Keegans Article on Self's elite 8 record

As I have talked about before, the statistics can only project a correlation with some measure of validity of that correlation. Based on the fixed inputs (Winn, losses, seeds) Self has been mediocre in the tournament and generally underachieved in the ELite 8. But as I said, the statistics only provide potential correlation but offer nothing in terms of causation. Keegan attempts to address the validity of the correlation and shed light on the possible causation. I do like his analysis and am intrigued by his hypothesis. Namely, he hypothisizes that the causative factor is that Self has had lesser talent more often then not in the Elite 8 games. He measures talent by totaling the points scored in the NBA. I am not sure that is the best way to measure talent but it is a pretty decent one and interesting at least. But his conclusion begs one very huge question that itself may have some interesting causative elements. That question is this. Why does the superior talent not translate into better regular season performance and/or why does whatever allows KU to be superior in the regular season get surpassed by the better talent in the NCAA tourney? It is an interesting question. One could argue that these teams don't gel until later since often that superior talent is young. Or one could argue that the superior talent is episodic or less consistent and therefore prone to more frequent off games. (I have a measure for that in my DPPI called consistency factor which would largely answer this question if I had DPPI back in those days). I think there is a valid causative element in Keegan's hypothesis. I also think it is not exhaustive. It is not the only causative element. Konza posited some causative hypotheses in an earlier post. Injuries being the greatest. Clearly injuries are a huge causative element. The injury to Embiid, in fact, was likely the single cause. I would also posit that one of the main reasons we perform so well in the regular season is because of Bill Self. That he wins games with lesser talent. But when we get to a one and done, that greater talent steps up with the higher motivation. Does anyone remember a player named Trey Burke? That was one super talented Michigan team. But we were so much better coached (except for that game). If talent is the key then going for the one and dones is the right strategy. It would be interesting if someone could take this theory beyond Kansas and correlate it to all teams.

...is that KU would beat any of the teams in the elite 8 in a 5 game series...so we'd win 3 out of 5 against anybody at minimum.
That's a 60% shot in any game and ended up having that 40% show up against Villanova.