Minor League March Madness, Baby!

The time has come for us to celebrate the Annual Minor League Basketball Tournament, also known as the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament.  I do not like to use the term NCAA or the names of the universities involved in said tournament because the NCAA and its amateurism is a sham.  Let's call this thing what it truly is and recognize it is a minor league basketball tournament.  It is filled with great drama and story lines, but make no mistake - it is minor league basketball.  While the games are not usually well played, they are generally close in score and the players are playing their butts off from the tip-off to the final whistle (which cannot be said for most NBA games, even in the playoffs).  The real draw is the single elimination tournament.  The possibility of elimination (and the possibility of filling out an incorrect bracket) is what feeds the madness and holds our interest.

Even its greatest skeptics have to admit, minor league basketball is fun to watch.  I will admit that I did not watch much regular season minor league basketball this year (read: I did not watch a single game).  However, I did watch the conference tourneys the past week and I have been looking over the wonderful statistics available at kenpom.com to prep for the tourney.  As a result, I am an expert on minor league basketball and as a result, you should help me guide your viewing.  

Drama and pace are a two things I am planning to pay attention to as the tournament unfolds.  Close games are great to watch, so I am choosing to focus on those games in the hopes of getting more drama (sorry Mary J).  After crunching some numbers I have ranked the games based on projected score and I plan to keep the closest eye on the ones I project to be the most bitterly fought and have the smallest margin of victory.  Second, I am going to try to watch the games that have the fastest pace.  After reading the Grantland.com article about how West Liberty University loves to push the pace of the game, I realized how bad it is to watch low scoring, poorly played, and terribly executed minor league basketball.   Therefore, I am going to focus on the games that will have the fastest tempo - frankly, to avoid falling asleep.  

Margin of victory and tempo are the two trends that I find most interesting.  I will post the rankings for projected margin of victory for the with the quickest pace before each round of the tournament.  These will be updated after each round so keep coming back as the tournament progesses.  Tomorrow I will preview the 1st round games, also known as the "First Four" and previously known as the "Play-In Game".

Finally, join the Marcello Ball Tourney Pick 'Em group on Yahoo!  I am trying to come up a prize for the winner.  At the very least you tell me how poor my prognostication skills are.