With the men's and women's NCAA tournaments moving on to their second week of action, both Sweet 16 fields are set. Some teams, though, have looked more dominant than others in getting there. With the help of tournament data, let's look at which advancing teams (and players) have outperformed expectations the most -- and which have been shakier than expected in their victories.
Here's how we'll be calculating our Heat Index rankings for teams and players in both NCAA tournaments: Teams are judged using Sports-Reference's Simple Rating System (SRS) scores. We'll compare the teams' actual points-per-game differentials in tourney games to the margins we'd expect based on the ratings of each team and its opponent. Then, for players on those hot (or cold) teams, we'll look at the biggest differences between their average Game Score -- a metric that sums up all of a player's various box-score contributions -- in the tournament versus the regular season as a whole, to see who has been driving their team's performances recently by playing better or worse in two tournament games.
For example, the Duke Blue Devils men's team was heavily favored in both of its games, against Vermont and James Madison, but its plus-27.5 average points-per-game margin -- which beat expectations by 12.1 PPG -- was still impressive. So was the performance of freshman guard Jared McCain, whose averages of 14 points (on 47% shooting) and 5 rebounds per game during the season -- good for a 10.9 Game Score per game -- have given way to 22.5 PPG (58% shooting), 5.5 RPG and an 18.8 Game Score during the tourney, making him one of March's biggest breakouts thus far.
Likewise, the Indiana Hoosiers women have beaten their NCAA opponents by 20 points per game, which includes a seven-point victory over a tough Oklahoma squad, giving them an average margin of five points better than expected. Leading the way for the Hoosiers? Senior guard Sydney Parrish, who has bettered her season averages of 10.4 points, 6.1 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 0.7 blocks and an 8.5 Game Score by averaging 12.0 PPG, 7.5 RPG, 4.5 APG, 2.0 BPG and a 13.4 Game Score during the NCAA tournament.
But surprisingly, even after their two-round performances, neither McCain and the Blue Devils nor Parrish and the Hoosiers are No. 1 in our Heat Index.