2018 Quality Curve Analysis - March Edition

Welcome back PPB-readers! Unless you are in the B10 Conference, we have exactly two more weeks of games until the Selection Show on Mar 11, so that means it is time for the March installment of the QC Analysis series. If you missed the first two installments, here are the links (January and February). While I hope it won't take you two weeks to read this installment, there are a lot of issues that I want to discuss in this installment and I doubt that I will get to address them in the Final Edition. So let's get started.

The "Experieneced Talent" Model (Post-Season Update)

What a week of college basketball (and I could make the same exasperated comment for the officiating of that week too, but that's another story for another time). In this past week alone:

• #1 NOVA, #2 UVA, #8 AUB, #13 ARI, #19 WVU, and #23 NEV lose "home games" to unranked teams
• #10 KU, #15 TENN, #20 MICH, and #25 MIA lose road games to unranked teams
• #3 PUR, #17 OKLA, and #24 UK lose both games played for the week (and to PUR's credit, both of their losses came against Top-14 teams).
• #5 XAV gets two road wins, the first to some of the best officiating I've seen in quite some time and the second to the absolute worst late-game officiating I've seen in quite some time.
• Most importantly, the Selection Committee released their annual in-season mock tournament field with the Top 16 teams and their seedings on Feb 11, exactly four weeks before the real deal on Selection Sunday Mar 11. While I will refrain from issuing my full thoughts on the contents of this release, it should suffice enough to say: "What a way to end this week!"

If you are not convinced by last week alone that the 2018 tournament is going to be a wild one, then reading this article will be a waste of your time. As I have teased on the blog for over two months, this article will detail a quirky model that I conceived to measure and/or predict the stability or instability of the tournament.

2018 Quality Curve Analysis - February Edition

As we approach the completion of another month in basketball, it means that it is time for another installment of quality curve analysis. If you haven't read the January Edition of QC Analysis, here is the link to that article. It is definitely worth the full read, as I believe it will put you ahead of your bracket-picking competition in March. Nonetheless, the key points in that article:

1. Parity in the 2018 tournament (the key ingredient for upset soup)
2. One of the wildest days in college basketball and its distorting effect on the QC
3. Where 2017's tournament contenders were located in the 2017 Jan QC Analysis

At the risk of appearing lazy, I think I'm going to follow these same themes in the Feb Edition. If you took the liberty of reading (or even re-reading the January Edition), the same thematic structure to the article will provide continuity between the two reads. Likewise, I don't think much has changed in the basketball universe since the January edition, so keeping the same themes is fitting. Let's see what the February QC predicts for us.

Upsets in the Making (Part 3) - Statistical Analysis of Upsets

As I hinted in the January Edition of the QC Analysis, I do think the 2018 tournament will be filled with upsets, and it is why I have focused upon a three-part series on upsets. I also turned it into a three-part series (from one single article) due to the sheer volume of information. Since it has been one month from the last article on upsets, a recap of the series's content is in order:

• Theoretical Approach - Examining how upsets happen and could potentially happen (UPMs) given the structure of the 64-team/16-seed bracket.
• Historical Approach - Examining how upsets and UPMs have happened in the 64-team/16-seed bracket, both on a yearly basis and on a seed match-up basis.

In both of those articles, as well as this one, the objective is to create a generic view of upsets, one that ignores bias-inducing elements like team name, W-L records, match-up statistics (efficiency ratings, win percentages, coach PASE), and etc. While other tools will provide secondary insights on the expected number of upsets (QC Analysis) or which match-ups seem likely to produce an upset (round-by-round seed guide or OS/US analysis), these three articles aim to produce a primary framework for understanding how they arise. Now, let's see what statistics can show us about upsets.

2018 Quality Curve Analysis - January Edition

While everyone else in the world is turning in the new year watching the ball drop, I'm pretty sure my loyal readers are turning in the new year by reading this article. Okay, I'm not that interesting of a writer, but it has reached that point in the season where we take our first potential peek at the 2018 tournament. Today, I bring you the January Edition of the 2018 Quality Curve Analysis, which is an annual tradition here at PPB, and to make it even more special, it marks the birthday of PPB. Today, PPB turns 2-years old (technically Jan 8, but I go by the article, not by the date on the calendar). I do want to take this quick opportunity to thank all my readers for this special occasion: If you guys weren't reading and interacting, I know for sure I wouldn't be writing articles. I owe this birthday to you all! So, Thank You Very Much, and with that, we move onto the gift that keeps on giving: The Quality Curve.