What BET seeding scenario do you prefer?

[Get a Job]

Providence has got to be pretty happy with the way the 3- and 4-seeds shook out (although they'd never admit it to us).

 

[Matt1010]

Providence has got to be pretty happy with the way the 3- and 4-seeds shook out (although they'd never admit it to us).

If Marquette holds on to win the 3 highest rated Kenpom teams will all be on the bottom of the bracket. PC has a very nice road to the title game.

 

[BugsyCT]

So here we go. 3 seed, getting the Hall/GTown winner Thursday 9:30pm

2022 BIG EAST Men's Basketball Tournament - Big East Conference

www.bigeast.com

 

[jibsey]

We have a better draw than Nova if St. John’s advances.

 

[auror]

We have a better draw than Nova if St. John’s advances.

Nah. Nova is better than us (and we have to play them vs. them playing us) and Seton Hall is significantly better than St. John's (assuming Richmond plays).

 

[Kolumbo]

I'm sure this will be discussed in the next poll thread but some meaningful losses, a couple creating some wiggle room.

4 Duke to unranked UNC
12 Texas Tech to unranked Okie St
14 Arkansas to 13 Tenn
16 USC to 17 UCLA
21 Texas to 6 Kansas
25 Alabama to unranked LSU

 

[bendm]

it is tough to beat a team three times.

This argument comes up every year on the Boneyard, and it's been discussed and studied since time began.

It Really Is Harder To Beat A Team The Third Time In Men’s College Basketball

The third time often is the charm for some teams.

fivethirtyeight.com

I guess it’s a good thing we are playing Hall in the 3/6 instead of Marquette in the 4/5 after all!

 

[auror]

It Really Is Harder To Beat A Team The Third Time In Men’s College Basketball

The third time often is the charm for some teams.

fivethirtyeight.com

I guess it’s a good thing we are playing Hall in the 3/6 instead of Marquette in the 4/5 after all!

Interesting, but vs. Marquette we'd be in the between 3 and 7 adj EM difference bucket, and the trend seems to be that it's much harder to beat a better team 3x in this bucket than typical, whereas beating a worse team 3x looks about expected (between 3 and 7 adj EM is going to be 58-65% favorites normally and this has them winning 63% of the time).

 

[Get a Job]

It Really Is Harder To Beat A Team The Third Time In Men’s College Basketball

The third time often is the charm for some teams.

fivethirtyeight.com

I guess it’s a good thing we are playing Hall in the 3/6 instead of Marquette in the 4/5 after all!

Very interesting read. In its totality, I think this analysis refutes the blanket statement "It's hard to beat a team three times" more than it supports it. Really, all it shows is that

a.) it's definitely hard to beat a superior team 3 times in season, and
b.) when two teams are nearly evenly matched, and the slightly better team wins the first two, said team wins the third matchup at a slightly lower rate than expected

Outside of these specific and relatively rare scenarios, the cliché is untrue. Even the modified version, that it's hard to beat a good team is meaningless at best: One has to consider the relative strengths of both teams in question. It's not that hard for a great team to beat a good team 3 times in a season.