2018-2019 B1G Basketball Thread

[medinabuckeye1]

I think that they should maybe mandate that a team needs to be at least .500 in their own Conference in order to qualify for an at large bid.

Sorry if this has already been discussed, I haven't read the entire thread. Just sorta jumping in here.

but, that's not fair

some programs unfairly belong to very strong basketball conferences

Yes I follow such a program, and they don't belong on any bubble.

I wanted to come back to this discussion.  I think that @Brutus Buckeye 's opinion is, in a way, football-based.  In football, I agree with his sentiment as I understand it.  

As I understand it, Brutus' position is that a team like Ohio State (and all fringe tournament teams) shouldn't be in the tournament anyway because they clearly are not NC material.  I agree that Ohio State and all of the other barely-in / barely-out bubble teams are clearly not NC material.  In football that would be the end of the discussion for me.  They aren't NC material therefore they shouldn't be in the NC tournament.  

IMHO, basketball is different.  There are a LOT of teams in the NC Tournament that clearly are not NC material.  In the first 35 years since they expanded to 64 teams (1985-2019) the bottom four seeds (#13-16) in each region have made a grand combined total of just nine Sweet Sixteen appearances and no #13 or worse has ever won a Sweet Sixteen game:

• The #16's are 1-139 in the 1/16 game and 0-1 in the second round.  
• The #15's are 8-132 in the 2/15 game, 1-7 in the second round, and 0-1 in the Sweet Sixteen.  
• The #14's are 21-119 in the 3/14 game, 2-19 in the second round, and 0-2 in the Sweet Sixteen.  
• The #13's are 29-111 in the 4/13 game, 6-23 in the second round, and 0-6 in the Sweet Sixteen.  

My point in sharing this is to demonstrate that approximately the worst 16 conference champions each year are absolutely NOT NC material.  Their inclusion in the NC Tournament has no bearing whatsoever on the ultimate NC determination as evidenced by the fact that in 35 years there have been 560 #13-#16 seeds and none of them have EVER won a game in the second weekend of the tournament.  

The upsets are cute and fun to watch and it is very entertaining but the worst conference champions in the tournament are just window dressing.  They are not even close to competitive, they aren't even close to being bona-fide NC material.  It is true that they are all conference Champions but it is also true that Rutgers is the best college basketball team in Picastaway New Jersey.  So what?  The #13-16 seeds all won a conference tournament that is effectively a tallest midget competition.  

In football I completely agree with Brutus' sentiment.  IMHO, the football NC should be determined by the elite teams that are NC material.  In basketball we already gave up on that idea long, long ago.  

While I agree that a team like tOSU isn't NC material, I still wanted them in the tournament.  Part of the reason is simply that I knew that there would be ~16 teams worse than Ohio State in the tournament.  I also see that as unfair to the teams that just missed the cut.  Indiana is better than a whole bunch of teams that got into the NCAA Tournament.  

A few years ago when they talked about expanding the tournament I was adamantly opposed for basically the reason that I think Brutus feels that tOSU "(doesn't) belong on any bubble".  Since then I've changed my mind.  The complete futility of the worst ~16 conference champions has demonstrated, to me anyway, that they aught to all be playing what would effectively be a play-in game.  

My new position is that the tournament should be expanded to 80 teams by adding one team to each pod such that the pods would be:

• 1/8/9/16/17
• 2/7/10/15/18
• 3/6/11/14/19
• 4/5/12/13/20

Then I would arrange the first weekend games as follows:

Thursday/Friday:

• One game per pod
• Two games per site
• Four games per region
• Eight games per day
• 16 games total as follows:
• 16/17
• 15/18
• 14/19
• 13/20

Saturday/Sunday:

• Two games per pod
• Four games per site
• Eight games per region
• 16 games per day
• 32 games total as follows:
• 1-16/17
• 2-15/18
• 3-14/19
• 4-13/20
• 5-12
• 6-11
• 7-10
• 8-9

Monday/Tuesday:

• One game per pod
• Two games per site
• Four games per region
• Eight games per day
• 16 games total as follows:
• 1/16/17 vs 8/9
• 2/15/18 v 7/10
• 3/14/19 v 6/11
• 4/13/20 vs 5/12

Starting with the second weekend we would be back to the current schedule.  

As I see it, here are the main advantages:

• It would reduce the MASSIVE advantage currently given to weak teams from weak conferences by admitting more at-large teams.  
• It would give every team in the tournament a plausible chance to win at least two games.  As it stands now the #13-16 seeds have very little chance to win one game, almost no chance to win two, and no #13-16 has ever won three.  With this proposed set-up the #13-20 teams would get a reasonably competitive game on Thursday/Friday then a theoretically winnable game on Saturday/Sunday and once in a while one of them would also win a third game on Monday/Tuesday.  
• It would make the tournament more watchable:  As it stands now, the biggest days are the first Thursday and Friday when most of us are at work and they play 16 games per day.  In this system those 16-game days would be on the weekend (Saturday/Sunday) with somewhat less active 8-game days on Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday.  
• That new first weekend would be an even bigger show than it already is.  There would be 64 games over Thursday (8), Friday (8), Saturday (16), Sunday (16), Monday (8), and Tuesday (8).  

[Brutus Buckeye]

I wanted to come back to this discussion.  I think that @Brutus Buckeye 's opinion is, in a way, football-based.  In football, I agree with his sentiment as I understand it.  

As I understand it, Brutus' position is that a team like Ohio State (and all fringe tournament teams) shouldn't be in the tournament anyway because they clearly are not NC material.  I agree that Ohio State and all of the other barely-in / barely-out bubble teams are clearly not NC material.  In football that would be the end of the discussion for me.  They aren't NC material therefore they shouldn't be in the NC tournament.  

IMHO, basketball is different.  There are a LOT of teams in the NC Tournament that clearly are not NC material.  In the first 35 years since they expanded to 64 teams (1985-2019) the bottom four seeds (#13-16) in each region have made a grand combined total of just nine Sweet Sixteen appearances and no #13 or worse has ever won a Sweet Sixteen game:

• The #16's are 1-139 in the 1/16 game and 0-1 in the second round.  
• The #15's are 8-132 in the 2/15 game, 1-7 in the second round, and 0-1 in the Sweet Sixteen.  
• The #14's are 21-119 in the 3/14 game, 2-19 in the second round, and 0-2 in the Sweet Sixteen.  
• The #13's are 29-111 in the 4/13 game, 6-23 in the second round, and 0-6 in the Sweet Sixteen.  

My point in sharing this is to demonstrate that approximately the worst 16 conference champions each year are absolutely NOT NC material.  Their inclusion in the NC Tournament has no bearing whatsoever on the ultimate NC determination as evidenced by the fact that in 35 years there have been 560 #13-#16 seeds and none of them have EVER won a game in the second weekend of the tournament.  

The upsets are cute and fun to watch and it is very entertaining but the worst conference champions in the tournament are just window dressing.  They are not even close to competitive, they aren't even close to being bona-fide NC material.  It is true that they are all conference Champions but it is also true that Rutgers is the best college basketball team in Picastaway New Jersey.  So what?  The #13-16 seeds all won a conference tournament that is effectively a tallest midget competition.  

In football I completely agree with Brutus' sentiment.  IMHO, the football NC should be determined by the elite teams that are NC material.  In basketball we already gave up on that idea long, long ago.  

While I agree that a team like tOSU isn't NC material, I still wanted them in the tournament.  Part of the reason is simply that I knew that there would be ~16 teams worse than Ohio State in the tournament.  I also see that as unfair to the teams that just missed the cut.  Indiana is better than a whole bunch of teams that got into the NCAA Tournament.  

A few years ago when they talked about expanding the tournament I was adamantly opposed for basically the reason that I think Brutus feels that tOSU "(doesn't) belong on any bubble".  Since then I've changed my mind.  The complete futility of the worst ~16 conference champions has demonstrated, to me anyway, that they aught to all be playing what would effectively be a play-in game.  

My new position is that the tournament should be expanded to 80 teams by adding one team to each pod such that the pods would be:

• 1/8/9/16/17
• 2/7/10/15/18
• 3/6/11/14/19
• 4/5/12/13/20

Then I would arrange the first weekend games as follows:

Thursday/Friday:

• One game per pod
• Two games per site
• Four games per region
• Eight games per day
• 16 games total as follows:
• 16/17
• 15/18
• 14/19
• 13/20

Saturday/Sunday:

• Two games per pod
• Four games per site
• Eight games per region
• 16 games per day
• 32 games total as follows:
• 1-16/17
• 2-15/18
• 3-14/19
• 4-13/20
• 5-12
• 6-11
• 7-10
• 8-9

Monday/Tuesday:

• One game per pod
• Two games per site
• Four games per region
• Eight games per day
• 16 games total as follows:
• 1/16/17 vs 8/9
• 2/15/18 v 7/10
• 3/14/19 v 6/11
• 4/13/20 vs 5/12

Starting with the second weekend we would be back to the current schedule.  

As I see it, here are the main advantages:

• It would reduce the MASSIVE advantage currently given to weak teams from weak conferences by admitting more at-large teams.  
• It would give every team in the tournament a plausible chance to win at least two games.  As it stands now the #13-16 seeds have very little chance to win one game, almost no chance to win two, and no #13-16 has ever won three.  With this proposed set-up the #13-20 teams would get a reasonably competitive game on Thursday/Friday then a theoretically winnable game on Saturday/Sunday and once in a while one of them would also win a third game on Monday/Tuesday.  
• It would make the tournament more watchable:  As it stands now, the biggest days are the first Thursday and Friday when most of us are at work and they play 16 games per day.  In this system those 16-game days would be on the weekend (Saturday/Sunday) with somewhat less active 8-game days on Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday.  
• That new first weekend would be an even bigger show than it already is.  There would be 64 games over Thursday (8), Friday (8), Saturday (16), Sunday (16), Monday (8), and Tuesday (8).  

Consider the argument relinquished.

[JerseyTerrapin]

I feel bad for Maryland fans. Dude clearly took 3 steps and honestly it was borderline 4. Pretty terrible missed traveling call when it mattered most

Yeah, he traveled, but let's face it, nearly every player driving to the hoop since Michael Jordan showed up takes 3+ steps on every drive.  It shouldn't have come down to that...

ETA: yeah, it was actually four steps if count the dragged one, as you pointed out.

[betarhoalphadelta]

No, let's not talk about expanding the tournament. 

If the argument is that we don't want teams without legitimate NC aspirations added, the last thing we should do is expand to 80 teams so that we have *MORE* P5 bubble teams that have no shot at winning the whole thing.

It's true that most of those one-bid leagues have no chance at winning it. So yes, it in some ways dilutes the tournament to even have them gain a bid. But we've set up a rule where they've earned that bid by winning their conference. 

Personally, if it were me, I'd go right back to 64 and stay there. I don't see the point of play-in games. They're 11-seed and 16-seed teams that are long shots to even win their first game, much less go any farther. 

If you have 64 teams, that gives you 32 auto-bids and 32 at-large. There's a symmetry there that makes a lot of sense. 64 teams has a symmetry to it that you lose with 80 and having a total of 32 teams playing play-in games while the rest of the field sits idle. 

The tournament was fine at 64, 65, and it's not truly ruined by 68. No reason to dilute it any further than we already have.

[SFBadger96]

My thoughts on the Badger game, having been there.
(1) The access to online tickets has really changed the scalping market. Halfway through session 1, there wasn't a scalper around who had tickets to sell; only option was the walkup window, despite a ton of open seats in the arena. Weird.
(2) The Badgers had plenty of opportunities to build a big lead in the first half, but missed too many open shots and put-backs.
(3) The referees were hard to figure out. There were some pretty tight calls made, and then there were pretty stunning no-calls (Happ got drilled while taking a shot without a foul).
(4) The only Badger who put offensive pressure on Oregon was Iverson, but with the way Gard rotates players, he couldn't stay in rhythm.
(5) Oregon dared Wisconsin to shoot open 3s. The poor percentage on their 3s wasn't because they were guarded, it was because they sucked. They picked the wrong afternoon to be off.
(6) When they got down 9 in the second half, they doubled down on their poor outside shooting, which just made things worse.
(7) I put most of it on the coaches.
(8) There was a good crowd of Badger fans. Not surprisingly, more from Oregon, but the Badgers showed up.

But the Wisconsin women won the hockey championship! :-)

[847badgerfan]

My thoughts on the Badger game, having been there.
(1) The access to online tickets has really changed the scalping market. Halfway through session 1, there wasn't a scalper around who had tickets to sell; only option was the walkup window, despite a ton of open seats in the arena. Weird.
(2) The Badgers had plenty of opportunities to build a big lead in the first half, but missed too many open shots and put-backs.
(3) The referees were hard to figure out. There were some pretty tight calls made, and then there were pretty stunning no-calls (Happ got drilled while taking a shot without a foul).
(4) The only Badger who put offensive pressure on Oregon was Iverson, but with the way Gard rotates players, he couldn't stay in rhythm.
(5) Oregon dared Wisconsin to shoot open 3s. The poor percentage on their 3s wasn't because they were guarded, it was because they sucked. They picked the wrong afternoon to be off.
(6) When they got down 9 in the second half, they doubled down on their poor outside shooting, which just made things worse.
(7) I put most of it on the coaches.
(8) There was a good crowd of Badger fans. Not surprisingly, more from Oregon, but the Badgers showed up.

But the Wisconsin women won the hockey championship! :-)

Can you elaborate?

[medinabuckeye1]

No, let's not talk about expanding the tournament.

If the argument is that we don't want teams without legitimate NC aspirations added, the last thing we should do is expand to 80 teams so that we have *MORE* P5 bubble teams that have no shot at winning the whole thing.

It's true that most of those one-bid leagues have no chance at winning it. So yes, it in some ways dilutes the tournament to even have them gain a bid. But we've set up a rule where they've earned that bid by winning their conference.

Personally, if it were me, I'd go right back to 64 and stay there. I don't see the point of play-in games. They're 11-seed and 16-seed teams that are long shots to even win their first game, much less go any farther.

If you have 64 teams, that gives you 32 auto-bids and 32 at-large. There's a symmetry there that makes a lot of sense. 64 teams has a symmetry to it that you lose with 80 and having a total of 32 teams playing play-in games while the rest of the field sits idle.

The tournament was fine at 64, 65, and it's not truly ruined by 68. No reason to dilute it any further than we already have.

I get where you are coming from.  To clarify, my argument is not simply to add more teams without legitimate NC aspirations.  My position is conditional.  Ie, if we are going to have a slew of teams without legitimate NC aspirations, then we should allow other equivalent or better teams in as well because it makes little-or-no sense to me to allow some "unqualified" teams while barring other, better "unqualified" teams.  
I know that you, specifically, will have very little sympathy for this situation but I feel that it is unfair to Indiana that they were left out to make room for at least 16 teams that were not as good as they were.  When people say "well, those teams were conference champions", I would respond, "Ok, and Indiana was the best college basketball team in the City of Bloomington, Indiana."  The conference champion distinction is, in some cases, as meaningless as the "best in the City" distinction.  Who cares.  What if, for BB purposes only, the B1G decided to continue playing their current schedule but sub-divide into seven mini-conferences of two teams for conference tournament championship purposes and award seven different mini championships.  Then, for example (just working E->W):

• RU and UMD could play a B1G-EEE championship game
• PSU and tOSU could play a B1G-EE championship game
• MSU and M could play a B1G-E championship game
• IU and PU could play a B1G-C championship game
• IL and NU could play a B1G-W championship game
• UW and IA could play a B1G-WW championship game
• MN and UNL could play a B1G-WWW championship game

That way we would get more teams in the tournament!  
I would be ok with limiting the tournament to only teams with legitimate NC aspirations (roughly the top four seeds in each region) but that would require eliminating the auto-bids and just taking the best 16 teams in the country.  If we are not going to get rid of the auto-bids, then I now feel that we should minimize the disparity between the auto-bids and the best teams left out.  IMHO, that disparity is too large right now.  
FWIW:  I could care less about symmetry and, aside from that, what if a new conference forms?  Then we'd have 33 auto-bids, would you want to expand the tournament to 66 teams to regain the symmetry?  What if two of the existing conferences merged, would you want to shrink the tournament down to 62 teams?  

[SFBadger96]

They had no plan to create any pressure other than to bomb away from 3--and that clearly wasn't working. And when they did start to get pressure out of Iverson, they didn't give him enough minutes to keep up the pressure.

They have been a hot-and-cold shooting team all year. I would have expected a game plan to address a cold-shooting night. They didn't have one. It was no secret that Oregon would play a big lineup, but the coaching staff never adjusted to that.

Generally, I think Gard rotates players too much. He did so again in this game.

[bayareabadger]

I get where you are coming from.  To clarify, my argument is not simply to add more teams without legitimate NC aspirations.  My position is conditional.  Ie, if we are going to have a slew of teams without legitimate NC aspirations, then we should allow other equivalent or better teams in as well because it makes little-or-no sense to me to allow some "unqualified" teams while barring other, better "unqualified" teams.  
I know that you, specifically, will have very little sympathy for this situation but I feel that it is unfair to Indiana that they were left out to make room for at least 16 teams that were not as good as they were.  When people say "well, those teams were conference champions", I would respond, "Ok, and Indiana was the best college basketball team in the City of Bloomington, Indiana."  The conference champion distinction is, in some cases, as meaningless as the "best in the City" distinction.  Who cares.  What if, for BB purposes only, the B1G decided to continue playing their current schedule but sub-divide into seven mini-conferences of two teams for conference tournament championship purposes and award seven different mini championships.  Then, for example (just working E->W):

• RU and UMD could play a B1G-EEE championship game
• PSU and tOSU could play a B1G-EE championship game
• MSU and M could play a B1G-E championship game
• IU and PU could play a B1G-C championship game
• IL and NU could play a B1G-W championship game
• UW and IA could play a B1G-WW championship game
• MN and UNL could play a B1G-WWW championship game

That way we would get more teams in the tournament!  
I would be ok with limiting the tournament to only teams with legitimate NC aspirations (roughly the top four seeds in each region) but that would require eliminating the auto-bids and just taking the best 16 teams in the country.  If we are not going to get rid of the auto-bids, then I now feel that we should minimize the disparity between the auto-bids and the best teams left out.  IMHO, that disparity is too large right now.  
FWIW:  I could care less about symmetry and, aside from that, what if a new conference forms?  Then we'd have 33 auto-bids, would you want to expand the tournament to 66 teams to regain the symmetry?  What if two of the existing conferences merged, would you want to shrink the tournament down to 62 teams?  

The disparity argument is interesting, but alas, the value of “Access” will win out, as it does across college sports. 
I mean, what is the great injustice of the disparity? What does it do that isn’t good beyond not feel right to a particularly structured mind?

[medinabuckeye1]

The disparity argument is interesting, but alas, the value of “Access” will win out, as it does across college sports.
I mean, what is the great injustice of the disparity? What does it do that isn’t good beyond not feel right to a particularly structured mind?

Honestly, a big part of it for me is that I get annoyed constantly hearing how the sport is so unfair to the little guy.  That annoys me because it isn't.  As I pointed out above, a slew of teams worse than Indiana got into the tournament.  They got in because they played in crappy conferences where all they had to do was "be the tallest kid in first grade" to get in.  Indiana played a bunch of tough games.  They lost some, to be sure, but they also beat Marquette, Louisville, and MSU2x.  That is a lot more quality wins than a slew of teams that did get in.  
I do believe that the disparity is too large.  Now, I'll clarify that:
Part of the disparity is due to conference tournament upsets.  I don't mind that.  Ie, if a conference has some good teams but they don't win their tournament, I'm ok with the team that pulled off those upsets getting in.  That is part of the fun.  What I don't like is that there are a bunch of conferences in which it doesn't matter who wins, they all suck.  My opinion is that either those conferences shouldn't get auto-bids or there should be more at-large bids such that the disparity is smaller.  

[betarhoalphadelta]

I get where you are coming from.  To clarify, my argument is not simply to add more teams without legitimate NC aspirations.  My position is conditional.  Ie, if we are going to have a slew of teams without legitimate NC aspirations, then we should allow other equivalent or better teams in as well because it makes little-or-no sense to me to allow some "unqualified" teams while barring other, better "unqualified" teams.  
I know that you, specifically, will have very little sympathy for this situation but I feel that it is unfair to Indiana that they were left out to make room for at least 16 teams that were not as good as they were.  When people say "well, those teams were conference champions", I would respond, "Ok, and Indiana was the best college basketball team in the City of Bloomington, Indiana."  The conference champion distinction is, in some cases, as meaningless as the "best in the City" distinction.  Who cares.  What if, for BB purposes only, the B1G decided to continue playing their current schedule but sub-divide into seven mini-conferences of two teams for conference tournament championship purposes and award seven different mini championships.  Then, for example (just working E->W):

For me, it's more of a simple question: would expansion make the tournament itself better. I do agree with you that there is a degree to which you can say the tournament is unfair because lesser teams get in over greater teams simply by winning their conference tournament. 
I just don't see how diluting the tournament further actually improves the tournament. I could see shrinking it. I could see doing away with auto-bids entirely. But I think we both know that these alternatives won't happen, because of money. 

So my view is that what we have now is fun. It's exciting. It occasionally results in chaos with a #16 UMBC beating a #1 UVA. At the very least, it makes teams like Purdue and MSU and Michigan sweat it out because they don't want to lose to a #15 or #14 seed. 
I don't think going to 80 will be anything else than a grab at money and reducing the value of at-large bids because it's so much easier to get one. 

FWIW:  I could care less about symmetry and, aside from that, what if a new conference forms?  Then we'd have 33 auto-bids, would you want to expand the tournament to 66 teams to regain the symmetry?  What if two of the existing conferences merged, would you want to shrink the tournament down to 62 teams?  

FYI the 32/32 symmetry wasn't key. If it was 34/30 or 30/34, it'd still be pretty close. I think symmetry basically offers "win your conference, and you're in, but there's an equal number of slots for worthy teams from tougher conferences". 

I just don't see how going to an 80-team tourney makes anything better, and IMHO letting in *more* unworthy teams makes it worse, so I err on the side of no changes.

[bayareabadger]

They had no plan to create any pressure other than to bomb away from 3--and that clearly wasn't working. And when they did start to get pressure out of Iverson, they didn't give him enough minutes to keep up the pressure.

They have been a hot-and-cold shooting team all year. I would have expected a game plan to address a cold-shooting night. They didn't have one. It was no secret that Oregon would play a big lineup, but the coaching staff never adjusted to that.

Generally, I think Gard rotates players too much. He did so again in this game.

I think the idea this might have been a “plan” might not be totally accurate. You have a zone full of 6-9 guys. You seem to be generating lots of mostly open 3-point looks for people you believe can hit them, that’s a take. 
If you say, the 3s ain’t working, your choices are drive into the thicket of arms with a so-so driving team (not ideal), post more (they did that a good bit), attack he high post for mid-range jumpers and to hit cutters (did that some).
But the larger point is the “cold shooting” fallacy. If you think you have good shooters and they’re open, you assume they’ll hit at some point. If you shoot 3s badly for a half and just stop shooting open 3s, you’re not really helping yourself. 
After a rewatch, the turnovers stood out to me. Some were just brutal, Combine that with some really good Pritchard play and some tough shot making from the Ducks. It was a rough one. 

[bayareabadger]

Honestly, a big part of it for me is that I get annoyed constantly hearing how the sport is so unfair to the little guy.  That annoys me because it isn't.  As I pointed out above, a slew of teams worse than Indiana got into the tournament.  They got in because they played in crappy conferences where all they had to do was "be the tallest kid in first grade" to get in.  Indiana played a bunch of tough games.  They lost some, to be sure, but they also beat Marquette, Louisville, and MSU2x.  That is a lot more quality wins than a slew of teams that did get in.  

I see this, but I guess I look at it this way. 
Through a great many lenses, this sport is highly unfair. It is just magnificently unbalanced. We can talk quality wins, but that too is hideously unbalanced in terms of opportunity with the great span of the sport. 
Now, through a certain lens, being a have-not with access but no margin for error is more advantageous. But it doesn’t quite feel that way because of the margin for error. We don’t have a great barometer because conference affiliation/resources mean we can never actually experiment if a team would want the low-margin/worse competition situation. 
In the end, I think it’s that particular, uncommon lens which guides your perspective. But it’s a somewhat narrow one. 
(An interesting case is UConn, whose path got easier because it’s conference fell apart. It rather impressively managed to get worse, though it’s hardly a clean example)

[medinabuckeye1]

Review of how the B1G did through the first two rounds:

Round one:
We had five teams "favored" by seed.  Based on past history of teams with those seeds, those five should have produced almost exactly four teams in the second round (4.007).  We got four of our five "favorites" so we hit exactly what they should have.  

Where we REALLY overperformed was that our three "underdogs" by seed only should have put approximately one team (1.14) into the second round and instead we got all three.  

Thus, in the first round we "should have" had approximately 5 winners (5.15) and we had seven so we overperformed by two winners.  

Round two:
We had three teams "favored" by seed.  Based on past history of teams with those seeds, those three teams should have produced just under two Sweet Sixteen teams (1.76).  They overperformed in that all three won.  

Unfortunately, our "underdogs" underperformed.  Based on past history of teams with those seeds, the five teams that should have been underdogs to get to the Sweet Sixteen should have produced just over one (1.15) Sweet Sixteen teams.  Unfortunately none of them made it through.  One lost in round one and the other four lost in the second round.  

Thus, overall we ended up hitting our expected number of Sweet Sixteen teams almost exactly.  Based on their seeds, our eight tournament teams should have resulted in almost exactly three (2.91) in the Sweet Sixteen and we got exactly three.