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March 14, 2012 - by Brandon Riff
***IMPORTANT NOTE*** This is an entry in our inaugural Stat Geek Idol contest. The opinions and predictions expressed below do not represent the views of TeamRankings.com, and are solely those of the author. This article was conceived of and written by Brandon Riff of Crotistics.
Looking back on brackets past is always a fun exercise. Inevitably, the thought that crosses everyone’s mind at some point is “What was I thinking?”
One particular instance that sticks out in my mind was my prediction of #5 seed Temple to make a run to the Elite Eight in2010. Sure, this meant that Temple would take down #1 seed Kentucky, who had won 32 regular season games and featured studs like John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, and Patrick Patterson. Kentucky was arguably the best team in the country, but I didn’t care. Let’s go Temple!
Temple faced a Cornell team in the first round that many were picking for an upset. I didn’t like them. Much of this stemmed from my time in Vegas in February of that year. I placed a bet on Cornell, who was a double digit favorite at 3-15 Penn. Obviously Cornell got blown out by 15, and it was their only conference loss that year. It wasn’t just about the bet, however. Temple had won an amazing 12 games on an opponent’s home floor. I thought this success would carry them at least to the Sweet 16. I wasn’t counting on Ryan Wittman draining 3-ball after 3-ball in my face. The lead ballooned to as much as 19 in the second half, and just like that, I had lost an Elite Eight team.
The memory of Cornell draining threes in the second half was burned into my mind. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that game, and when I fill out my bracket now, one of the biggest things I look for is how good a team is from behind the arc. Cornell eventually lost to Kentucky behind a 5 for 21 showing from 3. Of course that couldn’t be against Temple. Of course.
In my mind, I assumed that good 3 point shooting was correlated to tournament success, and I wanted to look at data to support this claim. I ended up stumbling upon something I didn’t initially intend to find.
As it turns out, being really good at 3 point shooting doesn’t have much correlation to tournament success. However, really bad 3 point shooting teams tend to fare very poorly in the tournament.
In the past 5 years, no team that has shot under 30% from 3 has won a game in the tournament. The graph below shows how teams that shoot under a certain 3 point % have performed in the tournament since 2007. It is pretty evident that the worse you shoot from 3, the lower your chances are of winning in March.
In fact, only 1 team that has shot under 33% from 3 has made the Elite Eight in the past 5 seasons. In other words, out of the 40 teams who made the Elite Eight since 2007, 39 of them shot better than 33% from behind the arc. The lone exception is Tennessee in 2010. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that they played a 14 seed in the second round. They did not advance to the Final Four.
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What does this mean for the 2012 tournament? Remarkably, there are a number of teams who shoot the long ball very poorly who are in the tournament this year. They are:
28.5% Alabama
29.5% Detroit
30.2% West Virginia
30.8% Western Kentucky
31.1% South Florida
31.1% Louisville
31.4% Norfolk State
32.5% Ohio State
32.7% Texas
32.8% New Mexico State
32.8% Mississippi Valley State
32.9% Notre Dame
I would seriously think twice about advancing any of these teams too far in my bracket. Pick Alabama and Detroit at your own risk. Now, this doesn’t mean that a team like Louisville or Ohio St. isn’t a Sweet 16 team, but if you are thinking about advancing them to the Final Four, I would advise against it. Choosing from 68 teams is difficult enough, but any edge you are able to gain over the others in your pool is big.
The popular saying goes “Live by the 3, die by the 3”, but apparently if you’re already dead, it’s very difficult to come back to life.
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