NCAA Tournament 2017: One key stat that shows why your team is doomed in March
Presenting the cold, hard facts on why your team will not win the national championship
March Madness is finally upon us. The greatest four days of the American sports calendar kick off on Thursday at 12:15 ET, with a new tip-off scheduled for every half hour afterward. I highly encourage you to follow along with all of FanSided’s NCAA tournament coverage — we’ve got a lot of people working very hard to make sure you’re prepared for the Dance.
If you’ve read what I’ve written here before, you’ll know that much of my analysis is rooted in stats. I enjoy writing with them because I think it’s the best way (for me) to cover the game. Opinions can be a dime a dozen, but if I can tell you a story with stats that aren’t seen in other places, it seems to add value – to me, at least.
RELATED: Updated 2017 NCAA Tournament Bracket
This article will play on this stat focus, though. I usually use stats to try and tell an objective story as best I can. But we all know stats can be manipulated to tell us (almost) whatever we want. In that spirit, this article will be a run-down of the stats that tell us exactly why each of the top seeds CANNOT win the championship. It’ll use real, historical precedents that search through the past 15 tournament results, and find the one problem with those teams that say they can’t win the title.
Obviously, this is wrong – one team has to win, and they will. But feel free to use them against rival friends and fans, to show them exactly why their team CAN’T win the title, because STATS SAID SO. Just try and make sure your friends don’t find this article (actually, please make sure they do).