Sound familiar?įinally, Virginia won’t have starting center Ben Vander Plas. That Big Red squad led the nation in three-point shooting and took down two teams that played extremely slowly, didn’t grab offensive rebounds and weren’t adept at forcing large numbers of turnovers. The list includes a pair of Cornell upsets from 2010. That’s a problem.Īnyone with a grasp of Giant-Killing history recognizes some of those teams and the common threads they share with Furman and Virginia. That style automatically allows a weaker team to hang around, and doesn’t provide much protection against a poor shooting night. Virginia ranks 270th in the country in offensive rebounding and 360th in adjusted tempo (although the Wahoos do rank 88th in forcing turnovers, a change from recent Virginia squads). Safe Giants typically create extra possessions by grabbing offensive rebounds, forcing turnovers and playing at something other than a plodding pace. Instead, it spits out numbers, and the Virginia-Furman matchup has the highest upset odds of any first-round game.įirst, there are the Giant-Killing basics. If our model had a sense of humor, it would laugh. So wouldn’t you know it: When the brackets came out, there were Virginia and Furman, lumped together. Let’s just say the school’s math department is usually stronger than its basketball team. That brought a bit of joy to Liz Bouzarth, John Harris and Kevin Hutson, three math professors who have worked on the model for years and who happen to teach at … Furman. Meanwhile, our model has had its eye on Furman as a potential Killer. But a few Virginia fans got a tad defensive in the comments section. It was nothing personal – UVA’s current statistical profile just happens to correlate with teams that have been victims of tourney upsets. Virginia topped (or bottomed) the list with a Giant rating of just 61.6 (meaning the Hoos would beat an average Killer only 61.6% of the time). Last week, we published a piece looking at the teams our model pegged as the most vulnerable potential giants. The Athletic has live coverage of the First Round of NCAA March Madness. We have a more in-depth primer of the model here. And we can’t tell you exactly how to bet -that depends on how richly your pool rewards deep upsets and your tolerance for risk. Our analysis adjusts teams’ basic strengths according to how closely they statistically resemble overdogs and long shots from past tournaments and, where appropriate, by style matchups. A few reminders: We study opponents separated by at least five seeds.
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