10 Things I Learned - Torvik's Similar Resumes & Profiles

I went through every team using Torvik's "Similar Resumes" and "Similar Profiles" feature and came away with 10 thoughts:

#1 seeds: Teams with a similar profile to Duke win an AVERAGE of 4.8 games in the tournament which would put them in the Championship game. It's a 1.5 wins higher than the next team. Florida was next highest overall with 3.4 wins. Auburn and Houston were the same at 2.8. Combined with other findings posted already... if there's an upset it's likely to be Houston or Auburn who goes down early (and high seeds that play exceptionally slow as Houston does tend to be more likely to get upset).

#2 seeds: Everyone averages between 2.4 (St. John's) and 2.7 wins (Alabama). I think the committee absolutely got the 1 and 2 seeds right based on previous resumes. Having done a version of this in the past, St. John's scares me. Any team outside of the Top 50ish range on one side of the ball as a high seed tend to be upset-friendly and with Kansas or even Arkansas lurking, I'd be wary of taking the Johnnies to go far.

#3 seeds: The third highest overall number of average wins belongs to... Texas Tech with 3 wins. Iowa State actually has a higher average than any 2 seed as well with 2.8 wins. Kentucky meanwhile has the lowest avg. (and lower than every 4 seed except Purdue) with 1.7 wins. There's not a particularly strong 6 or 11 seed, but with the injury issues Kentucky is giving me a lot to be concerned about.

#4 seeds: Purdue has the lowest average # of wins with 1.6. Texas A&M and Arizona eclipse the 2 win mark. Maryland is right there as well. It's actually a pretty strong group of 4 seeds outside of Purdue. And if anyone remembers my old posts, the Purdue-High Point game meets the criteria I set out (#4 seed with an AdjO or AdjD outside of the Top 50ish and #13 seed with an AdjO or AdjD inside the Top 50ish).

#5 seeds: This is the weakest batch of 5 seeds that I can remember. There are 7-9 seeds with higher average wins than the BEST 5 seed which is Oregon (at 1.1). #12 seed UCSD actually has a higher average than 5 seed Michigan. Teams with a similar resume (not efficiency profile) to Memphis have traditionally averaged an 8 or 9 seed. They are 3 seed lines too high. Another one of my old metrics was "Is a 5 seed below average on one side of the ball (outside of Top 50ish) and is the 12 seed pretty decent overall (inside Top 60-75ish). 3 out of the 4 matchups come close or meet that criteria this year.

#6 seeds: Missouri is the strongest 6 (1.5 wins) and Illinois is the weakest (0.9 wins). BYU is actually close to Missouri at 1.4 average wins. But, again, I'm sort of terrified about teams who can't play defense and Missouri AND BYU both fit that profile. Honestly, this is sort of who knows at this point although all the 11 seeds had an average between 0.5 and 0.7 wins. I'm also of the mindset that teams that get shat on by the public for making the tournament end up with a chip on their shoulder (cough, UNC, cough).

#7 seeds: Of teams seeded 5th through 9th... Kansas has the second highest average numbers of wins with 1.4 (tying BYU and only behind Missouri). See above about St. John's. And one of my old rules was be mindful of the extremely talented team that didn't seem to put it together until they do in March. I think this seems like a strong group of 7 seeds versus a weak group of 10 seeds so will probably advance them all. Also, another old rule was avoid the Mountain West like the plague and there are 2 of them on the 7/10 line.

#8/#9 seeds: Connecticut, Gonzaga, and Creighton are the only ones with an avg. win number above 1. Oklahoma is the lowest at 0.3 wins (I think only one of their ten closest comparisons won a single game). If Louisville wasn't in Lexington, I'd say Creighton would be a good pick but the potential home game atmosphere for the Cardinals might scare me off. Mississippi State vs. Baylor is the most tossy-uppy game of the 8 vs 9 line.

Lower Seeds: I mentioned UCSD above, but the fact that teams like UCSD have averaged close to a full win in the tournament is nuts. I'd be upset if they beat Michigan, but all of the trends/metrics/etc. are pointing in that direction. The other 12 seeds and below to win more than 0.5 games on average are: Colorado State, Liberty, Grand Canyon, and... Lipscomb.

Final Thoughts (as of right now): If Duke doesn't make the Final 4 it would be surprising and are probably the SAFEST pick to win the title. Alabama seems like the strongest 2 seed and unless they lose a shootout to BYU, I like Duke vs Bama in the Elite 8.

I'm set on Florida vs Texas Tech (the next two highest teams by average that meet all of my rules and seem to be favored by other posts as well) as an Elite 8 matchup. Especially, since St. John's ticks a ton of boxes in terms of a high seed likely to be upset.

I'm struggling to pick between Creighton or Louisville over Auburn (another one of my old rules - 7-10 seeds from power conferences that are ranked in the Top 20ish range by Torvik tend to be more dangerous than others) or Gonzaga over Houston (I consider the Zags a power conference team). Honestly, the Midwest region seems like the most likely to produce a sleeper. I've talked about Houston. Tennessee still has Rick Barnes as coach and I can't trust him to make a Final 4. Kentucky is the worst 3 seed by some margin. Purdue appears to be the most likely 4 to go down.

I'd hate to say it (and I'll probably be wrong), but the 5 vs 12 line could be a bloodbath this year. I'm leaning towards all of UCSD, Colorado State, and Liberty with Liberty being the one I'm less enthused by. I want to wait until the First Four plays out, but would gravitate towards UNC over Ole Miss and possibly Texas over Illinois. If I HAD to pick a 14-16 seed to win a game, my best options would be Omaha over St. John's, Troy over Kentucky or Lipscomb over Iowa State.