On overvaluing road play (again)
by Ken Pomeroy on Monday, March 7, 2011
There were a couple of interesting pieces last week related to the importance of road play in evaluating a team’s postseason prospects. But both left me unconvinced that anyone should be emphasizing road play in particular when evaluating a team’s ability.
First, there was a piece by Graham Watson at The Dagger (Will poor road teams buck NCAA Tournament trend?) which cited the fact that teams entering the NCAA tournament with a poor road record do not win many games. Of course they don’t – all of the examples were seeded seventh or worse. A little additional analysis might have changed the tone of the piece altogether. Teams seeded like those listed in the piece would have been expected to win 6.5 games (using Pete Tiernan’s PASE concept). They won eight, which is hardly an indictment of the heart/guts/will of teams that had a poor road record.
The…