Seven Questions to Ask While Scouting for March Madness

March Madness is a roulette wheel. It is what draws millions of people, basketball fanatics and otherwise uninterested folks alike, to fill out brackets, pay attention, and tune in to watch teams they may have never heard of.

This March, Splash is introducing a new way to get involved with the tournaments. March Madness Survivor will offer players another layer to filling out their brackets, transforming one game each day into your main event. If you can correctly predict one winner on each of the tournament’s 10 total days, without recycling any old picks, then the cash is yours.

If you intend on making that money, then you have to prepare. College basketball only offers so many opportunities to take in teams and analyze data before the chaos of single elimination tightens its grip. You have to capitalize on them while you can.

I have developed multiple methods over the years to help me determine everything under the sun come bracket time. Am I perfect? Far from it. But I generally do well, and even simply doing well in a bracket pool or Splash Survivor contest could earn you a reward.

A combination of the eye test and analytics are crucial to me. Statistics can be very telling of the story underneath the surface, but not all things are able to be measured in a neat, objective format. Don’t wed yourself to the demagoguery of either ideologies.

In the coming handful of weeks between now and Selection Sunday, these are the questions you should be asking and aiming to answer every time you see a team play, plus the analytics to keep your eye on. Solve the annual inquiries of upsets, Cinderellas, and net-chopping ceremonies, and April will be a lucrative month.

Can the Team’s Guards Take Over?

The single-elimination aspect of the NCAA Tournament is the most important fact to remember in team evaluations. To advance in the tournament, all the team needs to do is be better than its specific opponent on that day. This is obvious, but too many people overlook it when drafting their picks.

Guards, point guards in particular, have the ball in their hands the most out of any player on the court. That means that guards, and point guards specifically, defend the ball directly the most out of any player on the court. When you take into account an entire season’s worth of minutes, events, and games, that nuance can be overcome by the big men and forwards. But when you whittle it all down to one 40-minute contest, guards rule the day.

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Nearly every team that goes deep in the NCAA Tournament has an invaluable guard who controls the tempo, takes care of the basketball, and gets big buckets when needed. Kemba Walker, Shabazz Napier, Steph Curry, Mateen Cleaves, Dwayne Wade, Jairus Kyles, Ja Morant, Carsen Edwards, Kyle Guy. If you don’t have someone like that - or even better, multiple someones like that - then it simply will not work out in March.

Teams only get one shot at it that time of year. If the players who hold the most responsibility over the basketball are turning it over, throwing up bricks, and getting blown by on dribble drives on a regular basis, then all those lost possessions and easy baskets will kill even the mightiest of regular season Goliaths. Just ask 2022-23 Purdue about that.

Can the Team Win Away from Home?

It’s been decades since NCAA Tournament games were held at campus sites. In the modern age, you might be close to home but never quite there. If you want to win in March, you have to stay in hotels while doing it.

Teams that make the Sweet 16 almost always are above .500 on the road in their respective conferences. Of course, the best teams win the most games regardless of where they are played, but some teams make it a point of pride to win away from the comforts of home.

Pay attention to a team’s road record, and look closely at the opponents they played. If a team can knock off or at least be competitive with the best team in its league at their house, that means something. No matter what Brett Yormark says, only good teams make the tournament. Only the good teams good enough to beat the other good teams on unknown territory make March runs.

Can the Team Crash the Offensive Glass?

When 40 minutes are all that separate two teams from advancement or cancellation, every possession is pertinent. There is no more efficient way to steal possessions in basketball than through holstering offensive rebounds.

Shot clock resets force opposing defenses to stay in their stances for longer. Rebounds around the rim often lead to quick, easy points. If you can’t drive the lane or shoot effectively, offensive rebounds are an alternate avenue forward. Most meaningfully, though, they rob your opponent of a possession.

Mind teams’ offensive rebounding percentage and look for how much emphasis teams place on crashing the offensive glass in their regular season games. Offensive boards have orchestrated many March Madness moments, brought down a Goliath or two, and delivered their fair share of championships. Danny Hurley knows a thing or two about the last one.

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Can the Team Hit from Three?

We all know about basketball’s shift behind the arc. Three points are worth more than two, and over the last decade, math has finally invaded gymnasiums across the country.

Teams that shoot at a high clip from three are always dangerous. All it takes is one hot night, and anyone can beat anyone in the tournament. Teams that have displayed a general ability to fill it up from deep are more likely to do the same in March.

Even the worst shooting teams have excellent nights from the field, and even the best go cold. Jump shooting is a fickle beast. Don’t get too wrapped up in the percentages, but do be aware of them. When you watch teams in the regular season, notice the nature of their three point attempts. Are they often organic pieces of the offense, or last-second heaves before the shot clock sounds? I’d rather bet on rhythm than heroism.

Has the Team’s Coach Reached the Elite Eight?

Since 1999, only two national championship winning coaches hadn’t previously reached the Elite Eight. To the surprise of nobody who has watched college basketball for the last 25 years, the only outliers were 2014 UConn and 2023 UConn.

It’s not a hard and fast rule, but tournament titles don’t generally come out of nowhere. Usually, the coach who wins it all has had some amount of postseason success before.

Much is made of player experience late in the season, but it doesn’t play as big of a role as some talking heads might lead you to believe. But coaching experience does make a difference. In a single-elimination situation, exploiting ideal matchups as much as possible is how you win. Some coaches have proven that they can adjust most smoothly on the fly. They are the ones to trust the most.

Where Is the Team in TeamRankings.com’s Predictive Rankings?

TeamRankings.com has released a predictive, ranking and rating of every Division I men’s basketball team since the 2006-07 campaign. In all but two of the 16 fully completed seasons that the rankings have existed, the eventual national champion was ranked in the site’s top six right before the start of the tournament.

The only exceptions to this 87.5 percent rule are 2011 UConn and 2014 UConn, standard outliers in these sorts of endeavors. Those Huskies teams were ranked 17th and 20th, respectively. The other 14 net cutters were within the first six on TeamRankings.com, and 11 were stationed among the top three.

As of Feb. 18, Arizona, Houston, Purdue, UConn, Alabama, and Tennessee are within the website’s margin of error for national champion. There are still weeks left in the regular season, and there is a good chance those six won’t be the same by Selection Sunday. But keep an eye on these rankings, and especially pay attention when it’s time to make picks.

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Where Is the Team in KenPom’s Efficiency Metrics?

KenPom is ubiquitous in the college basketball analytics world, which means it also has its detractors who love to hate on using numbers to help understand sports. The metric isn’t perfect, but it has proven itself useful over the years at fulfilling its purpose: predictive measurements, i.e., making bracket picks and March Madness Survivor selections.

For the last few years, Reddit user /u/locknload03 has produced original content analyzing KenPom data dating back to its earliest days of the 2001-02 season in the days leading up to the NCAA Tournament. The poster found that every national champion since 2002 has been placed in the top 25 of KenPom’s rankings on Selection Sunday. Additionally, all but one champion was in the top 25 for adjusted offensive efficiency, according to KenPom, on their Selection Sundays (2014 UConn was 58th), and all but one champion was in the top 40 for adjusted defensive efficiency, based on KenPom (2021 Baylor was 44th). /u/locknload03 has discovered other shared qualities among most college basketball champs from the last two decades, some of which have been covered in this article, and all of which is worth checking out.

KenPom is not the end all, be all of college basketball. Do not assume a team ranked higher than another in his metrics is certain to overcome the underdog in a tournament situation. But for understanding matchups in a macro perspective and building out a long-term plan for your bracket or Survivor strategy, KenPom is an excellent guide.

Another fantastic source for advanced college basketball information is Bart Torvik’s T-Rank. The site includes access to some stats that are especially relevant come tournament time, like turnover percentage, effective field goal percentage, and free throw rate. You can also compare teams directly against one another, which makes it easier to visualize every bracket pick and Survivor decision. The NCAA Tournament is incredibly matchup based. Any way to size competitors up versus each other is valuable.