Have Badgers Underachieved in NCAA Tournament?
This article was originally posted pre-tournament 2011 in response to criticisms that the Badgers have done poorly in the NCAA Tournament. I have updated the numbers/comment with the BOLD font.
Let's take a look at who the Badgers have played in the NCAA Tournament over the years. Who have they beaten? Who have they lose to? What is a reasonable expectation?
First, let's take all the "bad" teams the Badgers have played in the NCAA tourney. Let's put the cutoff at us having a better than 80% chance of winning.
Weber State: 86% (W)
Richmond: 82% (W)
Bucknell: 89% (W)
TACC: 95%(W)
CS-Fullerton: 95% (W)
FSU: 83% (W)
Wofford: 85% (W)
2014 American-80% (W)
2015 Coastal Carolina-88% (W)
2015 Oregon-83% (W)
Our odds of winning all 7 games? Now, remember, these are all considered automatic games by most fans. Anyway, the odds of winning all 7? 40% That is it. We of course won all 7 games. The odds say that we should have lost 1. We just picked up a game.
UPDATE: In the last decade, we have added 3 more wins, putting the Badgers at 10-0 as prohibitive favorites. The odds of this happening are just 23%. As noted years earlier, you are likely to lose roughly 1 or 2 out of 10 of these games, so going 10-0 is better than expected.
How about the tossup games? Say, anything between 40-60% chance of winning?
Pitt: 48% (L)
NC State: 54% (W)
2012 Vanderbilt -59% (W)
2012 Syracuse-52% (L)
2014 Arizona-43% (W)
2014 Kentucky-58% (L)
2015 Arizona-55% (W)
2015 Duke-45% (L)
2016 Pitt-51% (W)
2016 Xavier -41%(W)
2016 Notre Dame-49% (L)
2017 Florida-44% (L)
2019 Oregon-56%(L)
2021 North Carolina-53% (W)
2022 Iowa State-55% (L)
Guess what...we split with them, as expected.
UPDATE: In the years since, we have played a lot of these type games. In the ensuing years, the Badgers have gone 6-7 in these games, which is right where you would expect to be. You can quibble about the Badgers being slight favorite in 9 of these games, so maybe 7-6 rather than 6-7 should be expected but again, the margin is very small.
OK, let's go with the "solid favorites" games (60-80%).
Tulsa: 74% (W)
N. Iowa: 78% (W)
UNLV: 75% (L)
K-State: 70% (W)
Davidson: 71% (L)
Xavier: 74% (L)
Cornell: 76% (L)
2011 Belmont 64% (W)
2011 Kansas State 72% (W)
2011 Butler 75% (L)
2012 Montana 74% (W)
2013 Ole Miss-75% (L)
2014 Oregon-65% (W)
2014 Baylor-63% (W)
2015 North Carolina-69% (W)
2017 Va Tech-63% (W)
2022 Colgate-66% (W)
This is where you will get the most griping of course. Anyway, even though Badger fans think we should have won all of them, the odds are just 12% that we would win them all. Now, we finished 3-4 in these games which is below what would be expected, which is about 5-2, which means we have now dropped 2 games that we should have been expected to win.
So, in essence, we picked up one win against the lesser teams. We should have been upset by a worse team somewhere along the line, but we haven't.. We did get upset twice more than expected by the good but not great teams, so we are only one game in the hole.
UPDATE: In the years since, the Badgers have gone 8-2 as solid favorites, which is slightly above average. Overall, they are 11-6 as solid favorites. This eliminated that “two game deficit” from the tiny sample size of the initial look.
How about the games where we were prohibitive dogs?
Kentucky: 30% (L)
NC: 20% (L)
Arizona: 36% (L)
2015 Kentucky-11% (W)
2017 Villanova-35% (W)
2021 Baylor-23% (L)
Our odds of losing all three (which we of course did)? 36% Basically, this means that yes, just as we should have lost one of the dog games, we also should have won one of these. Two of them were very close and we certainly could have won, but that is the way it works.
UPDATE: The Badgers have impressively won 2 of 3 as prohibitive dogs. It was noted years ago that you would expect that the Badgers would get one of these games every so often…and they have. Nothing wrong with 2-4.
So, overall, we are probably 2 games or so below what is to be expected, but over 21 games, that is basically just random statistical noise, much like flipping a coin 21 times and having it off by a couple heads/tails. Sometimes teams just get hot or make a key play...that is sports. If you want to throw in not having Butch or a healthy Trevon Hughes or whatever, maybe you pick up one of those games and it is even more of a moot point? Bottom line? We are generally right about where we should be in terms of expected wins/losses. Maybe we lost an extra game or two over the last 8 years, but that isn't significant (though of course it sucks). Is it enough to cause all the consternation? Not for me, but everyone is entitled to their opinions.
UPDATE: Just a bunch of regression to the mean, as expected, and there is nothing at all unusual about the Badgers tournament performance. If anything, they are probably “due” to be the subject of a big upset eventually, but otherwise, much to do about nothing and a lot of time wasted to learn that math works.
First, let's take all the "bad" teams the Badgers have played in the NCAA tourney. Let's put the cutoff at us having a better than 80% chance of winning.
Weber State: 86% (W)
Richmond: 82% (W)
Bucknell: 89% (W)
TACC: 95%(W)
CS-Fullerton: 95% (W)
FSU: 83% (W)
Wofford: 85% (W)
2014 American-80% (W)
2015 Coastal Carolina-88% (W)
2015 Oregon-83% (W)
Our odds of winning all 7 games? Now, remember, these are all considered automatic games by most fans. Anyway, the odds of winning all 7? 40% That is it. We of course won all 7 games. The odds say that we should have lost 1. We just picked up a game.
UPDATE: In the last decade, we have added 3 more wins, putting the Badgers at 10-0 as prohibitive favorites. The odds of this happening are just 23%. As noted years earlier, you are likely to lose roughly 1 or 2 out of 10 of these games, so going 10-0 is better than expected.
How about the tossup games? Say, anything between 40-60% chance of winning?
Pitt: 48% (L)
NC State: 54% (W)
2012 Vanderbilt -59% (W)
2012 Syracuse-52% (L)
2014 Arizona-43% (W)
2014 Kentucky-58% (L)
2015 Arizona-55% (W)
2015 Duke-45% (L)
2016 Pitt-51% (W)
2016 Xavier -41%(W)
2016 Notre Dame-49% (L)
2017 Florida-44% (L)
2019 Oregon-56%(L)
2021 North Carolina-53% (W)
2022 Iowa State-55% (L)
Guess what...we split with them, as expected.
UPDATE: In the years since, we have played a lot of these type games. In the ensuing years, the Badgers have gone 6-7 in these games, which is right where you would expect to be. You can quibble about the Badgers being slight favorite in 9 of these games, so maybe 7-6 rather than 6-7 should be expected but again, the margin is very small.
OK, let's go with the "solid favorites" games (60-80%).
Tulsa: 74% (W)
N. Iowa: 78% (W)
UNLV: 75% (L)
K-State: 70% (W)
Davidson: 71% (L)
Xavier: 74% (L)
Cornell: 76% (L)
2011 Belmont 64% (W)
2011 Kansas State 72% (W)
2011 Butler 75% (L)
2012 Montana 74% (W)
2013 Ole Miss-75% (L)
2014 Oregon-65% (W)
2014 Baylor-63% (W)
2015 North Carolina-69% (W)
2017 Va Tech-63% (W)
2022 Colgate-66% (W)
This is where you will get the most griping of course. Anyway, even though Badger fans think we should have won all of them, the odds are just 12% that we would win them all. Now, we finished 3-4 in these games which is below what would be expected, which is about 5-2, which means we have now dropped 2 games that we should have been expected to win.
So, in essence, we picked up one win against the lesser teams. We should have been upset by a worse team somewhere along the line, but we haven't.. We did get upset twice more than expected by the good but not great teams, so we are only one game in the hole.
UPDATE: In the years since, the Badgers have gone 8-2 as solid favorites, which is slightly above average. Overall, they are 11-6 as solid favorites. This eliminated that “two game deficit” from the tiny sample size of the initial look.
How about the games where we were prohibitive dogs?
Kentucky: 30% (L)
NC: 20% (L)
Arizona: 36% (L)
2015 Kentucky-11% (W)
2017 Villanova-35% (W)
2021 Baylor-23% (L)
Our odds of losing all three (which we of course did)? 36% Basically, this means that yes, just as we should have lost one of the dog games, we also should have won one of these. Two of them were very close and we certainly could have won, but that is the way it works.
UPDATE: The Badgers have impressively won 2 of 3 as prohibitive dogs. It was noted years ago that you would expect that the Badgers would get one of these games every so often…and they have. Nothing wrong with 2-4.
So, overall, we are probably 2 games or so below what is to be expected, but over 21 games, that is basically just random statistical noise, much like flipping a coin 21 times and having it off by a couple heads/tails. Sometimes teams just get hot or make a key play...that is sports. If you want to throw in not having Butch or a healthy Trevon Hughes or whatever, maybe you pick up one of those games and it is even more of a moot point? Bottom line? We are generally right about where we should be in terms of expected wins/losses. Maybe we lost an extra game or two over the last 8 years, but that isn't significant (though of course it sucks). Is it enough to cause all the consternation? Not for me, but everyone is entitled to their opinions.
UPDATE: Just a bunch of regression to the mean, as expected, and there is nothing at all unusual about the Badgers tournament performance. If anything, they are probably “due” to be the subject of a big upset eventually, but otherwise, much to do about nothing and a lot of time wasted to learn that math works.