Well now that the field is set, agonizing who will make the tourney has shifted to who actually did. Already, there has been uproar on how many non-power 6 conference teams made it. In my last blog, I stated this was going to be a huge year for the mid-majors to gain more respect and keep the momentum rolling from the regular season. They have their opportunity and now it is about performance. The formulas and rankings put in place for team comparisons were on showcase throughout the year. With non-power 6 conferences and teams representing strong numbers, the trendy topic was to shift away from rankings like the RPI and put more faith in the eye test. This tournament I wanted to see just how useful these numbers can be in head-to-head team comparisons.

This blog will concentrate on five of the most popular metrics used today. Even though the push back on these has been strong this year, they are still used by mainstream media for talking points and comparisons, so let’s see how well they do this March Madness. I will track the results of the games and compare the two teams involved based on their SOS, BPI , KenPom, Sagarin, and RPI. All of these numbers are current, documented after Selection Sunday, before the tournament starts and will not be updated throughout the tourney. They will remain the same for consistency purposes and tracking of results based on pre-tournament rankings. After every round I will document what each one produced, both against the spread and straight up. Continue reading →