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WEST REGION (Anaheim)

Top seed:  Duke
While Duke might have preferred to stay out East like its rival North Carolina got to do as a 2-seed, the road to the Final Four is relatively simple.  Neither Tennessee nor Michigan is a tough challenge in the third round.  What the Blue Devils would really like to do is avoid Texas.  They are just 57 percent likely to beat the 4th-seeded Long Horns compared to over 69 percent against 5th-seeded Arizona.  The possibility of a virtual road game versus SDSU in Anaheim looms in the regional final, but Duke is still 30.7 percent likely to reach Houston.

Team to avoid:  Arizona
The Pac-10 regular season champions enjoyed a big bounce back year led by Derrick Williams and Coach Sean Miller.  Their stay in the tournament may not last very long however as the Wild Cats are projected to have just a 36 percent chance of beating Texas to advance to the Sweet 16.  If they were to win that game, they would be even bigger underdogs against Duke.

Underseeded:  Temple
The Owls land here by virtue of an overwhelmingly easy first round opponent in Penn State.  While Washington is the strongest 7-seed, Temple has the weakest opponent and is thus most likely to win its first game (66.5 percent).  Penn State actually has a worse projected outlook than both 13-seed Oakland and 14-seed Bucknell.  That combined with a relatively strong showing for the Owls against 2-seed SDSU (44 percent) gives Temple a better chance of winning the regional than both Arizona and Cincinnati.

Mighty mid-major:  Temple
For all of the reasons stated above.

AccuScore’s World Series preview assumes both teams will stick to their projected pitching rotations. Cliff Lee and Tim Lincecum are set to square off in Games 1 and 5. C.J Wilson will stay in the second spot in the Texas rotation ahead of Colby Lewis and oppose Matt Cain. Lewis will face Jonathan Sanchez is Games 3 and 6. Tommy Hunter and Madison Bumgarner are the fourth starters. Both players are questionable to start Game 7, and would likely be on very short leashes if they were to pitch in the deciding game.

AccuScore projects the Rangers are solid favorites to win their first World Series title. Texas is winning 60 percent of simulations buoyed by the strength of Cliff Lee. The ace lefty is favored to win 57 percent of the time even against Lincecum on the road. Lee represents an even greater advantage at home with a 66-34 edge.

The Rangers are -143 favorites to win the series which translates to a 57 percent winning percentage. Since AccuScore’s percentage is higher at 60 percent, the value play for the series is with Texas.

Previously we at AccuScore was projected Lewis to move up and pitch Game 2 for the Rangers and go against Sanchez. Texas however has decided to stick with Wilson while the Giants have moved Cain to the second slot. These changes combine to slightly improve San Francisco’s chances in the second game from 54 to 56 percent. While two percent isn’t much, everything is magnified in the World Series so I’m sure Giants fans will take every advantage they can get.

Colby Lewis proved his mettle against the Yankees which is resulting in the Rangers solidly being favored in Game 3. His projected Game 6 start is also the smallest deficit for a road pitcher not named Cliff Lee in the series.

Texas, being the AL team, appears to have a nice advantage at DH with Vladimir Guerrero. Guerrero will play Game 1 in the outfield, and likely again should the series come back to San Francisco. His replacement in the outfield for the other games though is likely to be David Murphy, a very capable hitter in his own right. The Giants will employ Pat Burrell at DH against lefties (with probably Nate Schierholtz in OF) and Pablo Sandoval against righties. A couple of things to watch will be the health of Edgar Renteria and Juan Uribe for San Francisco as they have nagging injuries that could cause problems for the infielders. Andres Torres also suffered a minor groin injury against Philadelphia that bears watching. Texas appears to be mostly healthy as a team can be in October.

Even though the Rangers are favored overall, it would be beneficial for them to end the series before it reaches a seventh and deciding game. Their superior lineup gives them the advantage, but a single game situation in which every pitcher is in play leaves a lot of things to luck and random chance. The Giants obviously would also benefit in Game 7 by having the final chances at-bat.

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Before Tony Parker’s injury, the Spurs were projected to finish 6th in the West with 49.3 wins – just ahead of the Thunder and the Blazers.  Now with the news that Parker will miss 6 weeks with a wrist injury San Antonio is projected to finish – 6th in the West.

Despite losing Parker, a 3-time All-Star, for possibly the rest of the regular the forecast for San Antonio does not change significantly. His absence will mean more minutes for George Hill and Roger Mason with Manu Ginobili assuming more ball-handling duties. Keith Bogans and Malik Hairston could see increased minutes on the wing as well. 

The non-change in the forecast is less an indictment on Parker – currently averaging 16.5 points and 5.7 assists – and more circumstances beyond his influence at this point in the season. The Spurs are basically locked into one of the final three playoff spots in the West. They currently sit 1.0 game behind Oklahoma City and 1.5 ahead of Portland.  More importantly, the Spurs are 5.5 games ahead of 9th place Memphis.  With only 22 games remaining, it would take a complete collapse for San Antonio to fall out of playoff position.  The presence of Hill, Ginobili, and Tim Duncan makes that scenario extremely unlikely.

As you can see, Memphis has only a 3% chance of passing one of the three teams ahead of it including San Antonio. In the West, only the seeding is left to be determined at this point.

San Antonio’s closing schedule is very tough featuring road games against Boston, Phoenix, Denver, Dallas, Orlando, and the Lakers. The upside though is that San Antonio would be underdogs in all these road games even with a healthy Parker. The home schedule is no cake-walk either with the Cavs, Lakers, and Magic but the situation here is similar as well.  The overall forecast remains the same so Spurs fans shouldn’t worry about the rest of the regular season too much.  Instead, the team just needs to get Parker healthy for the playoffs.