History may be on their side

CTD was asked this yesterday on Twitter:

@crashthedance UofL have shot at a 1 again?

— Brad Smith (@Smitty40484) March 6, 2013

The question was presumably in response to Louisville jumping up to the last slot on the No. 1 seed line.

As I said last night:

You could reasonably make the case for at least four different teams as the overall no. 1 seed. Maybe 4 more could still reach the 1 line.

— Crashing the Dance (@crashthedance) March 6, 2013

Louisville is in the group of possible number 1 seeds, and one of the reasons why the CTD seeding model is high on them right now is their #1 overall ranking (as of Wednesday) in the Sagarin ratings. Obviously, the Sagarin ratings are but one of a set of tools confirmed to be used behind closed doors. (How they admit to using them is another story. Hopefully it's not only to resolve "descrepancies".)

Anyway, in the 13 years of historical data used to build the CTD model this season, there have only been 2 teams ranked 1st or 2nd in the Sagarin ratings at the end of the regular season that were not given a No. 1 seed. Cincinnati likely would have been a 1 seed in 2000 if not for Kenyon Martin's injury.

Any one predictor variable shouldn't be trusted by itself, but that's a pretty solid track record.