See, my answer to the majority of those rhetorical questions was an emphatic yes. Even the ones where it doesn’t make sense (which is all of them, rhetorical as those questions are). And so, I’ve reimagined (read, bastardized) plus/minus to determine which playoff skaters have been the most valuable during the first week of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. And likewise, who has been the biggest liability. (Spoiler alert: It’s Andrew Alberts.)

I played around with the same thing during last year’s playoffs, and the big winner was Henrik Zetterberg, whose all-around plus/minus (for lack of a better term — although I may consider calling it “POTI” as an homage to the Caps defenseman that this equation seems to be in mad love with, as well as a lame takeoff of Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA) was +21. Ben Eager was the big loser at a -8. (Poti was a +15, third among all playoff skaters.)

Here’s what this year’s look like through the first week of the Stanley Cup Playoffs:

A few years ago, my friends and I had a March Madness pool — not for money, just to see who, in effect, knew their college hoops the best. I had become pretty confident in my ability to pick upsets and such, and also had a system I relied upon called “pick against Syracuse and Duke until they give you reason to do otherwise”. This led to my stumbling upon LSU a year earlier, and picking Vermont to beat Cuse probably two years before.

Anyhow, the early rounds are really where I’d win my brackets, because I’d pick more upsets and in doing so, I’d eliminate powerhouse teams that I felt were flimsily built, or due to lose. One of the teams I decided fit this criteria was the defending national champion Florida Gators. Yeah, not so much. My gamble of having them lose to, I believe, George Washington in the second round — I’ve decided against reopening an old wound that specific, I’m just sure that the team I picked got bounced in the first round anyway — did not pay off. And naturally, with everyone else picking the favorite to go deep if not win it all, I was screwed as far as winning this friendly competition.

A better man would’ve shrugged it off. But I was not, in fact, a better man. Don’t get me wrong: I was just fine with losing to a bunch of my friends who actually followed college hoops to a certain degree. But when I lost to some of my female friends — particularly the one who filled out her bracket based on the school she had the most Facebook friends from — I felt a great sense of shame, and knew I would have to avenge my defeat the following year and regain the respect I melodramatically figured I’d lost.

And what better way to gain the esteem of my male and especially female colleagues, I wondered, than by generating a statistical amalgamation to determine the likely winners of collegiate basketball games?

With the goal of beating a bunch of girls in mind, the Male Enhancement Formula was born. Without going into specifics, the Formula accounts for point differential, field goal percentage, 3-point field goal percentage, rebounding, shot blocking, turnovers, steals, defensive field goal percentage, defensive 3-point percentage, foul shooting, and RPI. If it’s a somewhat common basketball stat, it pretty much finds its way in there — the exception being assists, which is 1.) too arbitrarily awarded to be a reliable stat, in my opinion and 2.) should be inherently demonstrated in field goal shooting as far as open looks are concerned. Wins and losses are also not accounted for.

SO, with all that said, here are the Male Enhancement Formula rankings for the 65 teams in the field in this year’s NCAA Tournament, with their overall ranking in brackets:

1.) Kansas 97.66 [1]
2.) Syracuse 88.75 [2]
3.) BYU 87.41 [3]
4.) Kentucky 86.94 [4]
5.) Texas 86.85 [5]
6.) Duke 86.52 [6]
7.) Baylor 83.99 [7]
8.) Utah State 80.61 [8]
9.) Ohio State 80.29 [9]
10.) Missouri 80.25 [10]
11.) Maryland 79.84 [11]
12.) Old Dominion 79.75 [12]
13.) Murray State 78.10 [13]
14.) West Virginia 77.83 [14]
15.) Michigan State 77.60 [15]
16.) Wisconsin 76.88 [16]
17.) Villanova 76.54 [17]
18.) Kansas State 76.30 [18]
19.) UNLV 75.20 [19]
20.) Purdue 74.37 [20]
21.) Florida State 73.40 [21]
22.) San Diego State 73.31 [22]
23.) Tennessee 73.17 [23]
24.) UTEP 72.54 [24]
25.) Clemson 72.28 [25]
26.) Washington 72.16 [26]
27.) Minnesota 71.79 [27]
28.) Georgetown 70.41 [28]
29.) New Mexico 69.37 [30]
30.) Temple 68.79 [31]
31.) Georgia Tech 68.34 [32]
32.) Xavier 67.48 [34]
33.) California 65.41 [38]
34.) Gonzaga 65.25 [39]
35.) Vanderbilt 64.74 [40]
36.) Northern Iowa 64.00 [42]
37.) Saint Mary’s 63.91 [43]
38.) Siena 63.88 [44]
39.) Texas A&M 63.84 [46]
40.) Louisville 63.44 [47]
41.) Marquette 63.16 [48]
42.) Cornell 63.09 [49]
43.) Pittsburgh 63.02 [50]
44.) Notre Dame 62.01 [52]
45.) Oklahoma State 60.52 [57]
46.) Richmond 59.29 [58]
47.) Florida 59.02 [59]
48.) Butler 58.02 [61]
49.) Wake Forest 57.36 [62]
50.) Montana 54.84 [64]
51.) Sam Houston State 52.36 [70]
52.) Wofford 51.80 [72]
53.) Ohio 41.30 [105]
54.) Vermont 39.92 [109]
55.) Houston 38.99 [111]
56.) Oakland 35.55 [121]
57.) Morgan State 33.90 [129]
58.) North Texas 33.33 [131]
59.) Lehigh 29.35 [142]
60.) UC Santa Barbara 27.77 [150]
61.) New Mexico State 27.25 [154]
62.) East Tennessee State 24.85 [165]
63.) Robert Morris 20.89 [184]
64.) Winthrop 18.17 [189]
65.) Arkansas-Pine Bluff 4.25 [248]

Some notes: Pretty impressive number for Kansas there compared to the rest of the field. A few notes: Texas is ranked high because of how dominant they were at the beginning of the year. At one point, they held a fairly commanding lead over KU in this ranking, but have sunk like a stone as their season circled the toilet. Still, they can obviously be dangerous. But they’re more than a little reminiscent of Wake Forest last year, which, coincidentally, immediately busted one region on my bracket. Despite that misstep, the Formula accurately forecast the national champion for the second consecutive year. Its greatest accomplishment to date is probably its projection of Davidson to the Elite Eight two years ago before being bounced by the eventual national champs. And, for the second year in a row, the numbers also LOVE Mizzou way more than anyone else seems to, likely due to their breakneck style of play.

Will be back during and/or after the tournament to see how this all pans out… I’m expecting a wild first couple of rounds since there aren’t a lot of very good teams out there. Could/should be a return of the mid-major onslaught of four years ago.

Big 12:
Texas
Baylor
Kansas State
Texas A&M
Missouri
Oklahoma State

Big East:
Syracuse
Villanova
Georgetown
Pittsburgh
Louisville
Marquette
Notre Dame

ACC:
Maryland
Florida State
Clemson
Georgia Tech
Virginia Tech
Wake Forest

SEC:
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Mississippi

Big Ten:
Purdue
Michigan State
Wisconsin
Minnesota

Mountain West:
BYU
New Mexico
UNLV

Atlantic 10:
Xavier
Richmond

WAC:
Utah State

Conference USA:
UTEP

West Coast:
Gonzaga

Looking at the numbers, I don’t think Wake Forest and Notre Dame really belong, but I’m sure they’ll get in. I probably would’ve put Seton Hall in ahead of either team, but I don’t anticipate that happening when people use criteria like “the eye test” (ugh) to justify their selections.

Oh yeah, and Duke’s getting that final #1 seed.

Will probably be back before Thursday (honest!) to give my take on whatever it is the folks on the Selection Committee do with a group of team that should bear a close resemblance to the group listed above.

Probably starting with some March Madness stuff in the coming days… I might chime in before then in a futile effort to establish something resembling credibility. We’ll see.