I said earlier in regards to the BTT, that once you play for your third consecutive day, it anecdotally seems to get harder. So when a team is playing their first game, against a team playing their second, it seems to be a wash. The one team might be slightly more fatigued, but they also are in better rhythm. But a team on their third game vs. a team in their second game, there seems to be a gap.
I slightly disagree. I think the team playing their second actually has an advantage over the team playing their first although that may depend on how physical and how difficult the first game was.
Mostly anecdotally (because I don't want to look it all up):
Back when we had an 11-team league the #6 seed almost always (I think all but once) beat #11. Then, their second game was against #3 who was playing their first and despite #3 obviously being generally better than #6, the #6 seed had a winning (by a lot IIRC) record against the #3. I think there are two important factors though:
- #11 was generally an awful team. Back then that was last and with 11 teams in the league usually at least one is just REALLY bad so #6 generally had an easy win in basically a tune-up game against #11.
- #6 isn't generally THAT much worse than #3.
Another thing though is that in both the 11 and 14 team formats the #8/9 winner has done surprisingly well against the #1 seed. This year's #8/9 winner (Indiana) took out #1 (Illinois) and that has happened a few times but in addition to that there have been a LOT of VERY close games in the 1 vs 8/9 slot and just looking at the teams you wouldn't expect that. Really, #1 should handle the 8/9 winner pretty easily but frankly they usually don't.
Evan Turner's half-court heave to beat Michigan
Evan Turner's half-court heave to beat Michigan is a great example of this. Ohio State fans like me love reliving that moment because it was a buzzer beater to beat our rival but look a little deeper. Ohio State was the #1 seed. They went 14-4 in the league and were 24-7 entering that game. Michigan went 7-11 in the league and was 15-16 entering that game. Ohio State went on to win the BTT and make the S16 whereas that was Michigan's last game, they didn't even go to the NIT. My point is that while it was a neat win and all there really was no reason for Ohio State to need a miraculous buzzer-beater to beat Michigan. Looking at the disparity between the two teams, the Buckeyes should have been dribbling out the last few seconds while sitting on a double-digit lead but they weren't.
Ohio State is FAR from the only #1 seed in the BTT to have a LOT more trouble with the 8/9 winner than you would expect just by comparing the two teams.