The goal in making this quiz was to compile a list of which teams have won many more or fewer games in the NCAA Tourney then you might expect them to have just by looking at how they were seeded each year. The question is, how many games should you expect, say, a #2 seed to win? Straight chalk would say 3, but is that accurate?
For a team's "expected" performance each year, I used the average performance by all teams with the same seed since 1985. For example, the 108 teams seeded #2 in that time period have collectively won 262 games, an average of 2.43 per team per year. So a #2 seed that won 4 games before losing in the Final Four has effectively performed 1.57 games better than the average #2 seed. Conversely, a #2 seed that was knocked out in the Round of 32 performed 1.43 games *below* average.
Each team's performance over all its tourney appearances was added up, and sorted by total difference to get the ranking shown here. A few minor technicalities:
-Play-in Games: Wins in play-in games/"first four" games count. Each team in a play-in game was given an expected win total equal to half the expected wins of a corresponding seed without a play-in, plus 0.5 (the chance of winning the play-in game itself). For example, the average #11 seed that made the "main" tourney has won 0.54 games. For the VCU/USC play-in game this year, each team was given an expected wins of (0.54/2)+0.5=0.77.
-I treated all #1 seeds as equal, ignoring the recent "overall #1 seeds" (the sample size would have been too small to get a good average performance).
-Games counted even if they were later vacated by the NCAA. |
MLB Teams
NFL Teams
NBA Teams
