Does CompassRed Know Basketball?
By: Dan Barlow
Here at CompassRed and The Lab, we decided to have a low stakes bracket challenge for NCAA march madness, eleven submitted brackets. Like any group of brackets, some were in tatters after a few hours of tournament play and some left you wondering if the author had insider information.
Where we were right:
While the tournament is nicknamed “March Madness”, the madness generally does not extend to the championship. The winner is usually (77%) either a 1 seed or a 2 seed. Knowing this information, 9/11 picked a 1 or 2 seed to win the entire tournament. The most common correct picks were Gonzaga (8/11) to win the west, and 8/11 picked Baylor to win the south.
Biggest Bracket Buster:
While two number one seeds ended up playing in the final, all of our brackets were busted by Christian Schools. The second most popular pick to be in the final, Illinois, was sent packing by Sister Jean and the rest of Loyola Chicago. However, our very own Bob Dawes saw his bracket evaporate by 5pm the first day as Oral Roberts beat his eventual champion, Ohio State in an upset only our Pat Strickler saw coming. Honorable mention goes to UCLA as they beat the two most common picks to come out of the East, Michigan and Alabama.
Why didn’t Gonzaga complete the perfect season?:
The majoritarian view throughout the pool was that Gonzaga would complete the perfect season, and either Baylor or Illinois would lose in the final. Then Baylor went up 9-0 and decided to never let Gonzaga get close. As the three point shot attempts have increased, the consequences for not making them have as well. Gonzaga shot a cold 29.4% from three, well below their season average of 36.8% as Baylor proceeded to make 43.5% of their three point attempts, up from their season average of 41.3%. Oh, and Baylor shooting 18% better than their regular season average from the free throw line (88.9% vs 70.8%) sealed the deal on Gonzaga as they fouled in the second half.
So does CompassRed Know basketball?:
Our basketball knowledge is about average. Each person picked an average of 1.7 final four teams correctly, if one had picked all one seeds, they would have picked two correctly.