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Bracketology: Marquette, Kansas and Houston teams to bet against in March

By Jacob Zinkula

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - FEBRUARY 09: Members of the Marquette Golden Eagles react to a three point shot during the first half against the Villanova Wildcats at Fiserv Forum on February 09, 2019 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - FEBRUARY 09: Members of the Marquette Golden Eagles react to a three point shot during the first half against the Villanova Wildcats at Fiserv Forum on February 09, 2019 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images) /
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With the NCAA Tournament on the horizon, here’s the Bracketology profile of the 1 and 2 seeds that haven’t had much success in March.

Last season, the Xavier Musketeers compiled a very impressive resume and earned a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament. The “analytics” were never particularly high on Xavier, however. KenPom for example, had the Musketeers ranked 14th headed into the tournament.  So when Xavier fell in the round of 32 to Florida St, I figured this shouldn’t have surprised me too much. But have poor analytics rankings consistently translated to poor tourney performances for teams like Xavier, or was this just a convenient example for analytics advocates?

I decided to go to back to 2002 and see how 1 and 2 seeds have performed that had a KenPom ranking greater than 10 heading into the tournament. Here’s a chart reflecting the results.

(All statistics used in this article were found via KenPom and are up to date through the games completed on Feb 10.).

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Among the four qualifying 1 seeds, 25% fell in the Elite 8, 25%, fell in the Sweet 16, and 50% fell in the Rd 32. On the whole, 75% didn’t make it past the Sweet 16. There was a bigger sample size of 2 seeds. Among the twenty-one qualifiers, 10%, fell in the championship game, 24% in the Elite 8, 14% in the Sweet 16, 43% in the Round of 32, and 10% in the 1st Rd. On the whole, 53% didn’t make it past the Round of 32 and 67% didn’t make it past the Sweet 16.

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So overall, 1 and 2 seeds with a KenPom ranking greater than 10 heading into the tournament haven’t performed nearly as one would expect based on their seed level. But how does this apply to the upcoming tournament? Are there any projected 1 and 2 seeds that would fit this profile? The current KenPom top 10 is comprised of Duke, Gonzaga, Virginia, Michigan St, Tennessee, Michigan, Kentucky, North Carolina, Purdue, and Virginia Tech.

Per our most recent Bracketology, every 1 and 2 seed is in the KenPom top ten. But just on the outside of the 2 line, there are three projected 3 seeds that might be worth paying attention to, especially if they end up as 2-seeds:

-Marquette, 3 seed, KenPom rank 29

-Houston, 3 seed, KenPom rank 19

-Kansas, 3 seed, KenPom rank 16

Next. Ranking the 16 Bracket Preview teams. dark

There’s still plenty of time for teams’ resumes to change, but maybe some of this will come in handy once the brackets are released.

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