Arizona Basketball: Experts declare their Bracket Predictions and Probabilities

Reading polls, listening to media, Joe Lunardi from ESPN and reading Team Rankings and Ken Pomeroy opinions on the Arizona Basketball team and where they rank is mind boggling.

It blew our minds actually, the differences between the experts, the projections before and after the Pac-12 tournament and seeding with regards to Arizona Basketball. We thought we would bring you a sampling of what they are predicting and how some analyze data for their predictions.

First, the statisticians.

If you take objectivity out of the analysis, Arizona Basketball ranked at No. 20 in the Nation based on analytics for the final week of the regular season. That’s at least according to Seth at TeamRankings.com, “Arizona finished the regular season yesterday by beating Arizona St 73-60. We currently rank Arizona as the No. 20 team in the country, and the No. 3 team in the Pac-12. Arizona beat the pants off our preseason projection of 13 Pac-12 wins.” That was before the Pac-12 tournament, things have changed a bit with their forecasts.

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Here is more on their methodology:

‘The predictive ratings are objective. They’re designed as a very broad score-based metric. Unlike human voters and opinions, they don’t care only about wins and losses, which can be highly influenced by luck. More specifically, this means:

• A team that loses a game can still move up in our rankings (e.g. if they lose by less than expected)
• A team that wins a game can still move down our rankings (e.g. if they win by less than expected)
• A team with several losses can still be ranked highly (e.g. if they have faced a tough schedule, or potentially just had a few fluke losses)

Also, our rankings factor in a blend of season performance to date plus each team’s preseason rating, since the results of a small number of early season games can often be misleading. However, the impact of the preseason rating decays as the season goes on.’

Team Rankings predicted that Arizona would get a three seed in the NCAA tournament before Selection Sunday. The latest updates from the site sent to our inbox were as follows (This was before Selection Sunday):

• We project the Wildcats with a 52% chance to make the Sweet Sixteen and a 12% chance to reach the Final Four.
• Arizona has a 2% chance to win the NCAA Tournament. That may not sound like much, but few teams even have this good of a chance.
• The Wildcats have an 88.7 percent chance of making the top 32, 51.9 percent chance of making the Sweet Sixteen, 26.5 percent chance of making the Elite Eight, 11.6 percent chance of making the Final Four, and a 2.1 percent chance to win the Championship.
• The Odds go up for a Championship the higher the seed. If Arizona gets a one seed, then their percentage goes up to 2.6, a two-seed, 2.3 and so on.

AFTER Selection Sunday, this is how much Arizona’s chances improved according to Team Rankings:

NCAA Tournament Projections

In contrast, or maybe in concert with Team Rankings, KenPom.com’s rankings currently have Arizona at No. 22.

Ken Pomeroy, a basketball analytics guru, has updated the way he is evaluating rankings of teams. He threw away last years measurement and added a ratio that compares a team’s offensive and defensive efficiency; he calls that AdjEM.

The NCAA put out their own list, Arizona ended up No. 6:

And that makes sense because Arizona got the No. 2 seed in the West Bracket with Gonzaga the No. 1 seed. The Cats take on No. 15 North Dakota in Salt Lake City at 6:50 pm MST/PST on TBS.

https://twitter.com/ZonaZealots/status/841070756331114496

Before we get started with experts, let’s find out how Arizona homer Richard Jefferson fills out his brackets: