 This is covering the spread part of the Fandall podcast network It is officially March Which means it is time to turn the calendar and talk some men's college basketball Which meant we had to bring back Dr. Ed Fang and bring him back from vacation getting back here on the show to ramp Things up as we get set for the tournament for conference tournaments and so much more This is covering the spread right here on the Fandall podcast network and number fire calm My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire calm Joined here as mentioned by Dr. Ed Fang find his work over at the power rank calm You can find him on Twitter at the power rank Ed It has been a while because you've been on vacation I had to get some data caught up and all that stuff you had a power outage So I am ecstatic to have you back for today. It is a pleasure to have you on how you doing Thanks for having me Jim I am doing about as well as possible given that I haven't had power for the last six days it switched on this morning and Life is just so easy when you have power I feel like I want to turn off like half my circuit breaker. Yeah, you know, give myself a little bit of a challenge We are Americans. We try to do hard things But all things considered I'm obviously not my usual spot because even though I have power in my house Yeah, I do not have the internet A guy came and attached things yesterday and we were so excited and then it didn't work Yeah, so so for the for the quality of the show I'm at a friend's house. What hence this Christmas tree behind us and like everything's kind of like, you know, just not quite, right? Yeah, again tomorrow for Boston, you know, we're doing the show and Jim hasn't like fixed my like Twitter tag Like oh, yeah, it's not like I've gotten super lax about that. I no longer care. I've decided. Oh really? Yeah, I know I actually was very like I just threw it in there because that because I knew you'd fix it. So I Could fix it now But no, no, no, yeah, we're going to just the power rank as your Twitter handle Down there, but have you considered? I know you're a runner Have you considered, you know, like running to generate power for your house? Have you thought maybe because you could go for a wild man For sure. I think you run to stay warm. Yeah, okay houses 50 degrees then you're okay Yeah, but not not much to generate power. I Also believe not to like deter people from coming on the show But I think it might be a curse because you had the power outage for the past six days We had Pamela Maldonado on a couple weeks ago right before Austin had there right after Austin had their big power outage So it's possible. There's a correlation like correlation is not causation. However, I'm concerned I'm concerned that that maybe there is a trend here that I've I developed with killing people's power Did they have another power outage in Austin this winter? Yeah, real bad It was I think it was when you were gone. Yeah, because it was before Super Bowl And we had Pamela on it was like a couple-day thing. So that was pretty bad She was still nice enough to like, you know, come on the show and talk to us But like that was bad. You've had six days, which is brutal, too And I didn't even know that was happening So that's rough too. But the reason you didn't hear about it is because you were you were abroad For a vacation back for the past month. So how did things go for the vacation? It was awesome We had it hadn't traveled overseas since the pandemic and so it was really nice to get over to Barcelona Eat some really good food Barcelona is pretty interesting because the touristy stuff is Actually pretty amazing. Yes. The Sagrada Familia is kind of mind-blowing when you actually see it It is the most touristy thing that you can do there. But You can't miss it. It's it's kind of mind-blowing We also The food is fantastic and we also did a really cool Spanish Civil War tour Which was mostly fantastic because of the guy that was doing it. Yeah, really good job with it So overall it was great. It was great to get over there and just just kind of get away and and You know, I was still working, you know doing doing some stuff with Super Bowl props Which is which is also kind of fun But overall great trip Yeah, we before we went to Barcelona. I was never a big tapas guy But since we came back, I've been like big into tapas. I've realized that it's just it's the right way to live You get to sample a lot of stuff. You get to have different tastes and stuff like that So I've been fully converted into team tapas Via Barcelona. I think that's the right way to go I think tapas are great. I think there's a huge variety of tapas. We try out a bunch of places You know one thing you can get there is a croquette jam. I find if you remember the name like croquette They do most places will do a great croquette It's almost like they like teach people how to deep fry like if you move into the city Everyone does a fantastic job, but you know like uh, like the best tapas place We find like we ended up going to ended up being one that we walked by like maybe a hundred times Before we finally decided to stop in so I would suggest really kind of doing your homework and figuring out like the places that are that are particularly good Um, did you do the vermouth thing when you were over there? Yes um Are you talking about like the the the spanish specific vermouth? They have spanish specific removes, but just the whole notion that like A cut like your happy hour kind of drink is vermouth on ice with a wedge of orange yes, um, so we actually um, we went to uh Montserrat um and This is not this is not vermouth, but like um, they had the Uh, what the monks up in the mountains like made their own kind of alcohol And we tried to like find it at the airport where we're leaving so like we at the duty free shop We're like we need to get the stuff before we leave and couldn't find it there And it's like one of my biggest regrets is not finding that uh, so we did do their vermouth though um, and it was pretty great other thing that that I picked up was um Making espresso a thing. I had one earlier today. I've become like mildly addicted to espresso So I picked up I would say good habits from international travel people who hear me talk too fast may disagree with that notion that it's a good habit um Again correlation is not causation, but maybe um, so yes, uh, I'm I'm pro all these things personally awesome Well before I get to nostalgic about traveling, uh, we got to talk about Some men's college basketball we're talking about Just kind of data you can use to pinpoint regression progression stuff like that for those of you may Be checking out men's college basketball for the first time this year if you're diving back in We're gonna kind of get ed's guidelines and what to look for when trying to bet on teams and try to pinpoint teams It could make steps forward take steps back as we get set for the conference tournaments But before we do that a reminder to make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread Wherever you get your podcast we have got men's college basketball pga nba NHL nascar and formula one tomorrow all in the same place So make sure you're subscribed wherever you get your podcast and check us out over on the fandall youtube page as well Fandals america's number one sports book and the number one place to get your friends into the game That's why fandals giving you and a friend the opportunity to each earn 75 dollars all you need is to invite your friends using your exclusive referral link under the refer icon in the app As soon as your friend makes any bet of at least 10 dollars on sports book You'll both get 50 dollars in sports book bonus bets and as soon as they bet at least 10 dollars on fandall casino You'll both get 25 dollars in casino credit Just head over to the fandall sports book and casino apps to invite your friends today and get your 75 dollar referral bonus Must be 21 plus and president michigan new jersey pennsylvania or west virginia Referred players must wage your 10 plus dollars within 30 days after signing up We've met five referrals during a 30 day period Sports book bonus bets and casino site credit are not withdrawable and expire 14 days after a seat Restrictions apply see terms at sportsbook.fandall.com gambling problem call 1 800 270 7 1 1 7 in michigan in new jersey and pennsylvania 1 800 gambler and in west virginia 1 800 gambler dot net now edd has mentioned We just turned the calendar over to march and some people may not have been st. Payne super close attention to college basketball yet this year Obviously, we know we can just direct them to the power rate. We can send them there Digest your numbers do it that way we can send the ken palm whatever it may be to get Ratings, but what data do you recommend people dig into in order to determine what to expect from a team going forward? right I think you know, you really do want to start with the ratings and ken palm is definitely the uh the most well known He's going to take points per possession, which is your most important efficiency metric And adjust your strength of schedule and give you numbers on offense and defense and then and then for team He also has predictions If you want a sense for how he makes those predictions I actually have an ultimate guide to college basketball analytics on my site It's on the sidebar whenever you go there. You can check that out I also talk about the four factors and whether matchups matter So that's a good starter guide Another thing I would recommend. Um, I'm actually leaving one of my men My member of college basketball rankings page like open to the public right now So you can see Both of the models that I use Um, I have an elo model that I mean it's been within a quarter percent of the opening line The predictions based on that has been within a quarter percent In terms of the error estimate So It's pretty accurate. Um, I don't know if it's that more accurate than ken palm But I would I would bet that it is uh because of the things that I use. So Yeah, so definitely go check that out. I'm going to be talking about that a little bit later today You'll also get You know my version of Points per possession adjusted for opponent. So that's with my algorithms pretty much the same thing from what you'll get with ken I don't know whether he's like how much he's waiting the preseason right now I have zero preseason prior in there and that should be pretty good at this point in the season So we'll talk about that as well and then um, you know, you know, some of my friends that bet college basketball They've been using a hoop math. Apparently they have some really good stuff with They have some really good statistics about how teams like perform at the rim so both on offense and on defense and You know, that might be something that you find useful as well. And that's a pretty good breakdown of stuff I see that your friends have cats, uh, as they were popping into the screen um, do they I'm assuming they're exclusively powering people, right? They're Inclusively the power-ranked cats for sure. Okay. They're definitely looking and they were very happy that I'm letting some of my member numbers, uh, be open there in the public right now Uh, I didn't bring my mug. My mug is in the kitchen, but I have my power rank football analytics show mug out there So we'll work on that too. Maybe we'll get the cats a mug We can work on that and get them fully integrated here Um, but talking about the member numbers, how do those differ from the other public numbers and What was the thought process for you behind deciding to make those member numbers public for right now? Uh, so so there's public numbers. Yeah, that's a good point, Jim Public numbers are pretty good. Um, they are margin of victory adjusted for skincare schedule So this is kind of how I got into the business and it's still A very important part of what I do In the member numbers, there's just more and different data sources that I use Um, so that's what makes it more accurate. I mean, there's other data sources that I found to be as As accurate as what I'm doing from just the point space metrics and so those are included in the member numbers and Um, you know, it's a very useful tool like you can actually just go to the ratings page Subtract the ratings of any two teams if it's not a neutral site game at 2.9 points Those are exactly the predictions that my members are getting right interesting. Okay So let's say someone has not paid attention and you have to try to dive on in Do you think it's a good spot to use wisdom of crowds? We talked a lot about that throughout the years the value wisdom of crowds There are different places you talk about uh different free sources, especially with your member numbers being Public right now as well. Is that a spot where you'd want wisdom of the crowds to kind of Refine things for sure. I mean, you know part of wisdom of crowds is what I do with member numbers I don't just rely on points, right? So I'm combining a bunch of things Obviously, I know the strategy is to take a lot of public sources and put them together But just know that like, you know, if you're putting ken palm and bartorvik together That's all based on the same thing. That's all based on points per possession And I'm pretty sure they both usually squares to adjust for opponent So if you're putting those together You know, it's probably not the huge ensemble effect that you're going to get there And they're probably going to be heavily tied to the market too because people know ken palm and know to go there So it would right if you're trying to find deviations in the market inefficiencies in the market, you know That might be a tougher route as well Exactly, exactly. Okay. So that's where ed's looking at as far as Data to dive into if you're trying to get caught up with college basketball right now So when you look at that data head, you look at what's happened so far this year Are there teams that have underperformed thus far who you think could Potentially improve kick up go on a run as we get into conference tournaments and the actual tournament itself Absolutely, I think this is kind of the funnest question because I'm going to talk about Gonzaga Gonzaga is a team that was the best team in the nation last year Uh, I rode about him a lot in my turning right up Obviously things didn't work out as they bombed out in the sweet 16 really didn't play their best basketball towards the tournament Really doesn't change my opinion that they were the best team in the country Um, and now, you know, they've really kind of struggled this season. It really hasn't been the same team at all and It kind of says something about the Gonzaga program that you know, they're going to be a three seed in the tournament It's kind of a almost a catastrophically bad year So what's going on with this team? Well, they're still brilliant on offense They have a lot of great offensive players It starts with Drew Timmy in the post who's still been remarkably efficient probably even more so than last year Julian Struthers is a is a great wing scorer And the whole team is capable of getting to the basket and sharing the ball So it's it's a pretty good formula for good offense In my metrics are the best in the nation The problem is that they stink on defense When you look over the last two years, they've had a top five pick on that team each year And in each of those seasons that player was stronger on the defense side of the ball than than the offensive side of the ball Jaylen Suggs was a great defender a lot of effort on that side of the ball Chet Holmgren was like simply a shop locking machine they haven't either of those players anymore and You know the effort kind of isn't there they really struggle to defend the dribble drive and you know that It's probably going to sink them at some point when when they get to A team that's going to have a really good lead guard. They can get to the basket But with that said You know, they can simply score and it's not inconceivable that they can outscore six teams in a row. They're they're that explosive So I think it's a team that's kind of flying under the radar if you haven't really been paying attention You're like, yeah, it gives that a sucks this year Which is true on the defensive side of the ball. Uh, but uh, I certainly wouldn't count them out Do you think I guess this might be something you've researched, uh, but I know that when looking at like NFL numbers Defense is less sticky than offense. Is that true in college basketball as well or Is it is it more even between the two sides of the ball? Yeah, that's a great question I don't know the answer to that question jim. But what I do know the answer to is that I I did ask the question I I made this hypothesis. Okay, if you're a bad defensive team Do you get better in the tournament simply because you play harder, right? Right? The stakes are higher, you know, everyone's watching now all of a sudden you put some more effort in on defense So I looked at it. I looked at teams that are like not top 25 teams How do they do in the tournament compared to what they did in the regular season? Really didn't find anything inclusive. I can't say in general that that happens I want to say that defense is as predictive as offense But now now that you mentioned that I really gotta I really gotta check that in general Yeah, interesting. Okay, because because that would be an argument is just be like, hey, look, you know Gonzaga's defense is just not as predictive overall, right? And you know college basketball has changed, right? Uh a lot so like what could have happened last year Maybe isn't true this year, but luckily we have 363 college basketball teams to uh To uh to get some good data on that right exactly Now Gonzaga to win it all is 20 to 1 right now Do you think the lack of defense impacts their ceiling in that regard? Again, it could right it kind of depends on matchups it depends on who they end up playing It depends on how well they play They're capable of playing good defense There was a game earlier this year where they were up by a point laid against byu at byu And uh, you know, they got it done. I had a great great defensive possession um But in general they're they're they're not they're not a good defensive team Yeah, okay So Gonzaga could be a team that potentially If the public is down in them based on Last year's tournament showing based on perception of them this year could be a spot to buy low on them uh going forward Now what about the flip side some teams that may have been over performing recently That could be due for some negative regression based on the record or based on surface level stats So i'm going to go with purdue here purdue is a team that has kind of been the college basketball darling played really well And they have a superstar in zack eddie. He's a seven foot four Center has taken on an additional role on the offense is I mean, it's just a tremendous college basketball player But when you look at the rest of the team I personally have a lot of questions about what's going on And if you want a sense for that you can just kind of look at where they were in the preseason ap poll They were outside of the top 25 and you might be saying ed. Well, that doesn't matter. That's the preseason ap poll but the preseason ap poll is a pretty powerful predictor of Actually tournament results. So this is some work that I've done based on some insights by ken pomeray and nade silver and It's again, this wasn't a crowd effects. So no one Sportswriter has a perfect poll but you combine 60 of them together. You get a pretty good assessment of team strength purdue wasn't in the top 25 And I think that suggests that they're just not as talented as a team I'm going to give zack eddie a lot of credit. He's been incredible But if if you're going down the stretch and you can't get him the ball for whatever reason Who's going to take the shot? It's probably fresh freshman fletcher lawyer And I don't want to disparage lawyer because I think he's he's he's a really good player and could be potentially a fantastic player in a couple years, but he is a freshman and so Um, this is the team that I'm looking to fade. Uh, I bet indiana plus seven and a half this past saturday Indiana ended up winning outright. I'm glad we got the positive variance on indiana on saturday because they got blown out at home last night by Iowa So, uh, obviously a little bit of good fortune there, but purdue is definitely a team I'm looking to fade I had any monitor on my podcast last week. He also mentioned purdue as a team that he's looking to fade We definitely agree there And uh, the similarity between indiana and purdue is neither team can hang with northwestern go kats just the owning the state of indiana and Struggling elsewhere as of right now, but purdue could be a team that ed is looking to bet against in the near future Okay, let's talk about the before we uh, Before we move on Uh, I have so they played a mar knight at wisconsin. I have to do winning by four. There's no market out yet, but if Yeah, but if purdue opens as a five or six point favorite, I would bet wisconsin Okay, so checkout openers, uh, they should be up right around the time this podcast goes up So check out openers for the thursday game purdue versus wisconsin Ed has purdue minus four right now So if you see a more favorable number than that, uh, could be a spot to fade purdue in the very very near future Now purdue is one of the favorites right now to win the national championship. They have slipped a bit there They're now down to 12 to 1 Houston's the favorite at six to one alabama with everything going on with them is plus 750 kansas plus a 50 We've been talking people I talked to john rosting twice now about who he has at the top And he said I don't know uh, so ed when you look at your numbers Who is the best team and do you agree with what your numbers are saying? Yeah, I mean my numbers say houston's the best team My eyes agree with that as well kelvin samson is one of the best coaches in america He gets his players to Commit on the defensive side of the ball. Just just an incredible team Um, you know my one of my sons is a soccer player and I pull them aside when houston's playing I was like just watch these guys get after it defensively. Yeah Uh, what kind of goes under the radar is that they're also pretty good on offense They've been a top 10 offense each of the last two years last year was probably a little bit more remarkable because they had injuries the marcus sassar and Uh, trim on mark pretty sure i'm getting his name, right? Um, they were still a pretty Amazing team last year. They only did not make the final four because they shot one for 20 against villanova in an elite eight game Um, sassar's back mark is back. Um, they have a really good team And I believe they're the best team in the country. I think I bet them at eight to one to to win at all Uh, something that was in my newsletter and in seven nuggets. I think a couple weeks ago So it uh brings joy to my heart that you can't get that number anymore and uh I think houston is a great team. I also think they're example. I mean, there's oh, um another thing about houston They have a freshman jarris walker who's going to be a lottery pick. He's six eight a big got a pretty decent shot very athletic, um A contribute on the defensive side of the ball. So they kind of do have that like high upside But do you know, do I think houston's unbeatable? No I think there's a lot of parody and basketball college basketball this year. There's no team like in zagga last year There's no team like duke in 2019 um Full of superstars that should by far away be the favorite in this tournament houston should be the favorite But they kind of don't scare you like those other teams of of the past Did or at least should have in terms of how they had done over the course of the year So I do think it's a wide open Uh year even though I I do think houston should be the favorite And it sounds like based on what you said there that if you are looking at the market You don't have a houston h1 ticking your pocket already Six to one is probably not a value based on what you are saying. Is that correct? I mean maybe um, yeah So there's one other thing about houston that I think makes them like a better shot to Make it deep in the tournament. Uh, I'm saving this one for my newsletter because I think it's going to be one thing that Um, yeah anyways, I'm saving that one for my newsletter, but but there's reasons to think that they can go pretty far. Okay They have the last two seasons And I find no reason to think that it won't and obviously if you have a ticket and they make the final four It's pretty easy to hedge out of it. Right. If something does go wrong Um, so yeah, I I definitely believe in this houston team. Okay, so I'd like to houston and add Buying into ginsaga potentially fading Purdue especially for tomorrow's game potentially and that's not all you'll hear from ed fang The next couple of weeks we're gonna have them on again next wednesday We'll talk about some conference tournaments then the bigger conference tournaments We're gonna have them on for our typical ncwa tournament stream that we've done the past Eight or so years now. I don't know how long it's been a while. Uh, since we met at slone a long time ago Um, we'll have that again on the monday It'll be a live stream 6 p.m. On the fandal youtube page. We'll do that there Bennett corkren of shock quality will be with us for that one as well. We'll talk about brackets talk about all that and then Plenty more college basketball talk coming up throughout that week as well But ed it was a pleasure to have you back on the show for today. I'm glad that vacation went well I'm glad that you have power back now despite no internet, but if you want to find the Member numbers the public numbers the stuff you were talking about. Where can they find that? On your site Absolutely. Check out the powering.com sign up for the free email newsletter Uh, kind of every week during the year. Uh, I have a five nugget saturday. So a bunch of sports betting tips It's gone pretty well the past couple weeks. So definitely check that out And then I'm shifting a lot of kind of my best content from the podcast to the newsletter this upcoming Season for for march madness. So so definitely check it out. I mean, there will be a lot of stuff I usually repost A lot of the newsletter stuff on my site. That's not going to happen for everything Before the start of the tournament. So definitely check that out and Yeah, I'm looking forward I I got a lot of stuff fun stuff the thing about houston and and there's going to be a lot of I mean It's going to be a really interesting tournament. I think it's more important to file analytics than ever before just because these teams are so Close together. Yeah And uh, yeah, I think You know, I think I'm going to be more valuable than than your average term of year And I said this a lot, but like you've won me my Tournament pool two years and I don't know anything about college basketball because I don't pay attention usually because northwestern sucks Um, I've won the number fire pool twice in the past Six or so years because of that. So you've helped me. Hopefully you're helping the listeners to uh, check out ed on twitter at the power Rank find ed's uh ed's work at the power rank dot com and he mentioned the podcast of the anti monitor bed spurts That is on the football analytics show and a great personal listen to for college basketball. So check that out over there I'm on twitter at jim sonnis. Uh, we are also back tomorrow talking about some nba's men hl Tom vecchio I'll also go through NASCAR in vegas formula one in Bahrain to get you said for this weekend Make sure you're subscribed to covering the spread to get that and also check us out over on the fandal youtube page We'll talk to you all once again soon. This has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network