SAN ANTONIO -- Not only is Kenpom predicting that Houston will beat Arizona 74-73 on Thursday, but the site's owner says the Wildcats will have to overcome some history to reach the Final Four.
No team that was unranked in the preseason AP Top 25Β and then became a No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed has gone on to reach the Final Four.
Ken Pomeroy noted that the preseason AP Top 25 -- in which media carefully analyze the merits of each team, rather than bounce them up and down based on recent results -- has some predictive power in the postseason. Teams that are unranked rarely go on to achieve great success and teams that are ranked highly in the preseason rarely fail to reach the tournament, Pomeroy said.
"There may be no better example of the value of the preseason poll than the performance of one seeds in the NCAA Tournament," Pomeroy wrote on KSL.com. "Prior to this season, there have been 144 one seeds in the 36 tournaments since 1985. Of the 133 that were ranked in the preseason, 59 (44.4%) made the Final Four. Of the 11 that were unranked, zero made the Final Four."
According to zip code data compiled by TickPick, 66% of ticket purchases for Thursday's South Regional games are from Texas, 16% are from Arizona and 8% are from Michigan.
(I've only seen two people wearing Villanova gear around town, FWIW).
TickPick also said the South Region ticket prices have been the cheapest of the four regions, with a get-in price of $54 and average price of $241 (prices inclusive of fees).
As of Thursday afternoon, StubHub's cheapest prices were $171 plus fees.
Will it be a near-home advantage for Houston? The Wildcats aren't complaining.
Here's our scouting report and notebook for the game if you missed it. Tons of other stories are on our Wildcats page, including an off-the-court look at all 16 of the Wildcat players.
Sean Miller is scheduled to be introduced as Xavier's head coach on Friday. ICYMI from earlier this week, he'll likely sit out 9-15 games with the Musketeers unless he can prove former assistant coaches Mark Phelps and Book Richardson deceived him.
