The Close to Home Advantage in the NCAA Tournament

It’s difficult winning the NCAA Tournament.  A team must defeat six or even seven different teams to win the tournament.   This is why analysts dig deep and look for any advantages schools might have.  One of the most publicized advantages in the NCAA Tournament is when a school plays a tournament game close to home.  But how much of an advantage is it really to play a tournament game close to home?  I heard an analyst recently say that it’s better to play close to home as a #2 seed, than play far from home as a #1 seed.  Is it really that much of an advantage to play close to home?

Since the first tournament back in 1940, teams that have won tournament games were playing on average 71.69 miles closer to home, than their opponent.  That figure would show that there is a slight advantage to playing closer to home in the tournament.  But it might also indicate that more favored teams (top seeds) get placed in brackets closer to home.

So I decided to breakdown the advantage by seed ranking.

Note: The NCAA started seeding teams in 1979.

Seed	Type of Game	W	L	W Pct.	Difference
#1 Seed	Closest to Home	274	68	0.801	4.83%
#1 Seed	Furthest from Home	131	43	0.753
#2 Seed	Closest to Home	179	65	0.734	7.29%
#2 Seed	Furthest from Home	111	57	0.661
#3 Seed	Closest to Home	109	58	0.653	3.64%
#3 Seed	Furthest from Home	106	66	0.616
#4 Seed	Closest to Home	86	54	0.614	7.05%
#4 Seed	Furthest from Home	87	73	0.544
#5 Seed	Closest to Home	83	56	0.597	11.49%
#5 Seed	Furthest from Home	68	73	0.482
#6 Seed	Closest to Home	79	56	0.585	3.97%
#6 Seed	Furthest from Home	84	70	0.545
#7 Seed	Closest to Home	56	48	0.538	15.38%
#7 Seed	Furthest from Home	50	80	0.385
#8 Seed	Closest to Home	39	45	0.464	7.17%
#8 Seed	Furthest from Home	53	82	0.393
#9 Seed	Closest to Home	42	50	0.457	16.82%
#9 Seed	Furthest from Home	32	79	0.288
#10 Seed	Closest to Home	42	57	0.424	5.26%
#10 Seed	Furthest from Home	42	71	0.372
#11 Seed	Closest to Home	26	63	0.292	-4.83%
#11 Seed	Furthest from Home	32	62	0.340
#12 Seed	Closest to Home	34	54	0.386	10.20%
#12 Seed	Furthest from Home	31	78	0.284
#13 Seed	Closest to Home	15	52	0.224	4.93%
#13 Seed	Furthest from Home	11	52	0.175
#14 Seed	Closest to Home	8	51	0.136	-2.31%
#14 Seed	Furthest from Home	10	53	0.159
#15 Seed	Closest to Home	3	40	0.070	5.44%
#15 Seed	Regular Record	1	64	0.015

 

*- A #16 seed has never won an NCAA Tournament game, therefore I didn’t include #16 seeds in the study.  However the team closest to home in the play-in game is 6-4.

 

As you can see every seed ranking but two (#11, #14), all show an advantage to the team playing closer to home.  It’s clear that there is an advantage to playing a tournament game closer to home.  Now I’m interested in determining how much of an advantage it can be.

Listed below is a chart breaking down the mile advantage teams had in tournament games, and how they fared with such an advantage.

Advantage by Miles	W	L	W Pct.
2000+ Mile Difference	22	10	0.688
1500-1999 Mile Difference	84	56	0.600
1000-1499 Mile Difference	160	111	0.590
750-999 Mile Difference	92	107	0.462
500-749 Mile Difference	233	160	0.593
250-499 Mile Difference	416	335	0.554
100-249 Mile Difference	297	281	0.514
50-99 Mile Difference	125	103	0.548
0-49 Mile Difference	124	109	0.532

 

For the most part the greater the mile advantage, the greater advantage of winning.  Although it’s an anomaly that teams with a 500-749 mile advantage, actually have a losing record.

In conclusion I feel confident in saying that teams do get an advantage from playing a tournament game close to home.

 

How Data Was Compiled:

Using the NCAA Tournament Database provided by HoopsTournament.com, and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names National File, I matched up the provided city names, with their geographic coordinates.  From there I used the following Microsoft Excel formula to calculate the distance between the coordinates.