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NCAA Breakdown, Making 2011 Final Four Short List March 01, 2011 by The Gaming Today’s Ted Sevransky
History shows us many things about what it takes to be a champion. I write this article every year, and every year, I have been able to identify the eventual NCAA national champion among my elite level teams.
These are the last 13 NCAA champions and the team’s they beat in the title game: Kentucky over Utah in ’98, UConn over Duke in ’99, Michigan St over Florida in 2000, Duke over Arizona in ’01, Maryland over Indiana in ’02, Syracuse over Kansas in ’03, UConn over Georgia Tech in ’04, North Carolina over Illinois in ’05, Florida over UCLA in ’06, Florida over Ohio State in ’07, Kansas over Memphis in ’08, North Carolina over Michigan State in ’09 and Duke over Butler last year.
All 13 champions had very specific abilities, track record and statistical profile that allowed them to go all the way. In Part 1 of this article, I’ll take a look at that statistical profile and make a ‘short list’ of potential NCAA champs. In Part 2 (next week), I’ll go through that ‘short list’ team by team, eliminating them one by one until we reach the last team standing.
Not to brag, but I’ve nailed the winner of the NCAA tournament three times in the last four years, correctly predicting Florida in ’07, Kansas in ’08 and North Carolina in ’09. I did NOT predict Duke last year.
Past predictions do not necessarily indicate future success, but I’ll stand by my track record in this article. Remember, as always, this article gets written at the very beginning of March. That’s before the regular season is over for the major conferences, before the conference tournaments, before the seedings are announced and before a single tournament game has been played.
Cinderella’s have reached the championship game. Florida in 2000, Indiana in 2002 and last year’s Butler team stand out as the three teams that were not among the top 16 seeds in the tournament but were still good or lucky enough to make it all the way.
But those Cinderella’s have been unable to seal the deal – the eventual champion has been seeded no lower than 3 every single year since 1997, when Arizona won it all as a 4 seed. You’ll have to go all the way back to 1988 for a real longshot, when Larry Brown guided Kansas to a title as a 6. And, 18 of the last 21 national champions have been 1 or 2 seeds.
To earn that type of a seed, the eventual champion must have been an elite level team all year. None of the last 13 champions had more than seven losses. To win the Big Dance, teams have to be better than good, or even very good. Winning six straight games over three weekends requires greatness, and great teams don’t lose more than 7 in a season.
Each of the past 13 champions was from one of the six ‘major’ conferences. The mid-majors tend to measure success with Sweet 16 berths, not Final Four trips. We have seen several exceptions to that rule, like Butler’s string of upsets last year to reach the title game as a Horizon League squad.
George Mason enjoyed an amazing run five years ago from the Colonial Athletic Conference. Memphis made the championship game from Conference USA in 2008 and Utah made it from the WAC in 1998 (at the time; in the pre-Mountain West Conference era), but those are clearly the exceptions, not the rule.
Basically, if a team is not from the Big East, ACC, Big 10, Big 12, SEC or PAC-10, they aren’t facing enough tough competition on a nightly basis to get them ready for an extended tournament run. Sorry San Diego State, BYU, Temple, Xavier, Utah State or George Mason. Those teams are not going to make my ‘potential champions’ list, even though they’ve managed to crack the Top 25 and have legitimate Sweet 16 potential.
Using just the seven losses, and major conference criteria alone, we can narrow the list of potential NCAA tournament winners down to the following group of 18 teams: Duke, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Louisville, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin, Kansas, Texas, Texas A&M, Missouri, Arizona, Florida and Vanderbilt.
Technically, all of those teams should make the list, but I’m going to eliminate most of the teams with seven losses already. There are still two more games for each of these teams prior to their conference tournament, giving them ample room to lose 8.
In addition, most of the seven loss teams are not in range to earn a top three seed. Of the 18 on my ‘short list,’ five already have 7 losses: Louisville, UConn, Cincy, Missouri and Vandy.
The Commodores have games against Kentucky and Florida on tap for this week, and the SEC tournament next week. They are currently projected as a 4 or 5 seed, and they’d probably need to sweep the Wildcats and Gators and go deep in the SEC tourney to jump to a 3. Expect Vanderbilt to lose at least one of those games. I’ll eliminate them here.
The Tigers are currently projected as a 6 or 7 seed. Even if they sweep against Nebraska and Kansas in their last two regular season games, they’ll still need to win the Big 12 tournament in order to merit discussion as a 3 or higher. I’ll vote ‘no’ on Missouri.
The Bearcats are currently projected in the range of a 7 or 8 seed after their home loss to UConn over the weekend. Even a best case scenario – wins over Marquette and Georgetown to close out the regular season, and a run to the title in the Big East tourney – won’t bump them ahead of 16-20 other teams in the seeding process. I’ll bounce them here.
The Huskies lost at home to Marquette last week. They’ve still got regular season games against Big Dance locks West Virginian and Notre Dame, plus the always brutal Big East tournament next week. The loss to Marquette probably ended their hopes for a 3 seed or higher. Give UConn the boot.
The Cardinals are currently projected in the range of 4 or 5. Fresh off the win over Pitt this past weekend, Louisville closes out the regular season with a manageable slate: Providence and West Virginia in their final two games. An extended Big East tourney run could keep Rick Pitino’s squad in the mix. We’ll keep Louisville alive in the discussion.
That leaves 14 teams to discuss in Part 2 of this article next week. I’ll wager dollars to donuts that the eventual NCAA champion will come from this list of 14: Duke, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Louisville, Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin, Kansas, Texas, Texas A&M, Arizona and Florida.
You can get all of Ted Sevransky’s articles right here on www.aasiwins.com.
