Final Fours and Draft Stock

From David Biderman in the WSJ...

A new study shows that NBA draft prospects who reach the last week of the NCAA tournament get selected higher than they should be. Dave Berri, co-author of the sports-economics book "Stumbling On Wins," looked at U.S. players drafted between 1995-2008 and used a regression model to determine how numerous factors (scoring, size, position, etc.) affect where they get selected. He found that if a player reached the Final Four in the year he was drafted, he's selected, on average, 12.5 spots higher than he should be. The data also say these players perform no better in the NBA than their non-Final Four peers.

While there are obvious exceptions...