As mentioned in a prior blog, I am continuing on with my breakdown of key stats for the March Madness bracket. Now that the field is set I am curious to know if the numbers used to determine which teams make the tourney, their seed and location relate to success in it. This is the second part to my original neutral court success blog I published a couple of weeks ago. Instead of just naming the teams who have succeeded or haven’t on neutral courts, I put together a chart of all the teams seeded 1 through 14 with their neutral court record and neutral court power rating. Remember, the reason this stat jumped out to me, the past 2 national champions both entered the tournament with an undefeated regular season neutral court record and won their conference tournament championship.
To stay consistent with my prior blog I used warrennolan.com to put together the neutral court records. I combined regular season neutral court record with conference tournament record for the chart. In addition to this, I also used the teamrankings.com neutral court power rating. All neutral court wins or losses are not treated equal and some of the websites I researched gave credit to teams for a neutral court win or loss where others did not. Since teamrankings.com takes more factors into account than just overall record I felt cross referencing the two sites would paint a clearer picture.
I know some of these numbers might not tell a perfect story but due to the past couple years and my curiosity I feel this is an important stat to follow for the next few tournaments and track the results. Below you will see the chart breakdown, but 5 teams that jump out at me are Missouri, Louisville, Vanderbilt, Murray State, and Creighton.
Some notes on the chart:
- Chart is in order according to each teams power rating.
- Only teams seeded 1 through 14 were used.
- Only teams in the tournament were pulled from teamrankings.com.
- Harvard had no postseason tourney.
- Teams who have their conference tourney on their home court, wins/losses were not included in the power rating.
| Team | Seed | Neutral Court Power Rating | Neutral and Conference Tourney Record |
| Missouri | 2 | 1 | 10-0 |
| UNLV | 6 | 2 | 3-1 |
| Vanderbilt | 5 | 3 | 8-0 |
| Louisville | 4 | 4 | 8-0 |
| Harvard | 12 | 5 | 3-0 |
| Creighton | 8 | 6 | 7-0 |
| Baylor | 3 | 9 | 7-2 |
| Ohio St | 2 | 10 | 4-2 |
| Michigan St | 1 | 11 | 6-2 |
| Duke | 2 | 12 | 7-2 |
| Florida St | 3 | 14 | 7-2 |
| Cincinnati | 6 | 15 | 5-2 |
| Wisconsin | 4 | 16 | 4-2 |
| Kentucky | 1 | 17 | 8-2 |
| Florida | 7 | 18 | 6-2 |
| Murray St | 6 | 19 | 6-0 |
| Belmont | 14 | 22 | 7-0 |
| Saint Mary’s | 7 | 23 | 5-1 |
| Ohio | 13 | 25 | 6-0 |
| Gonzaga | 7 | 28 | 4-2 |
| Michigan | 4 | 31 | 4-3 |
| NC State | 11 | 32 | 6-3 |
| North Carolina | 1 | 33 | 6-3 |
| Indiana | 4 | 34 | 3-2 |
| Uconn | 9 | 36 | 6-3 |
| New Mexico | 5 | 37 | 8-1 |
| South Dakota St | 14 | 38 | 8-0 |
| Kansas | 2 | 39 | 4-4 |
| St. Bonaventure | 14 | 40 | 6-1 |
| Syracuse | 1 | 41 | 5-2 |
| Georgetown | 3 | 42 | 3-3 |
| Alabama | 9 | 43 | 5-2 |
| Kansas St | 8 | 44 | 3-3 |
| West Virginia | 10 | 45 | 4-3 |
| Iona | 14 | 47 | 5-3 |
| Long Beach St | 12 | 50 | 8-1 |
| Marquette | 3 | 53 | 4-2 |
| Colorado | 11 | 55 | 9-2 |
| Davidson | 13 | 56 | 6-0 |
| San Diego St | 6 | 58 | 4-2 |
| Southern Miss | 9 | 59 | 4-3 |
| St. Louis | 9 | 60 | 5-2 |
| New Mexico St | 13 | 63 | 8-1 |
| Colorado St | 11 | 67 | 4-2 |
| BYU | 14 | 71 | 5-3 |
| Xavier | 10 | 75 | 5-3 |
| Purdue | 10 | 76 | 4-4 |
| Iowa St | 8 | 77 | 2-2 |
| Memphis | 8 | 80 | 4-2 |
| California | 12 | 85 | 3-3 |
| Texas | 11 | 86 | 2-4 |
| Virginia | 10 | 90 | 2-3 |
| Temple | 5 | 91 | 2-3 |
| Wichita St | 5 | 93 | 3-4 |
| VCU | 12 | 96 | 8-2 |
| Montana | 13 | 100 | 2-0 |
| Notre Dame | 7 | 106 | 2-6 |
| South Florida | 12 | 115 | 2-4 |
