2008 TOURNAMENT: WORST ONE EVER?

by Thermocaster, The Meaningful Collateral

As I wrote on The Meaningful Collateral a few days ago, I've been very disappointed in this year's men's basketball. This is supposed to be the sports equivalent of the Fourth of July --- excitement, fireworks, and a relaxing break from the drudgery of the rest of the sports year. Instead, with a few exceptions, it's been like the sports equivalent of Tax Day.

We got royally screwed by the first weekend of action. Friday had some good games, and the Davidson-Georgetown/Tennessee-Butler pair on Sunday was exciting, but other than that, the games were BORING. The hope was that this past weekend's action would rectify the situation --- since there were so few upsets, there should've ideally been some very even matchups involving good teams.

Well, no. Unfortunately, this was probably the worst Regional weekend in recent memory. Don't believe me? Let's take a look at the numbers.

After considering a few different options, I settled on margin of victory as a decent metric for comparing seasons. The total point margin for each Sweet 16 and Elite 8 game was examined for the last seven tournaments, from 2001-02 to 2007-08. If a game went into overtime, then the margin was effectively classified as "0" --- since an overtime game at least had some competition and excitement.

Here are the numbers for each of these tournaments. The higher the number, the larger the average margin of victory was:

2008
Sweet 16: 14.625 points
Elite 8: 12.25 points

2007
Sweet 16: 4.625 points
Elite 8: 9.25 points

2006
Sweet 16: 5.125 points
Elite 8: 4.5 points

2005
Sweet 16: 8 points
Elite 8: 1 point

2004
Sweet 16: 11.75 points
Elite 8: 5.25 points

2003
Sweet 16: 6 points
Elite 8: 10.5 points

2002
Sweet 16: 7.375 points
Elite 8: 11 points

Sad, isn't it? This was the most non-competitive Sweet 16 we've had in seven years, with seven of the eight games being decided by 10 or more points, and only one game going in to overtime. The 2004 tournament is the only one that even comes close, and still most of those games were more competitive than what we had this year.

It's not any prettier when you consider the Elite 8 games, particularly when you keep in mind that in three of those contests, the margin of victory was 10, 18, and 19 points. Only the Kansas-Davidson game skewed the trend.

While margin of victory isn't the only measure of whether a game was good or not, it at least helps to measure how competitive it was down the stretch --- and really, when we watch tournament games, we're looking mostly for competitive games, even if they're not particularly well-played.

Part of the problem is that we've been a bit spoiled by the last three tournaments. All three of those years: 2004-05, 2005-06, and last year - had some very competitive games during the regional. 2005-06 had four overtime games during the weekend, and 2004-05 had three of the four regional finals go to overtime, and the fourth game was just a four-point margin.

The only hope now for tournament redemption is that the Final Four be one of the best ever. And the stage does appear to be set for that --- four #1 seeds, all of whom have been in the top 10 of the polls for the majority of the season. But that's only part of the equation, and it's doubtful that the stain of bad games is going to wash off the memory of this tournament that readily.