CBS will air its annual in-season bracket of the 16 top teams according to the selection committee on the NCAA March Madness Men’s Bracket Preview. The show will begin at 12:30 p.m. ET. When we see all the No. 1, 2, 3 and 4 seeds unsheathed, we will be 22 days from Selection Sunday. Normally, this show happens 29 days from Selection Sunday, but as committee chair Tom Burnett told CBS Sports this week, with the NFL extending its season by one week, all parties thought it best to wait until after the Super Bowl to do this.

Will this be a permanent change to the college hoops calendar?

“We’re not quite sure yet what the future holds, that will certainly be for the committee moving forward after I depart,” Burnett, who is in his final season on the committee, told CBS Sports. “Three weeks is close, but we’ve got a lot of basketball left. I believe the count is near 750 games remaining in the regular season, and then we’ve got all the conference tournaments. So, a lot can change even if it’s just three weeks.”

That’s true, but the short history of this in-season bracket teaser has also proved informative with some accurate foreshadowing. The previous four times there has been an early reveal that later had an NCAA Tournament (2017-19, 2021), three of the four No. 1 seeds in February held the top line in March. (While there was no 2020 NCAA Tournament, the projections that year also kept this pattern.) Last year, Gonzaga, Baylor and Michigan held, while Ohio State dipped down to No. 2 come Selection Sunday.

Additionally, the four previous times the NCAA has done this (not accounting for 2020 when there was no tournament), one of the the four No. 1 seeds from February went on to win the national title.

2017

Early No. 1 seeds: Villanova, Kansas, Baylor and Gonzaga.
Actual No. 1 seeds: Villanova, Kansas, Gonzaga and North Carolina.
National champion: North Carolina

2018

Early No. 1 seeds: Virginia, Villanova, Xavier and Purdue
Actual No. 1 seeds: Virginia, Villanova, Xavier and Kansas
National champion: Villanova

2019

Early No. 1 seeds: Duke, Virginia, Tennessee and Gonzaga
Actual No. 1 seeds: Duke, Virginia, Gonzaga and North Carolina
National champion: Virginia

2020

Early No. 1 projected seeds: Baylor, Kansas, Gonzaga and San Diego State
Actual No. 1 seeds: No tournament (Baylor, Kansas and Gonzaga were projected No. 1s)
National champion: No tournament

2021

Early No. 1 projected seeds: Gonzaga, Baylor, Michigan and Ohio State
Actual No. 1 seeds: Gonzaga, Baylor, Michigan and Illinois
National champion: Baylor

CBS Sports Bracketology Expert Jerry Palm projects Auburn, Gonzaga, Arizona and Kansas to be on the four top lines of the bracket. So, this is good news for fans of those programs. Because we are one week closer than usual to Selection Sunday for this show, the chances at least three of those teams maintain their elite seeding is even better.

“As we’ve gotten into conference play, we’ve had some results, teams are not going to be perfect they’re going to lose games and such and take that into account and, again, remember the entire body of work,” Burnett said.

The committee considered “six to seven programs” for the No. 1 seeds, and Burnett said contingencies were in place for Thursday night and Friday night results to adjust the bracket if necessary. (The committee met in person this week in Indianapolis and concluded their meetings on Thursday afternoon. For a refresher on seeding and bracketing principles, read this.) Overall, Burnett said “20 or so” teams were considered for the top 16 lines and it took three seed scrubs to get there.

This is the fourth season of the NCAA’s NET rankings, which replaced the RPI (now a defunct/extinct metric, per the NCAA). As college hoops fans know, the NET has become the primary metric referenced across college hoops. But is it too emphasized by the media? Burnett said yes.

“It allows the committee to certainly maybe not make all of our decisions, but based some of the things we do on that,” Burnett said of the NET. “On the team sheet we’re looking at KenPom, we’re looking at BPI, we’re looking at everything that might be out there. And then, we’re reading everything. … I’m seeing what other voices talk about [in] our sport. We’re taking all of that in, and certainly the NET plays a role in what we do as a committee, but it’s not everything. And I will tell you certainly there’s no circumstances where NET wins the day. NET makes us look at other things. That’s my experience in the committee room. Why is their NET so high? Why are they so good in the predictives vs. the results metrics?”

It’s an important distinction, as the committee has six metrics on team sheets it refers to. Four of those metrics are predictive in nature: NET, KenPom.com, Jeff Sagarin’s ratings and ESPN’s BPI. The two others — Strength of Record and the Kevin Pauga Index; KPI for short — are strictly résumé-based and are not influenced by team efficiency, scoring margin or any predictive qualities. Burnett emphasized how crucial all of these data points are to committee members now.

The eye test is not nearly as influential in discussion as it once was, according to Burnett.

“We’re talking about the full body of work,” he said. “Anything starting in November all the way through the conference tournaments, and that will factor in to what we do. But there’s a lot of conversation about why metrics shape up the way they do, what does this number mean, and we may not get to all the final answers, but it’s certainly a big part of the conversation.

“I think that’s what our membership wanted us to do a few years ago was to bring that discussion more into the committee room, get away from what’s used to be known as the eye test and just looking at someone and saying, ‘They’re a good team,’ or ‘maybe they’re not a good team. They’re in the bracket, they’re not in the bracket.’ We certainly don’t want to do that. We want to be able to back up the information we share and reveal, whether it’s this weekend or it’s the real thing in three weeks.”

One significant change with this year’s committee is its expansion from 10 to 12 people. For more than five decades the NCAA selection committee in men’s basketball had only 10 representatives. Two more were added in an effort to diversify the panel, though the NCAA still is only anointing conference commissioners and athletic directors to the committee. No former coaches or analytic experts or media members or anyone from different walks of life has been considered yet. Can that change? Will it?

“Our committee has a say in kind of how we’re formulated but we don’t make up our own rules,” Burnett said. “There’s a nominating committee in the Division I structure, certainly there’s a Board of Directors that has final oversight of things. There are other voices that get involved, and when you get a mandate from the Board of Directors down … I don’t know that the basketball committee talked a whole lot about outside voices coming into the committee room, but again, at the end of the day we’re not quite sure that’s our decision.”

Burnett said the committee continues to hear from coaches on this issue, but added that the committee isn’t at that point where they’re interested in diversifying further.

“So far there’s been some comfort in how the committee’s are structured,” Burnett said.

It might be best to find some discomfort and continue to update how the committee forms its brain trust. The College Football Playoff committee — and its powers-that-be, who are vulnerable to many criticisms — at least hasn’t pigeonholed itself to only having ADs and commissioners on its roster.

As for the games and the operations of this year’s men’s tournament, CBS Sports recently talked with NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt, who said, “We’ve gone back to the original playbook. This year’s tournament is being planned and executed like it was pre-pandemic. And that’s not to say that we’re not looking at adjustments that need to be made. We certainly are.”

Said Burnett: “What’s different this year is really an effort to get the tournament back on track, get it back to its course of 14 different sites, starting in Dayton. … We’ve got the policies and procedures in place, we know how to put tournament together. We know how to get people excited, or maybe angry at us, for the matchups and all of that that are ahead. … Putting it back on course at the sites that we know it to be at is the main focus here and I think we’re getting close to getting that accomplished.”

The NCAA Tournament is scheduled to get underway on the men’s side on March 15 in Dayton, Ohio. Selection Sunday is March 13.

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NBA Finals Takeaways: Undrafted players shine as Heat tie series vs. Nuggets

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29 mins ago

June 5, 2023

nigemord@gmail.com

Which trend would hold? The Denver Nuggets remaining undefeated at home in the playoffs or the underdog Miami Heat being the team that won’t die?

That was the question as the NBA Finals teed up Game 2 on Sunday in Denver, after the Nuggets won comfortably in Game 1.

There were plenty of other subplots: would the Heat figure out how to at least make something difficult for Nuggets star Nikola Jokic? Would Jimmy Butler return to ‘playoff Jimmy’ form? Would the Heat role players show up? Would Jamal Murray keep doing his convincing Steph Curry impression?

Well, Miami won 111-108 as Jokic finished with 41 points on 16-of-28 shooting but was limited to just four assists as the Heat were more judicious in their double teams and took away easy passing lanes.

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Butler didn’t exactly tear it up for most of the game, but he was a willing playmaker, helping find looks for his teammates. In the fourth quarter, he looked for his own offence more as he scored eight of his 21 points down the stretch while adding nine assists.

Meanwhile, Murray looked relatively ordinary as the Canadian’s streak of 25 points or more in the post-season ended at six games as he finished with 18 points and 10 assists. He did hit big three as part of the Nuggets’ 11-2 run late in the fourth that helped Denver turn a 12-point Miami lead to a one-possession game, but Murray missed a long three on the final possession that would have sent the game into overtime.

The Nuggets take the series to Miami for Game 3 on Wednesday after losing at home for the first time in 10 playoff starts, the series evened at 1-1.

Some takeaways.

Would Playoff Jimmy please stand up?

Butler has alternately looked like the best player in the world during these playoffs — he averaged 37.6 points a game in Miami’s five-game upset of the No. 1 seed Milwaukee Bucks in the first round — and just a guy.

A pretty good guy, but a long way from the second coming of Kobe Bryant.

Heading into Game 2, Butler – who scored just 13 points on 14 shots in the opener – was averaging just 20.7 points on 39-per-cent shooting over his previous six starts this post-season.

Not surprisingly, the Heat were just 2-4 over that stretch.

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There were no signs Butler was going to change course in the early going. On possession after possession, the Nuggets would funnel Butler to the baseline, content to take their chances with him dribbling through the paint without even looking at the rim.

Normally it’s a compliment to say a player of Butler’s calibre wasn’t forcing anything, but not in this case as the Heat likely would have been happy to their star try to put his imprint on the game. Instead, when Butler hit traffic he’d make a harmless pass to the corner, the Nuggets would rotate and not much would happen.

It wasn’t like Butler was a non-factor: he finished the first half with 11 points on 4-of-9 shooting to go along with four assists, but in my view the Heat need Butler to be creating offense for himself if they’re going to keep up with the Nuggets juggernaut.

In the third quarter with the game separated by a three-point field goal, Butler got out on a break but fumbled the ball away when chased down by Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. It’s just one play but not one that Butler would have made a month ago.

But Butler began to heat up in the fourth as a three and a three-point play gave the Heat a six-point lead that they stretched to 12. The Heat hung on from there.

The great undrafted

The collection of undrafted role players the Heat have come to rely on to round out their lineup in support of Butler and Bam Adebayo came to play.

Miami jumped out to a 10-2 lead as Max Strus – 0-of-10 from three in Game 1 – hit a pair of quick triples early, taking advantage of some lax Nuggets defence.

Meanwhile, Gabe Vincent hit a pair of jumpers and showed why he’s been the right choice by Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra to supplant Kyle Lowry as a starter.

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As the Nuggets chipped into Miami’s lead and then threatened to run away with things in the second quarter, it was Vincent who kept the Heat in touch after Denver cut the lead to three by the end of the first quarter and pushed in front by double figures in the second. Vincent hit a big three that kept the Nuggets’ lead at 10 and then a steal and three-point play helped the Heat come back from down 15.

Vincent wasn’t the only Heat role player to find a way to contribute early. Lowry hit a three as did Kevin Love, who started for an ill Caleb Martin.

Strus finished the first half with 14 points and Vincent 12. But the Heat still trailed at half, 57-51.

They didn’t stop there. It was Vincent’s fourth three that gave Miami its first lead in the fourth quarter and by that time Duncan Robinson – another member of the Heat’s undrafted brigade – was making plays too, nailing threes and driving to the rim as well for 10 points in a quick burst.

A Martin triple – his first field goal of the game – with just under four minutes left gave Miami a 12-point lead. In all, 50 of Miami’s points came from undrafted players.

Rocky Mountain Monsters

Jokic and Murray are at their best when playing together and working in concert to create scoring opportunities seemingly at will. Their cat-and-mouse, two-man game is likely the best in the NBA, with Murray doing a reasonable impression of Steph Curry and Jokic playing the role of Draymond Green if the Golden State Warriors centre could shoot better than 40 per cent from three and score 30 points a game at will.

Heading into the series, ESPN.com reported that Murray and Jokic had created 24.5 points per game directly from handoffs and on-ball screens when working in tandem, more than any other duo in the past five years. But each player can lift the team alone, too.

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In the first quarter, it was Jokic turning up the offence as the rest of his teammates were slow to get into the game and it seemed like Miami might put the Nuggets in a deep hole early. He was 5-of-9 in the first quarter – Jokic took just one shot in the first quarter of Game 1 – while the rest of the Nuggets were 5-of-12 and Murray was 0-of-3.

But with Jokic on the bench in the second quarter, Murray began to heat up. In a two-minute stretch early in the second quarter, Murray hit a triple in transition, made a steal and scored a three-point play when he was fouled at the rim on his dunk and then hit an impossible fadeaway jumper over Adebayo at the end of the shot clock to put Denver up 12.

Not a lot of teams even have one player that can reliably raise their game in the post-season. Denver – in a sense – has three: Jokic and Murray together and then each of them on their own.

Murray’s playoff scoring average is 8.5 points more per game than his regular season average, the most of any player with at least 20 post-season games played, per ESPN.com. Second on that list is Jokic, who averages 7.1 points more per game in the playoffs than the regular season.

But give credit to Heat for adjusting. They stayed home on Denver’s shooters, taking away much of Jokic’s playmaking options and turning him into a scorer. By playing so much zone, a lot of Murray and Jokic’s two-man game was minimized — reflected by Murray’s reduced scoring and Jokic’s limited playmaking opportunities.

Random Jokic appreciation

There are almost no words to fully capture how good Jokic is at basketball. Whether he’s the best in the game now (I think so) or will end up one of the best of all time (he’s already on his way) is almost pointless to debate.

But what’s not an argument is how fun he is to watch figure out plays on the fly. In various sequences in the third quarter, he backed down Heat centre Adebayo – a perennial all-defence candidate – eventually winning a protracted, twisty, physical game of one-on-one with a delicate floater at the rim.

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A moment later, he surveyed the floor and calmly drained a triple and why not? He’s shooting 47 per cent from three in the playoffs.

Adebayo then said ‘not again’ and fouled Jokic on an overly aggressive close-out, sending him to the line for three points.

Then Jokic picked up a loose ball just over half, winning a race for it against Vincent, and won another twisty, turny game of one-on-one against a point guard in space, finishing with another floater.

His most prominent skill is passing, but Jokic’s real genius is he can beat you (on offence, at any rate) any way he decides he needs to. He scored in the post with fundamental jump hooks, he scored ambling up the floor going end-to-end as the world’s biggest, slowest, best point guard.

He scored 18 points in the third quarter as Denver started the fourth leading 83-75 and it was a joy to watch.

And some love for Lowry

The former Toronto Raptors star isn’t worth the $28 million the Heat are paying him this season or the $29 million his contract calls for next season, a big reason why it’s widely expected that the Heat will try to use his contract in a blockbuster trade – possibly including Tyler Herro – to add another star this off-season.

But it’s not like Lowry can’t play. He still can make plays that only someone with his combination of hustle and IQ would even think about: plowing into a crowd of Nuggets on a missed free throw to get his hands on the ball, allowing the Heat to score a much-needed three, or an expert pocket pass to Adebayo for a lay-up, or some clutch threes.

Lowry finished with nine points, added three assists and was on the floor and +11 in the fourth quarter.