It’s late-December and the college hoops landscape is beginning to take shape, as some of the over-hyped pre-season darlings have shown us who they really are (shoutout Sparty) and the unlikely stars have shown themselves (hello Oklahoma). But everyone knows the entire season in CBB is a lead-up to the only thing that truly matters, March Madness. Every year is a race to figure out which teams “deserve” what seed and who among them are built to avoid the early round upset. Many will try and convince you it’s all random, that the best team doesn’t actually win and that the upsets and format diminish the significance of the glory found at the end of the most difficult 6-game winning streak to obtain in sports. I mean for crying out loud they lost to their mom in their family bracket challenge and she picked based on Mascots! It must be random. While I recognize losing to someone who happened to pick Peacocks (St. Peter’s) to beat Wildcats (Kentucky) can lead to this kind of thinking, I’m here to tell you definitively how to avoid betting on a doomed horse come March. I’m not going to give you a sure fire way to know every upset, nor am I claiming to have the ability to get a perfect bracket. I’m more concerned with how to avoid backing a severely vulnerable horse to make a deep run. How to spot the group of teams that look destined for trouble that wild 1st weekend we all love. This will be a purely data driven set of rules, based on pre-tourney Kenpom numbers heading back to 2005. 18 tournaments worth of data now that helps paint a picture on how to spot what teams could face trouble, what teams are impenetrable, and finally put to rest “the best team doesn’t actually win” narrative. Let’s get it.

To start let’s take a look at the most generic pool, the teams that entering the Madness were measuring as the best teams in the Country per Kenpom. So we’ll take the top-10 teams each year, giving us 180 teams and leaving out all of the rest. For context, that pool of teams includes 69 of the 72 1 seeds in our data (the other 3 all failed to make the Final Four) and extends all the way down to a couple 8 seeds (1 of which made a Sweet 16 run). I could go on and on with little nuggets of information, how 25 of the 36 teams to reach the Natty over this 18 years come from this pool and so on and so on, but what really matters is how do we parse down this group into the pretenders and contenders. Is there an analytical approach to identifying which of those top teams will survive the chaos of the tourney? Of course, that’s why we’re here.

Rule #1: Don’t back the Vulnerable

First, let’s look at those that didn’t make a run. There have only been 18 teams out of the 180 that entered as top-10 KP teams who have failed to get out of the 1st round (10%). Kenpom, for those who don’t know, ranks teams by taking each team and giving a Defensive efficiency score and an Offensive efficiency score, culminating in an overall efficiency. When you look at the data on those 18 teams, something jumps out immediately. Many of the teams who suffered a 1st round exit leaned heavily on 1 end of the floor. Recent example, 2021 Ohio St who as a 2 seed lost to 15 seed Oral Roberts. They ranked 4th offensively but 79th defensively (7th overall). They were what I would now categorize as “vulnerable”, and share that unbalanced distinction with other early exiter’s like 2014 Duke, 2013 Georgetown and 2012 Missouri as just a few of many examples. Now listen, I understand that those are merely anecdotes, but we’re going to get number heavy just so it can sink in, because I know that savvy readers could look back at 2023 and see San Diego St at 64 (D) and 10 (O) and think, well this is a crock of shit. Allow me to persuade you, with data, not just anecdotal examples. Since 2005, there have been 56 teams enter the tourney as a top-10 defensive team but sub-50 on offense. The Aztecs became just the 1st to reach the Natty with that archetype, and only the 3rd to ever make it to the Final Four (2012 Louisville, 2017 S. Carolina). Next you might say, well I can ride them to the Elite 8 or Sweet 16 and still be fine? I wouldn’t. Of those 56, just 14 (25%) made it out of the first weekend alive and into the Sweet 16, with just 6 making it to the Elite 8. When you flip it over, the numbers tell the exact same story. With 72 teams entering with top-10 Off and sub-50 Def, we see only 2 of those 72 (2.7%) reached the Final Four. Following the same path, we saw just 26 of the 72 (36%) make it out of the first weekend with just 8 reaching the Elite 8. Now, after all of that you might be asking, so how does this help me? Let’s look at an example, with Baylor a year ago being a dramatic example. They entered as a 3 seed, with the 2nd ranked offense in the Country, but 102nd defensively. They lost in the 2nd round, failing to get out of that first weekend. There are obviously going to be exceptions to the rule, but we’re talking about consistency over time, and this archetype is by far the least consistent group of teams hiding amongst the “elite”. These are teams that you should not trust to make a deep run, and should never pick to win the whole thing as it has never happened.

Rule #2: Bet on the Impenetrable

As you’ve likely gathered if you’ve made it this far we are trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, to establish a set of standards for identifying the uncommon amongst the uncommon. Time to shift the focus to the archetype I have deemed as the “impenetrable”. These are the teams you can back with certainty, and no I’m not just saying the four 1 seeds. We’re going to stay with Kenpom and our 18 years of data, focusing on the antithesis of the vulnerable. Teams who were top-15 in both offensive and defensive efficiency. There have been 55 such teams over the last 18 tournaments, none of them lost in the 1st round. This group ranges from 1 seeds all the way down to a couple of 5 seeds, with results similar regardless of seed. Now, once we move beyond the 1st round things get interesting. Again, I’m not arguing for perfection, but 46/55 teams made it to the 2nd weekend. That’s an 84% clip, but it does put a small ounce of doubt in these teams. But the fact is there have been 99 top-4 seeds get upset prior to the Sweet 16, only 9 of those were from this group. All this does is help you identify which of those top 16 teams is most likely to survive and advance, because if you’re looking at the top seeds, and find a team that is top-15 in both, you’ve found a gem. Much like 2022 Houston, who was a 5 seed, you would have thought they had merely a 34% chance to make the Sweet 16 (5 seeds odds). But, with the top-15 in both you had more confidence they make the Elite 8 than the average 5 seed had to get out of the first weekend. And that’s exactly what they did, upsetting 1 seed Arizona in the process. The data is clear, if you’re trying to identify who is going to escape the carnage of the first weekend, this is the group with the best statistical chance to do so. Once you’re in the Sweet 16, it’s anybody’s game, and you’re still well over 50% on getting to the Elite 8. In my book, a team falling in these archetype is an auto Final 4 prediction, or else you might as well just flip coins.

Rule #3: Stop trying to predict the Cinderella

We all love the Cinderalla, the Loyola Chicago or Butler magical runs that captivate us all. But, you have to acknowledge there is no possible way to know, for sure, who is going on that run. So why send a 6 seed to the Final Four? Why take a 30th overall team on a deep run? You don’t know. Yes there is going to be one, in fact over the last 18 tournaments only twice have all 4 Final Four teams been in the top-10 of Kenpom (last time 2008). There is always 1 outsider that makes a run, rarely two, 2023 aside. The real trick are the “flyers”. Teams who go on runs but don’t fall into the perfect category, they are the hardest to spot, but you’ll need to try because the list of impenetrable teams can be small. The data is more murky on these teams, but when taking out the Cinderella’s (6 seeds and below) and the Impenetrables, we have a list of teams that you can find some trends with. They most often are elite at 1 end of the floor (top-10) and/or on the fringes of our top-15 in both category archetype. Focus on these after that first group, do not be a hero.

So, what this series will be all about is tracking those teams in and around the top-10, who is falling out who is rising in. Definitively labeling those who are “vulnerable” and those who appear “impenetrable”. All will be ebbing and flowing throughout the season but the once a week recap to be found here will be a great barometer for what teams are trending which way and how they look heading into March. And eventually it will be measured against the actual tournament, and the actual results. Year 19 of data to come, but this year we enter with a game plan to stop losing your bracket pool or fantasy league to the all the people who don’t even watch the sport.