NCAA Tournament History by Seed

[HuskerActuary]

So this is kind of interesting. As I joked in another thread recently, I'm not used to "seeding discussions" when it comes to Nebraska basketball. I was curious if there are certain seeds that are more advantageous with the 1 v. 16, etc. layout of the bracket. I looked at the historical NCAA tournament records by seed, by round, and assigned points to advancing to each round: 1 to the 2nd round, 2 to the Sweet 16, then 4, 8, 16, and 32 for winning the championship. Then I calculated the expected points value for each seed based on historical results.

 

Not surprisingly, the 1 seed has by far the best expected value and there is a general downward trend from there. But, it's not a perfect pattern. For example, the 6 seed actually has a higher expected value than a 5 seed. This is largely because 6 seeds have advanced to the Elite 8 nearly twice as often as 5 seeds, because they don't have to play the 1 seed in the Sweet 16. 

 

Another interesting phenomenon is that 10 and 11 seeds have performed better than 9 seeds - again likely related to avoiding the 1 seed matchup, in the 2nd round.

 

Connecting this to Nebraska, we are currently projected as a 4 seed or 5 seed on most sites. But, don't fret if we fall to a 6 seed. History would say we are no worse off if we fall to the 6/11 game.

 

 

[HuskerFever]

As long as we're not a 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, or 11 seed then we're in good shape.

 

History can't repeat itself if we're a different seed right?

[Norm Peterson]

17 minutes ago, HuskerFever said:

As long as we're not a 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, or 11 seed then we're in good shape.

 

History can't repeat itself if we're a different seed right?

 

Ok, so a 2 seed.

 

I'm good with that.

[hskr4life]

We now have another fricking week off.  Ugh!!

 

Ok... with the week off... I have a question.

 

More likely scenario....

 

1.  Big 10 gets 10 bids

 

2.  PAC 12 only gets 1 bid.

[49r]

31 minutes ago, hskr4life said:

We now have another fricking week off.  Ugh!!

 

Ok... with the week off... I have a question.

 

More likely scenario....

 

1.  Big 10 gets 10 bids

 

2.  PAC 12 only gets 1 bid.

 

I'll go with #2.  Pac 12 is really bad.  They might only get their tourney winner in.

[hskr4life]

 

it gets worse

 

[Handy Johnson]

I’ll say #1, but I did see that Maryland lost today to... Seton Hall. Don’t sleep on those swashbuckling Pirates!