Well – I wanted to come up with something very analytical, but I am running out of time, so I am going to punt a little. I came up with something that I liked how it ranked the teams, but then I don’t have a good way to combine them – so as the grader, I will combine them the way I want to.
Basically, I started each game at an 80 – then I had a complicated method that moved the team’s grade based on how they did according to the Vegas spread of the game, and then modified further based on if they won, if they were supposed to win, how much of a difference existed with the seeds, etc. I also then modified the starting point for further rounds – because I felt that a team that got to the Elite 8 shouldn’t end up with a bad grade because they got blown out (such as Gonzaga vs. Connecticut).
So, the single bid conferences, for better or worse, got the grade of their team. For the multi-bid conferences, the Lunatic got a little creative based on other information such as how many teams did better than expected.
A+ – Northeast (Fairleigh Dickinson), Ivy (Princeton), Conference USA (Florida Atlantic) – These three teams were the main Cinderella stories of the tournament (along with San Diego State…)
A – Big East (Connecticut – A+, Creighton – A, Xavier – B, Marquette – C, Providence – C). This conference ended up doing +3 compared to their seed, with UConn and Creighton performing well, and Marquette under-performing. With UConn in the Final, they get the best grade from the power conferences
A – Southern (Furman) – their victory over Virginia got them a high grade.
A- – ACC (Miami – A+, Pitt – A-, Duke – A-, NC State – C, Virginia – D-). They had the most teams with As, including Miami’s unexpected Final Four, but have to ding them a little for Virginia’s first round loss.
B+ – WCC (Gonzaga – B+, St. Mary’s – B-). Both teams won a game in the tournament, and Gonzaga got to the Elite 8.
B+ – Sun Belt (Louisiana), Atlantic Sun (Kennesaw State), Horizon (Northern Kentucky), Southland (Texas A&M – Corpus Christi) – none of these teams pulled the upset, but they certainly outperformed based on the Vegas line.
B+ – Mountain West (San Diego State – A+, Boise State – C-, Utah State – D, Nevada – F). I bumped them up because of San Diego State’s amazing run. The other 3 teams all lost, but their seed suggested that is how they should have performed. But they can’t get an A with the other teams doing so poorly against the spread.
B – SEC (Arkansas – A-, Missouri – B, Alabama – B, Auburn – B-, Tennessee – B-, Kentucky – C+, Mississippi State – C, Texas A&M – F). Arkansas and Auburn outperformed their seed, but Alabama shockingly lost in the Sweet 16, so along with A&M’s loss, they finished -1 below their seed expectations. Which sadly was still better than the others. It is a little weird saying that a conference with 8 teams not getting any to the Elite 8 is better than the others – but to be fair, only Alabama was supposed to get that far and they did better than Purdue or Kansas did.
B- – Southland (Texas A&M – Corpus Christi), WAC (Grand Canyon)
C+ – OVC (SE Missouri State) – Vegas line almost picked their game exactly to what happened. Nothing to be ashamed of
C – Big 12 (Kansas State – A-, Texas – B+, TCU – C+, Baylor – C+, Kansas – C, West Virginia – C, Iowa State – F). So much was expected out of the Big 12, they were supposed to be the best conference in college basketball. They had 4 of the top 12 teams in the seeds. And yet, none made it to the Final Four. Kansas State getting to the Elite 8 was the only team to be above expectations, but Baylor and Kansas losing in the 2nd round killed their grade. I debated whether they should be above or below the Big 10 because at least Texas and Kansas State made it to the Elite 8, but both finished -4 to seed, and so I eventually settled that they did equally bad.
C – Big 10 (Penn State – A, Michigan State – A, Northwestern – B+, Maryland – C+, Indiana – C+, Illinois – D+, Iowa – D, Purdue – F). They had two teams outperform their seeds in Michigan State and Penn State, and Northwestern almost upset UCLA. But having a 1 seed lose really hurts your seed expectations.
C – Colonial (Charleston), Big Sky (Montana State), MEAC (Howard), Missouri Valley (Drake)
C- – America East (Vermont), MAC (Kent State), Patriot (Colgate), Atlantic 10 (VCU), Big West (UC-Santa Barbara)
C- – American (Houston – B-, Memphis – C-). I almost pushed them down to a D+ despite both their grades being a C-. This is because they both performed below seed expectations. But since they stayed close to what the Vegas lines expected, I decided I can’t rank them below Memphis’ C- grade.
D+ – Pac 10 (Arizona State – A, UCLA – B+, USC – C-, Arizona – F). You might think this is unfair. But they are the only power conference to have none of their teams to better than expected. When you have Arizona supposed to make it to the Elite 8 and get upset in the first round, and then no one make up for it to finish -4 below expectations, it gets a low grade.
D – Big South (UNC-Asheville)
D- – MAAC (Iona), Oral Roberts (Summit) – To be fair to Oral Roberts, I think Vegas over-estimated their chances against Duke, but we have to stick to the process.
F – SWAC (Texas Southern) – getting blown out in the First Four game cursed them to the bottom.