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So often, a college basketball team's entire season comes down to one final heave of the ball towards the basket. The difference between winning and losing in March Madness can come down to a prayer from beyond the arc.
So often, a college basketball team's entire season comes down to one final heave of the ball towards the basket. The difference between winning and losing in March Madness can come down to a prayer from beyond the arc.
So do teams that are more experienced in taking 3s win more games in March Madness?
So do teams that are more experienced in taking 3s win more games in March Madness?
The anec-data says yes:
But the stats say... don't bet on it. If you were to just use one (non-advanced) stat to make every pick in your bracket, you couldn't do much worse than three point attempts per game (3PA/G). You'd be much better off (unsurprisingly) just picking the team that made more shots or scored more points during the regular season, and even the teams with more rebounds, blocks, assists, free throws, and steals do better on average then the team with more three point attempts. I wouldn't be surprised if "who's mascot would win in a fight" does better...
The data lives in this Google Sheet. Click in if you want to play around with seeing how different stats perform in different years:
March Madness Points Analysis vAC.xlsxNotes
Data collected from SportsReference.com.
Bracket points based on the following scoring system:
Round of 64 Win = 10 points
Round of 32 Win = 20 points
Sweet Sixteen Win = 40 points
Elite Eight Win = 80 points
Final Four Win = 160 points
Championship Win = 320 points
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