Here’s a dirty little secret about March Madness. The difference between a bad bracket and a good bracket is skill, but the difference between a good bracket and a great bracket is luck. Anyone who has won their pool has gotten lucky. A lot of these games are basically coin flips or won by buzzer-beaters, and nobody can predict that kind of thing. You just have to hope enough of those breaks go in your favor. Where you can distance yourself from your competition, though, is in the 60-40 or 55-45 games. If you can figure out which team has a slight advantage and pick enough of those teams with those slight advantages, odds are something will break your way one of these years. That is the purpose of these 68 Facts, to help isolate some favorable and unfavorable matchups going into the NCAA Tournament. Hopefully they will help your bracket — or at least help you justify your bracket to yourself, which is debatably more important anyway. Let’s get to it.
- California is 18-0 at home and 5-10 on the road or at neutral sites.
- Providence’s Kris Dunn hasn’t looked like himself lately, scoring single-figures in three of his last six games, after having just two such outputs in his first 25 games.
- Kentucky has the lowest defensive assist percentage in the country. Indiana gets assists on an above-average proportion of its field goals.
- Of Dayton’s seven losses, five have come when one of the Flyers’ three best players, Charles Cooke, Dyshawn Pierre and Kendall Pollard, was not playing. All three are healthy and eligible for the NCAA Tournament.
- Cal State Bakersfield’s 25th-most efficient defense is anchored by the 16th-best steal rate in the nation. Oklahoma surrenders steals at a rate that is 300th-best in the country.
- Iowa had the nation’s fifth-best offense through 22 games. In the last nine games, accompanied with a record of 3-6, the Hawkeyes were at the D-I average.
- Michigan State’s starting lineup features the best offensive rebounder in the Big 10 (Matt Costello), the best three point shooter in the country (Bryn Forbes) and the most efficient player in the country (Denzel Valentine).
- The two weaknesses in the 50th-ranked Oregon defense are its defensive rebounding rate (254th nationally) and their three-point defense (264th). Cincinnati is the 20th-best offensive rebounding team and an average three point shooting team. St. Joseph’s is below average in both categories.
- Turning the ball over the most of any top-nine seed, Indiana is a prime upset candidate. Chattanooga has the 30th-highest steal rate in the country and the 54th-highest turnover rate.
- Without Amile Jefferson, Duke is the worst defensive rebounding team in the field other than Farleigh Dickinson. Baylor is third in offensive rebounding rate.
- However, Baylor’s first round opponent, Yale, is seventh in defensive rebounding rate.
- Also, Baylor is susceptible to passing teams, allowing assists on 72 percent of their field goals allowed, the highest such mark in the country. Yale is well above the D-I average in assists per field goal, ranking 58th.
- Iona’s opponents both attempt and make threes at a higher rate than the D-I average. Iowa State is 39th in the country in three-point field goal percentage.
- Maryland’s Melo Trimble’s offensive rating has fallen from 116.5 through the first 24 games of the season to just 96.5 through the last eight. Maryland is 3-5 in those games.
- Virginia gives up three-point attempts at a slightly above average rate and allows opponents to shoot from three at the D-I average. Michigan State is the best three-point shooting team in the country.
- Averaging 20 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks per game, Stony Brook‘s Jameel Warney is the most prolific post player in the Tournament. Kentucky is an average-sized team this season, with a below average defensive rebounding rate.
- West Virginia lives off of turnovers, forcing them on 25 percent of possessions — first in the country. Notre Dame turns it over the 10th-fewest number of times in the country per possession.
- Oregon State will be without Tres Tinkle, who averaged 13 points and five rebounds per game during the season. The Beavers are 2-2 without Tinkle.
- North Carolina is the fourthbest offensive rebounding team in the country. Kentucky is 270th in defensive rebounding rate.
- Oregon is 21-4 when all of its starters are healthy. The Ducks lost twice when Tyler Dorsey and Jordan Bell were each out for a game, but both are good now.
- As Edmond Sumner goes, so goes Xavier. The freshman point guard has an offensive rating of 78.0 in the Musketeers’ losses and 111.5 in their wins.
- Seton Hall’s Isaiah Whitehad has scored 20 or more points in eight of the Pirates’ last nine games.
- Green Bay relies on running, with 40 percent of its attempts coming in transition. Texas A&M‘s opponents attempt just 21 percent of their attempts in transition.
- West Virginia is 273rd in the country in keeping the ball; Stephen F. Austin is first in the country in forcing turnovers.
- West Virginia is first in the country in offensive rebounding rate; Stephen F. Austin is an average defensive rebounding team.
- Wichita State is first in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency. Arizona is 2-6 against teams in the top 50 in defensive efficiency this season.
- Michigan is 4-11 against the KenPom top 50 this season. Tulsa is 58th and Notre Dame is 41st..
- UConn has allowed opponents to shoot above the D-I average from three-point range in eight of its 10 losses, and Huskies’ opponents get the 58th-highest proportion of their total points from threes. Colorado is the 17th-best three-point shooting team in the country.
- Long mired in a shooting slump, Butler’s Kellan Dunham has made 14 of his last 24 threes. Texas Tech has a below-average three point defense.
- Utah forces opponents to score on isolations, with the seventh-lowest defensive assist percentage in the country. But Fresno State, Seton Hall and Gonzaga all rely on isolations to score, as each has a below average assist rate.
- Fresno State and Iowa State are the oldest teams in the field.
- KenPom describes luck as “a measure of the deviation between a team’s actual winning percentage and what one would expect from its game-by-game efficiencies.” It calls Utah and Temple the luckiest at-large teams in the field.
- Stephen F. Austin hasn’t lost a game in 2016.
- Purdue’s assist to turnover ratio dips from 3:2 to almost 1:1 in its losses. Arkansas-Little Rock is 20th-best in the country at forcing turnovers.
- Iona lives by the three, shooting 37 percent and relying on it for 38 percent of its points, third-most in the tournament. Iowa State has the 119th-best three-point defense in the country.
- A healthy Cameron Ridley could make all the difference for Texas against a Northern Iowa team that is smaller than the D-I average and consistently gets blocked and outrebounded.
- Oregon State has offensive and defensive rebounding rates below the D-I average, while VCU is comfortably above average in both categories.
- Cincinnati has built the eighth most efficient defense by being well above average in every category except defensive rebounding rate and three-point percentage. Saint Joseph’s is 219th and 263rd in those categories, respectively.
- Iowa has the 20th-best three-point defense in the country. Villanova shoots threes at the 24th-highest rate in the country.
- Purdue is 6-7 against teams in the top 35 in adjusted offensive efficiency. Iowa State ranks third nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency.
- Gonzaga‘s Kyle Wiltjer led the WCC with an offensive rating of 126. The Bulldogs went 1-3 in games where his rating dipped below 100.
- Gonzaga went 1-3 against defenses in the top 50 in adjusted defensive efficiency. Seton Hall ranks 17th.
- Miami has allowed opponents to score a points per possession mark exceeding the D-I average in each of its losses (its defense is 44th-best for the year). Villanova, Arizona and Iowa all have offenses among the top 20 in efficiency.
- Hawaii’s 40th-best defense is anchored by the 14th-best opponents’ effective field goal percentage in the nation. Cal has the 59th-best effective field goal percentage.
- Texas A&M is 6-4 against top 50 defenses and 22-4 against all other teams. Texas, Northern Iowa and Oklahoma all have top 50 defenses.
- The only offensive category in which Syracuse ranks among the top 100 in is offensive rebounding rate. Dayton is fourth in the country in defensive rebounding rate.
- Syracuse’s opponents get the third-highest proportion of assists per made field goal in the country. Dayton’s offense ranks 59th nationally in assists per made field goal.
- How do you beat North Carolina? In five of the Tar Heels’ seven losses, opponents have limited their offensive rebounds to near the national average. In six of those losses, opponents have shot above the D-I average from three, exploiting the team’s 251st-best three-point field goal defense.
- Indiana is slightly above average at defensive rebounding and among the top 25 at shooting threes. Xavier is slightly above average at shooting and among the top 25 at defensive rebounding. Michigan State is among the top 10 nationally in both categories.
- Blocking 12.51 percent of opponents’ shots, Oregon’s Chris Boucher is the best shot-blocker in the Tournament. Duke and Baylor both have their shots blocked at above the D-I average rate.
- If you believe in momentum (and you probably shouldn’t, but oh well), Syracuse has lost five of its last six games and USC has lost five of its last eight.
- Some worry about Oklahoma being too reliant on the three-ball. Luckily for the Sooners, no one in their region has anything better than a slightly above average three-point defense, other than their first round opponent, Cal State Bakersfield.
- Texas played the hardest schedule this season.
- If you believe the advanced metrics of KenPom, Temple is grossly overseeded and has just a 24 percent chance to beat Iowa.
- If you like senior guard play, look no further than Fresno State, whose three-man backcourt is all seniors and features WAC POY Marvelle Harris. Harris had a streak during the season of nine straight 20+ point games.
- South Dakota State, as the nation’s 203rd biggest team, faces a severe size mismatch against Maryland, the fourth-biggest.
- In Kentucky’s last 12 games, Jamaal Murray is 48-of-85 from three-point range, good for four threes per game at 56 percent.
- Colorado boasts the 27thmost efficient defense in the country. UConn is 4-5 against top 50 defenses this year.
- At 38.6 percent, Iona’s Jordan Washington has the highest usage rate in the past four years of college basketball.
- Notre Dame was rooting for Tulsa last night. The Irish are the second-worst team in the field at defending the three and Michigan gets 39.1 percent of its points from beyond the arc, the 11th-highest proportion in the nation.
- Wichita State ranks among the top 10 in the KenPom rankings. The only double-digit seeds to end the year in the top 10 made the Sweet Sixteen (Tennessee ’14) and the Elite Eight (Davidson, ’08).
- Villanova shoots the 24th-highest proportion of threes per field goal attempted, but Miami allows the 22nd-lowest proportion of threes taken by its opponents
- In three of Kansas’ four losses, the Jayhawks have allowed above the D-I average in points per possession. The only two elite offenses in their region are Villanova (11th) and Miami (12th).
- South Dakota State’s Mike Daum was second only to Denzel Valentine in offensive efficiency this season.
- Wichita State is the first team since 2009 to be in the top 10 in both offensive and defensive turnover rate (i.e. forces many, gives up few).
- Arizona was 5-7 against teams in the NCAA Tournament field this season. They were 20-1 against teams not in the field.
- Besides 2014 UConn, every National Champion has been in the top 25 in both offensive and defensive rating. The teams that qualify on that metric this year are: Michigan State, North Carolina, Kansas, Virginia, Villanova, Oklahoma, Purdue and West Virginia.
- In case you forgot, a #16 seed has never beaten a #1 seed.