Friday, April 16, 2021

2020 (held in 2021) NCAA Women's Tourney Reaches Round of 16

The NCAA women's tourney is now down to 16 teams, who will play on Sunday (except for Wisconsin vs. BYU on Saturday). Fourteen of the 16 national seeds have advanced this far. The two exceptions are Western Kentucky, which upset No. 15-seed Washington State in five games and will now face No. 2-seed Kentucky; and Pitt, which swept No. 14-seed Utah and will now take on No. 3-seed Minnesota.

In my tournament preview (previous posting below), I identified Western Kentucky as a leading upset candidate, based on the Hilltoppers' ratio of nearly 3 (2.91) between their own season-long offensive hitting percentage (.355) to the hitting percentage they defensively allowed their opponents (.122). (WKU's conference-difficulty adjustment in Conference USA was 1.00, so the Hilltoppers' ratio statistics is not changed by multiplying by 1.00.) 

 Another team on my radar was High Point, whose ratio was an even more gaudy 3.29 (=.296/.090). Multiplying by the Big South adjustment factor of .75 yields an adjusted ratio of 2.47 for the Panthers. High Point scored a first-round win over Central Florida, but was then swept by No. 7-seed Purdue in the second round.

I just checked Pitt's regular-season statistics for own and opponents' hitting percentages. They were  .262 and .146, respectively. Dividing .262/.146 = 1.79 and multiplying by 1.10 for the ACC conference adjustment, yields an adjusted ratio of 1.97.

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