2021 Quality Curve Analysis - February Edition

I'm back with the next installment of the monthly QC Analysis. Let's jump right into it.

 

The first chart shows significant improvement in quality along 80% of the curve.

As you can clearly see, the top thirty-nine teams out of fifty improved upon the January Curve. Out of the bottom eleven teams, only two have improved. This is a good sign for a stable tournament in 2021. Let's see how it matches up historically in the next chart.

What a cluster! Let's see if we can break this down.

• The 1- and 2-spots look a lot like 2019: Stable top-seed advancement
• The 3- thru 6-spots look a lot like 2018: Half of the 1- and 2-seeds didn't make it S16
• The 7- thru 13-spots are a weaker version of 2019: Stable advancement with 1- thru 4-seeds meeting seed expectations.
• The 14- thru 29-spots look like 2017: This year was relatively stable where quality advanced and lack of quality did not, the upsets (8 over 1, two 7s over 2s) were due to poor seeding and siting by the Selection Committee.
• The 30- thru 50-spots are scary. They match none of the three years until the 44th-spot when they trend more like 2018, when an 11-seed made the F4. Their strength portends upsets from the 8- to 12-seed teams (assuming seeding based on advanced metrics). Not all of the teams in this range will make the tournament, but if the ones in the top of the range (30-35) are under-seeded (10- to 12-seeds), this will be a good place to look for Cinderella.

2021 looks to be like a normal tournament in the modern era of college basketball. Keep in mind, the modern era of college basketball has M-o-M ratings around 12-13% for stable tournaments, 16-18% for normal tournaments, and 20+% for insane tournaments. If the Selection Committee seeds according to the QC, then I would expect the low end of the normal range, but if they seed in deviation from the QC, expect the high end of the normal range and possibly as high as 19%.