Quick Point: I had not found the time to calculate the Performance Against Seed Expectations (PASE) numbers this year. But Mike Miller has already crunched the numbers for our immediate enjoyment. Don't be fooled by the Big East having two teams in the Sweet Sixteen. This tournament has been a disaster.
OK, now back to the main point. Now that Purdue beat Siena and Texas A&M, are they ready to beat Duke? The short answer is no. The long answer is no. Based on the 5 game sample without Robbie Hummel, last week I would have said Purdue had a 5.4% chance of beating Duke. Now that we have a sample of 7 games without Hummel, the numbers say Purdue has an 8.2% chance of winning.
While Purdue was able to bump their offensive numbers up slightly, they still didn’t have a great offensive weekend. The reason Purdue advanced is because their adjusted defense was even better than the season long average.
The next table shows the season splits for adjusted offense and adjusted defense with and without Hummel. I’m also including a comparison to the adjusted offense and adjusted defense of all the other Sweet Sixteen teams in their last 7 games.
Not surprisingly, everyone who advanced in the NCAA tournament has been playing well lately, and since it has come against good competition, the adjusted numbers look fantastic for most teams. Kansas St. is only 4-3 in their last 7, but with games against Kansas twice, Baylor, and BYU, 4-3 is still pretty darn good.
Adjusting for opponent, Kentucky and Syracuse’s offense has been off the charts. But it hasn’t nearly been as dominating as Cornell’s offense. On the flip side, Purdue and Duke have had sensational defensive performances lately. (Duke’s ability to shut down California’s potent offense was truly remarkable.) But after adjusting for quality of opponent, Butler’s defense has been the best. What will win out this week, the Syracuse offense or the Butler defense?