Stacked South- Is Coach Calipari correct?
March 12, 2012
UK head coach John Calipari believes the South region is the toughest of the four regions in the NCAA tournament.
“They stacked the region,” Calipari said. “The only thing I was happy about – I heard they were trying to get an exemption for the Heat to be the second seed in our bracket, and they weren’t allowed to get that so they couldn’t put them in there too.”
Is he statistically accurate, however?
We put together a spreadsheet and analyzed RPIs and W-L records of the two thru 16 seeds in each region.
South | RPI | Wins | Loses | East | RPI | Wins | Loses |
2-Duke | 5 | 27 | 6 | Ohio St. | 7 | 27 | 7 |
3-Baylor | 8 | 27 | 7 | Florida St. | 17 | 24 | 9 |
4-Indiana | 16 | 25 | 8 | Wisconsin | 22 | 24 | 9 |
5-Wichita St. | 12 | 27 | 5 | Vanderbilt | 25 | 24 | 10 |
6-UNLV | 18 | 26 | 8 | Cincinnati | 42 | 24 | 10 |
7-Notre Dame | 40 | 22 | 11 | Gonzaga | 24 | 25 | 6 |
8-Iowa St | 33 | 22 | 10 | Kansas St. | 49 | 21 | 10 |
9-UConn | 32 | 20 | 13 | Southern Miss. | 20 | 25 | 8 |
10-Xavier | 37 | 21 | 12 | West Virginia | 56 | 19 | 13 |
11-Colorado | 62 | 23 | 11 | Texas | 50 | 20 | 13 |
12-VCU | 39 | 28 | 6 | Harvard | 35 | 26 | 4 |
13-New Mexico St. | 59 | 26 | 9 | Montana | 73 | 25 | 6 |
14-South Dakota St. | 43 | 27 | 7 | St. Bonaventure | 79 | 20 | 11 |
15-Lehigh | 91 | 26 | 7 | Loyola Maryland | 77 | 25 | 8 |
16-Play-In | 166 | 18 | 15 | UNC Asheville | 103 | 24 | 9 |
all seeds | 44.07 | 365 | 135 | 45.27 | 353 | 133 | |
two thru 15 | 35.36 | 347 | 120 | 41.14 | 329 | 124 | |
two thru 10 | 22.33 | 217 | 80 | 29.11 | 213 |
West | RPI | Wins | Loses | Midwest | RPI | Wins | Loses |
Missouri | 10 | 30 | 4 | Kansas | 6 | 27 | 6 |
Marquette | 9 | 25 | 7 | Georgetown | 14 | 23 | 8 |
Louisville | 13 | 26 | 9 | Michigan | 11 | 24 | 9 |
New Mexico | 27 | 27 | 6 | Temple | 19 | 24 | 7 |
Murray St. | 21 | 30 | 1 | San Diego St. | 26 | 26 | 7 |
Florida | 28 | 23 | 10 | St. Mary’s (Calif.) | 29 | 27 | 5 |
Memphis | 15 | 26 | 8 | Creighton | 23 | 28 | 5 |
Saint Louis | 31 | 25 | 7 | Alabama | 36 | 21 | 11 |
Virginia | 52 | 22 | 9 | Purdue | 45 | 21 | 12 |
Colorado St. | 30 | 20 | 11 | North Carolina St. | 48 | 22 | 12 |
Long Beach St. | 34 | 25 | 8 | Play-In | 45.5 | 22 | 11 |
Davidson | 65 | 25 | 7 | Ohio | 47 | 27 | 7 |
Play-In | 43.5 | 25 | 7.5 | Belmont | 58 | 27 | 7 |
Norfolk St. | 128 | 25 | 9 | Detroit | 125 | 22 | 13 |
LIU Brooklyn | 81 | 25 | 8 | Play-In | 120.5 | 23 | 11 |
all seeds | 39.17 | 379 | 111.5 | 43.53 | 364 | 131 | |
two thru 15 | 36.18 | 354 | 103.5 | 38.04 | 341 | 120 | |
two thru 10 | 22.89 | 234 | 61 | 23.22 | 221 | 70 |
From both a RPI and win-loss standpoint, the West Region looks to be the toughest from top to bottom. They have two teams with 30 wins and the statistically toughest eight seed (Memphis).
If you just use RPI as a gauge, the South has the toughest two, three, six and 10 seeds in the field.
The play-in game that features Mississippi Valley State and Western Kentucky makes the numbers a bit murky. We averaged the two teams for the purposes of this chart, but WKU’s RPI of 189 definitely had an impact in the averages. That is why we added a line and looked at just the two thru 15 seeds and then also just the two thru 10 seeds.
If you look at just seeds two thru 15, the South has the highest RPI ranking and the second highest total of wins.
Overall, however, the numbers are pretty close across the board.
The tournament committee certainly set up some interesting story-lines in the South Region, but it doesn’t statistically appears to be slanted against Calipari’s Cats.