The Athletic has live coverage of the March Madness Sweet 16 matchups.
On the radio, in barbershops and wherever else you get your regular dose of Bracket Breakers, there’s a lot of talk about how chalky this NCAA tournament has turned out to be. There are many possible ways to measure that, but it’s certainly true according to the simplest metric that matters to what we do: There are hardly any deep underdogs left! Only one matchup in the Sweet 16 features teams that are separated by five or more seeds, and which are therefore subject to analysis by our model.
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We’ll get to that below, but first we thought we would take a look at a few issues brought up by the early-round upsets that did occur.
For one thing, this has been a pretty good year for the teams we call “wounded assassins,” which are power-conference teams that pile up a relatively large number of losses, but still have strong underdog qualities. No. 11 seed North Carolina State is still alive. No. 11 seed Oregon, another of our upset favorites, beat South Carolina and took Creighton to two overtimes. Three years ago, we noticed that the tournament selection committee seemed to like to award half-bids to wounded assassins. While our analysis doesn’t extend to 10-seeds in the first round, Colorado fits the definition and nearly clipped Marquette in the second round. (More on that below.) And a team could hardly stumble further than 9-seed Texas A&M did late in the regular season without missing the tournament altogether — and as a second-round underdog, the Aggies put up an extremely entertaining and flawed performance against Houston.
So, some old lessons still apply: Underlying metrics provide essential context for won-lost records. Full seasons of data matter more than recent streaks. And you can still find upsets and value in teams that, for one reason or another, are struggling to pass the “eye test” but carry the traits common to successful longshots of the past.
Another old lesson: Stuff (to put it politely) happens. Analytics models from Bracket Breakers Central to the South Pole not only predicted that Auburn would beat Yale, they saw the Tigers as a strong contender for a national title. We can’t give you a rational explanation for why that 4-13 game went the other way, especially since Johni Broome shot 7-of-10 from the field. All we can say is that now and then, even a really good team will turn the ball over on 20 percent of its touches or miss a lot of threes, and if it does both simultaneously, anything can happen.
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Things get more interesting when an upset makes us wonder if something is going on that our model should account for better. And for us, the key case from this tournament is 14-seed Oakland’s 80-76 first-round upset of Kentucky. We put the odds of an upset at just under 20 percent — though that was quite a bit higher than the Golden Grizzlies were rated on the moneyline, and we saw Kentucky as a vulnerable giant. Like James Madison and Duquesne, Oakland showed that if an underdog manages tempo, hits some threes and keeps a better team from making its particular strength the dominant theme of a game, it can win. Well, okay; the longer a killer can stave off desperation time against a giant, the better the chance it will be the one that lands the lethal blow.
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However, there were also extreme differences between these teams in a few areas, which our current analysis doesn’t measure directly. For one thing, after picking up two fouls, Oakland’s players stayed on the floor for 41.2 percent of potential minutes this season, according to KenPom. That ranked 29th in the country, while Kentucky ranked just 349th at only 4.4 percent. Remember Oral Roberts in 2021? They had a 2-foul participation rate of over 50 percent, then squeezed maximum minutes out of Kevin Obanor and Max Abmas while winning two games as a 15-seed. Since then, we’ve been eyeing this metric to indicate one more way underdogs can go high-risk/high-reward in do-or-die situations. After 39 minutes by Trey Townsend and 36 from Jack Gohlke in this game, we may have to formalize that idea.
Kentucky’s players were also an average of more than two inches taller than the Golden Grizzlies, who were one of the most undersized teams in the tournament. This showed up in the Wildcats’ 5-0 edge in blocks. But of course, Kentucky also had very little experience playing as a team before this year: they ranked 317th in minutes continuity. That’s typical for a team coached by John Calipari. It’s also the only stat where Texas A&M and Yale — along with still-playing giants like Marquette, Purdue, Duke and Creighton — all rank in the top 50. Maybe experience matters more in the tournament than continuity, but as we sort out the implications of an era where players are older and rosters are churning more quickly Slingshot may need to include a better metric for cohesion.
So that’s where our offseason to-do list stands, except for this: We want to offer fuller props to the Grand Canyon Lopes, who toppled Saint Mary’s and took the lead into the final three minutes against Alabama in the second round. Midnight often strikes just 48 hours after a big win for first-round Cinderellas. But we had the Lopes pegged as one of our favorite underdogs for a long time, and we salute Tyon Grant-Foster for coming through for everyone who loves broken brackets.
Now onto Friday’s game!
Odds are from BetMGM. For more Underdogs, listen to Peter and Jordan’s podcast. For all our March Madness coverage, check out our content hub.
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No. 2 Marquette Golden Eagles vs. No. 11 North Carolina State Wolfpack
Upset Chance: 23.8 percent
Spread: Marquette favored by 6.5 points
Marquette doesn’t share many similarities with successful favorites from past tournaments, nor does North Carolina State carry many underdog traits, but this matchup is nonetheless chock-a-block with interesting contrasts. The Golden Eagles are the 20th-best team in the country at generating turnovers (21.1 percent of opponent possessions), while the Wolfpack are 10th-best at preventing them (13.7 percent of possessions). Marquette takes and makes a lot of threes. And on defense, the Golden Eagles cut off the paint and force other teams to shoot from beyond the arc, where opponents are taking 42.9 percent of their attempts, one of the highest rates in the country. NC State prefers to shoot from inside, and is better at protecting the rim than disrupting the perimeter.
Some of these numbers stem from what these teams, particularly Marquette, try to do in transition. In previewing North Carolina State’s first-round chances, we mentioned a big difference between the Wolfpack’s average possession length on offense (17 seconds, ranking 106th) and on defense (18 seconds, ranking 302nd). We have seen unheralded long shots with similar gaps rocket to tournament wins in past years. Speeding up on offense can generate quick and easy shots, while slowing down opponents throws sand in the gears of their transition chances, and can force more turnovers along the way. Well, Marquette’s APL is 15.3 seconds on offense (ranking ninth) and 19 seconds on defense (ranking 361st), which is not only a greater split than the Wolfpack’s but the widest gap in the country. And check it out: Marquette ranks 15th in the nation in the percentage of possessions that end within 10 seconds, and is scoring a whopping 124 points per 100 possessions on those plays, according to Andrei Greska of PaintTouches.com. (Greska credits innovative assistant coach Nevada Smith for Marquette’s focus on possession length.)
Marquette is a terrific shooting team but needs as many easy baskets as it can get because the Golden Eagles are a weak rebounding team at both ends (282nd in OR percent, 278th in DR percent). We’ve been warning that this makes the Golden Eagles a vulnerable giant. And it very nearly cost them their second-round game against Colorado, where Marquette shot a stunning 74 percent from inside but grabbed just three of its own missed shots.
Yet they beat Colorado by four points while NC State was beating Oakland, which ranks more than 100 spots lower than the Buffaloes in our basic power ratings, by six. The Wolfpack have been on a great run, and have elevated their game by funneling more of their offense through D.J. Burns. But they don’t have the rebounding or the long-range shooting chops Colorado used to offset Marquette’s shooting efficiency nearly.
Slingshot sees a difference of more than 10 points per 100 possessions between Marquette and NC State in basic strength, and about a one in four chance of an upset. That’s considerably higher than the rate of 16.8 percent at which 11-seeds have historically taken down 2-seeds. But it’s less than the implied odds of about 30 percent that NC State is now getting on the moneyline at sportsbooks.
Thanks for research assistance to John Harris, Kevin Hutson and Liz Bouzarth of Furman University.
(Photo of D.J. Burns: Greg Fiume / Getty Images)