NCAA Basketball: Seeking out title contenders by the numbers
1. Strength of Schedule
On the surface, a team’s strength of schedule metric is quite easy to understand. It is a measure of how difficult a team’s schedule has been based on the opponents they have played thus far in the season. For every opponent a team plays that has done well, their strength of schedule should increase, and vice-versa for every opponent that has done poorly. There are some intricacies to untangle in measuring what actually makes a strong opponent, but for the purposes of this article, it is unnecessary to get too far into the weeds.
From a theoretical perspective, you can come at this two ways. The first is that if a team plays too tough of a schedule, they will be worn out by the time the tournament rolls around and primed for an early exit. The second is that if a team plays a tough schedule, they’re mentally and physically prepared for the inevitable grind and close games during the tournament, and they’re primed for a deep run. In general, the data shows that we should believe the latter over the former.
My regression analysis of tournaments extended back to the 2009-2010 season. In that time, every national champion has had a top-50 strength of schedule going into the tournament. Below is a non-exhaustive list of some highly ranked teams with a top-50 strength of schedule so far this season:
- Kansas (1)
- Purdue (2)
- Oklahoma (4)
- Louisville (5)
- Duke (6)
- North Carolina (11)
- Michigan State (13)
- Villanova (15)
- LSU (23)
- Maryland (24)
- Kentucky (26)
- Tennessee (31)
- Iowa State (33)
- Wisconsin (34)
- Marquette (41)
- Michigan (48)
- Texas Tech (50)
Obviously, meeting the top-50 criterion is somewhat arbitrary, but it provides a simplified means for flagging potential championship contenders.