I have been filling out brackets for twenty years and this is easily the most difficult NCAA Tournament to predict. Typically, I have six or seven teams in mind that I think are legitimate Final Four/championship contenders and I have to struggle to trim that number down to four. This year, I'm having hard time finding any clear-cut championship caliber teams. I find myself trying to build up to four teams, rather than trimming my list to four. Also, in a typical year I don't give teams seeded higher than a 4 seed much of a look for a Final Four spot. This year, many of the 5 to 8 seeds are legitimate Final Four contenders. The #8 seeds are Arkansas, George Washington, Arizona and Kentucky. I'm not picking any of those teams in the Final Four, but it wouldn't shock me to see one of them in Indianapolis. Michigan State is a 6 seed. Does anyone think they are not better than 2 seed Tennessee? Pittsburgh is a 5 seed and I'm guessing that as many people will pick the Panthers in the Final Four as will pick Oakland's 2, 3, and 4 seeds, UCLA, Gonzaga and Kansas. I'm pondering it myself. In general, the 4 seeds look as strong, if not stronger, than the 2 seeds. In fact, 4 seed Kansas beat 2 seed Texas just the other day. Even the 1 seeds have weaknesses. Both Villanova and UConn failed to make the Big East finals (each losing to 5 seeds) and Duke went to wire with 4 seed BC in the ACC Championship. I think this year's tournament could be a repeat of last year where we had few major upsets in the first round but there were plenty of upsets (and near upsets) in the second, third and fourth rounds.

I don't normally post predictions because I don't want to get a flood of angry emails if my choices don't pan out. Some people believe that having the stats guarantees success. As I've said in my trends analysis, the stats are a nice tool but who wins in games between similarly-seeded teams really comes down to who is on top of their game on that particular day (who is shooting well that day, who is more tired than normal) and luck (who gets the calls, does the final shot rattle in or rattle out?). Take last year's Elite Eight, for example. Illinois, Louisville and Michigan State advanced to the Final Four but if just one successful shot had missed its mark in each game, Arizona, West Virginia and Kentucky would have been in St Louis. North Carolina won it all but most people think they deserved to lose in the Sweet Sixteen round to Villanova. So I won't post predictions, but I will offer plenty of stats. Here are a few observations followed by some statistical rankings (the top and bottom) for the 65 competitors in this year's tournament.

Conference Tournament Fatigue -- if you have read my NCAA Trends Analysis Part I (link at the bottom of this page), you know that my analysis has shown that teams seeded 3rd or lower who play three or more conference tournament games perform worse in the second round, on average, than the teams who play only one or two games in their conference tourney. Keep in mind that I only analyzed teams from the major conferences. Also notice that I am talking about the second round. The numbers tell me that these teams don't have as much of a problem with fatigue in the first round but that it catches up to them in the second round. Here are some teams that I feel are at risk (this doesn't mean that I am necessarily picking against these teams).

• Syracuse --
The Orange played four emotionally draining games in the Big East Tournament last week. If they get past Texas A&M, they will probably face LSU (the Tigers played only twice in the SEC Tournament). This would be Syracuse's sixth game in a span of about ten days.


• Boston College --
There needs to be an asterisk beside this one because BC's likely second round opponent, Nevada, also played three times last weekend. Still, BC's three games included tight emotional battles with North Carolina and Duke. Nevada's final game was an overtime win over Utah State but they cruised past Idaho and New Mexico State in the prior two games and of course the WAC is no ACC. BC also has to travel across two time zones and play in the high altitude of Salt Lake City. Nevada would also essentially be playing a home game against BC since Nevada borders Utah.


• Florida --
The Gators wrapped up an SEC title on Sunday with a hard-fought win over South Carolina. They could face a second round battle with well-rested Oklahoma. The Sooners played just once in the Big XII Tournament.


• Pittsburgh?? --
The Panthers played four games in four days in the Big East Tournament. They are lucky, though, because their probable second round foe Kansas played three times in three days to win the Big XII. Will that extra game matter? We may find out.

Who's Hot and Who's Not -- Only Gonzaga and Nevada come into the NCAA Tournament riding 10 game winning streaks. A total of 13 teams have won 9 of 10 and another 16 teams have won 8 of 10. Among the 9-1 teams, only Kansas plays in one of the six major conferences. The Jayhawks are 15-1 in their last 16 games. BC is 15-3 since January 14th and two of those losses were by two points to Duke. I think the more interesting list are the teams who have been losing a lot lately. Four teams are 4-6 in their last ten games: Michigan State, Wisconsin, Northern Iowa and West Virginia. Six teams are 5-5 in their last 10 games: Hampton, Seton Hall, NC State, Georgetown, Indiana and Marquette. Wisconsin is a pitiful 5-9 since mid January.

Battle Tested -- I'm not sure that the RPI Top 50 is what it once was. After all, George Mason and Hofstra are in the Top 30. Still, a team's record against tournament caliber competition is an important metric. UConn was an amazing 12-3 against the RPI Top 50. Duke was 9-2 and Villanova was 9-4. Iowa was an impressive 10-5. Washington was 5-1 thanks largely to beating UCLA twice. Michigan State played the most top 50 teams but could manage only a 9-9 record against that group. Arizona's 2-7 record against the RPI Top 50 is certainly a red flag. Kentucky was 3-8. I guess that's why they are both in 8/9 games.

Road Warriors -- Some schools may have a large fan contingent at a tournament game but no one plays on their home court. This is why it makes sense to look a team's road and neutral court record. Duke led the way with a 16-2 record away from Cameron Indoor. Iona was next best at 16-3. Other major conference notables on the positive side are: Villanova (13-3), UConn (11-3), Memphis (11-2), UCLA (10-3), North Carolina (9-3), Florida (11-4), Boston College (12-5) and Texas (11-5). On the flip side, you have some teams that have had a very difficult time winning away from home. The bottom two are Alabama (3-8) and Wisconsin (5-9). Arizona, Seton Hall and Marquette all won less than 43% of their road/neutral games. Bradley, despite being in the Missouri Valley Conference, was only 7-9 away from home.

The Key Stats -- Below you will find stats for the 65 teams participating in this year's tournament. I've given you the top five to ten and the bottom five in each category. If you would like to see all the numbers, I recommend that you visit statfox.com. According to my research in Trends Analysis Part II (link at the bottom of this page), the most important stats are field goal percentage, opponent field goal percentage and rebounding. Free throw shooting produced mixed results.

Note: Rebound Percentage Score is the percentage of offensive rebounds each team collected over the course of the season plus the percentage of defensive rebounds they collected. For example, a team that gets 35% of all possible offensive rebounds and 75% of all possible defensive rebounds would have a score of 1.10 (.35 + .75).

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