If you listened to the latest episode of “Live From the 815” then you heard our great conversation with College Basketball Expert Gus Kerns, from the Screen the Screener podcast. If you haven’t then check THIS link out…. —> https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-37-kc-johnson-and-gus-kerns/id1245921911?i=1000406299521&mt=2.
What is cool about Gus and the Screen the Screener podcast is that they eat, breathe and sleep college basketball. They honestly have to save so much money on groceries and sleeping medication due to the fact that college basketball is all they need in life in order to sustain the amount of nutrients that a human body needs to survive. If I lost you, the moral of the story is: these guys know college basketball.
So we had Gus on and we talked about which #1 weed was the weakest and the most vulnerable in this bracket. Gus then brings up an interesting point. His co-host on the Screen the Screener podcast is predicting the #1 seeded Xavier to lost to the #16 seeded Texas Southern. Crazy right? Well I trust these guys with my life, and even my first born son. Some may say that is a little too much trust considering I have never even met these guys in person, but I stand by what I said.
What is crazy though is that some basketball sabermetrics back up what these guys are saying. Xavier’s record does not reflect the numbers that this team has been putting up all season. Gus goes into it a little more on the podcast, but just a quick look at the Pomeroy Rankings of the tournament teams, Xavier is nowhere near the top.
14? FOURTEEN?!?! These guys are supposed to be a #1 seed and yet, in this statistical formula, they are ranked as the 14th best team in the tournament? That would be a #4 seed. It wouldn’t be a monumental upset if a #4 seed lost to Texas Southern. It would just be a cool story as it was happening and we would all move on with our lives. But a #16 seed beating a #1 seed is going to feel like a 7th grade varsity team is coming in against the NCAA national champions and coming out with a victory.
The odds have been stacked against the #16 seed forever. There actually are some numbers compiled by some nerds in this world.
I think that says that a #16 seed has a 1.84% chance of winning? If that is the case then there has been 128 16v1 seeded games in NCAA March Madness history, so we are due for an upset. If that chart means that they have a .0184% chance of winning then I just sound like a complete idiot, but for fun let’s just pretend it is that first one.
GO TSU. GO TIGERS. HISTORY IN THE MAKING.
(You heard it here first)
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