Using data from sports-reference.com/cbb, I compiled a spreadsheet of all teams in the last years who either lost in the Sweet 16, or won in the Sweet 16. I examined their statistics in conference to examine if there were significant differences in individual statistics between the two groups.

# All teams data

ConferenceDataSweet = read.csv("https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19yd3fcw9b2JtNw_JVJ1YlJOxpkNoZ_Mp3i3tWmkhaxg/gviz/tq?tqx=out:csv&sheet=Sweet", header = TRUE)

ConferenceDataElite = read.csv("https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19yd3fcw9b2JtNw_JVJ1YlJOxpkNoZ_Mp3i3tWmkhaxg/gviz/tq?tqx=out:csv&sheet=Elite", header = TRUE)
mean(ConferenceDataElite[1:64, 3]) # Elite 8 PPG
## [1] 74.68125
mean(ConferenceDataSweet[1:64, 3]) # Sweet 16 PPG
## [1] 74.03281

Teams who made the Elite 8 averaged more points per game … which makes sense since they should be better.

mean(ConferenceDataElite[1:64, 5]) # Elite 8 Point Differential Per Game
## [1] 8.74375
mean(ConferenceDataSweet[1:64, 5]) # Sweet 16 Point Differnetial per game
## [1] 6.917187

The most stark contrast between teams who made the elite 8 and those who didnt was in point differential per game.

In doing the research, I attempted to find factors that would separate teams who were successful and those who weren’t. However, I was slightly surprised to find that in every other category which did not include points, there was little to no difference between the categories (even in the standard deviation). The conferences were also very similarly distributed, apart from the two outliers of Oral Roberts (Sad Ohio State fan here :( ) and Florida Gulf Coast. An additional note should be made that the data included a timeframe where the Big East contained more and better teams.

The main point of this? It’s probably a good idea to check whether a team had a significant Point Differential in conference before you pick them to win your bracket. :)