Shared statistical traits reveal top college basketball contenders
With the bowl games having wrapped up and most college sports bettors still focused heavily on the upcoming CFP title contest between Michigan and Washington, this is an ideal time to take a deeper look at the current picture in college basketball, specifically which teams are the top title contenders at this point.
In my opinion, the CBB futures board hasn’t been picked over by the betting public yet because so many are still focused on the football title and Super Bowl markets rather than March Madness. As such, bettors can still find some pretty value now in looking ahead to who could cut down the nets at Phoenix in early April. With that in mind, I’d like to share the method I use to find teams that have championship-level resumes at this point in the season. You will recognize it as the same process I always offer up come tournament time, and it’s called Shared Traits Analysis.
Before I begin, I would like to “toot my own horn” and tell you that I have done this around New Year’s every year since Covid wiped out the tournament in 2020 and have been able to peg the eventual title winner in all three years. Before anyone starts believing I am Nostradamus or something, I’ll admit that I always pick a group of teams with the highest Shared Traits, and that number has ranged from six to seven teams over the last four years, including Connecticut at this time last year when I recognized the Huskies as one of seven teams I felt was capable of cutting down the nets to close the tournament. That said, UConn was listed at 20-1 when I wrote the piece, so anyone who invested one unit in all seven teams I denoted at the time could still post a 14-unit profit.
Again, the methodology I like to employ is called “Shared Statistical Traits” to compare current teams to past teams achieving a certain goal or level of success. I am of the belief that while the teams and players might change from year to year, the overall resume of what it takes to be a champion does not.
For this exercise, I will take a current snapshot of the key stats, rosters, and strength ratings of the country’s top teams and share which ones have the most traits befitting of a title contender. Essentially, I pick out 12 different key statistical categories and four of my own personal Strength Indicators, plus a Combined Average Ranking. Here they are:
After determining the national season ranks for all the Division 1 teams, I compared them to the Champion teams from the last 10 tournaments for special analysis. For each stat category, I look for minimum performance, typical national ranking, and the percentile of teams that qualify within certain ranges. As a final exclamation point on the analysis, I take a Combined National Ranking of the 16 sortable categories to separate the more complete teams from the rest.
In the past, when summarizing the findings, I have determined that the relationship between my Effective Strength Indicator was the most significant of all the categories analyzed. The average of the last 40 Final Four teams ranked about 15th in the country in that rating. Among the harder core statistical categories, Effective Defensive Points per Possession was most important. Interestingly, the least important factor was Defensive Turnovers per Possession, or the ability to force turnovers on defense.
Shared Traits of Tournament Champions
Recent years of tournament action have shown that there is a big difference between reaching the Final Four and winning the title. Typically, only the truly elite teams accomplish the latter. Last year that point was exacerbated, with UConn being the only legitimate title-worthy team that landed in Houston. Here’s a look at the minimum requirements for winning a tournament championship over the last decade. To jog your memory, these are the nine champions and their seed during that time span:
2013 LOUISVILLE (#1)
2014 CONNECTICUT (#7)
2015 DUKE (#1)
2016 VILLANOVA (#2)
2017 NORTH CAROLINA (#1)
2018 VILLANOVA (#1)
2019 VIRGINIA (#1)
2021 BAYLOR (#1)