Bracketology Intrigue and Science

Both Polmeroy and Sagarin predict that we beat Gonzaga.  Kentucky has a difficult road ahead.   Besides being the weakest of the #1’s, they have a brutal bracket that reduces their Final Four chances by 5-10%.  The sweetest draw belongs to the Syracuse Orange. 

For those looking to call that historic upset, both Syracuse and Kentucky are about twice as likely to lose their first round matches as Kansas & Duke.

http://kenpom.com/rate.php

tournament brackets by Sagarin http://www.wagesofwins.com/Sagarin10.htm

tournament brackets by Ken Polmeroy http://www.wagesofwins.com/Pomeroy10.htm

Here are 2 articles that I think can help fill out your brackets~~!

For the Intrigue, go to the article on CBS leaked brackets http://bracketology101.blogspot.com/

For most college basketball fans, the work of the selection committee is now old news. The most important decisions in their lives now - college basketball-wise, at least - are which sleepers to pick or which teams to put in their Final Four.

Don't get us wrong - we can't wait for the tournament to get started on Thursday, either. But a post by one of readers today made us turn back the clock to yesterday and investigate what appears what seems to be a serious information leak at CBS.

B101 reader "Coach" posted a link in our comments section Monday about a Maryland mesage board, InsideMDSports, that published information about the bracket before it came out. Here's what the post said:

At 5:17 p.m. ET (43 minutes BEFORE the start of the Selection Show), user "goterps04" posted the following:

Subject: Taking down the loud headline now. (Bracket talk).

No. 1 seeds: Kansas, Kentucky, Cuse, Duke

No. 2 seeds: K-State, NOVA, OSU, WVU

Terps start out first round in Spokane.....MARYLAND V HOUSTON ROUND ONE. TERPS A 4 SEED. IN THE MIDWEST REGION.

MICHIGAN STATE IS THE 5 SEED THEY WILL PLAY NEW MEXICO STATE.

KANSAS IS THE NO. 1 SEED IN THIS BRACKET.

VIRGINIA TECH IS OUT.

FLORIDA IS IN. MISS STATE IS OUT.

For the Science, we go to http://ww.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=543

Bracket Building Using Tempo-Free Stats   by Pete Tiernan	Printer- friendly

Fortunately, that's just the kind of question that PASE can help answer. Ken was generous enough to share with me the pre-tourney data from 2004 to 2008 so that I could conduct this analysis. Five years isn't exactly a huge sample size, but it's worth finding out as early as possible whether there's any connection between tempo-free stats and tourney success so that we can track it into the future. With that, let's take a look at the four possession-based stats and use PASE to analyze their predictive value.

Playing Tempo

Possession-based stats remove the bias of playing tempo from the assessment of a team's offensive or defensive effectiveness. Eliminating the influence of tempo assumes, however, that there isn't any inherent value in playing the game faster or slower that supercedes efficiency. It's a reasonable assumption, but is it true, particularly in the pressure cooker of March Madness? Does an up-tempo style of play lead to tourney overachievement, or are more deliberate teams more likely to exceed seed expectations?

We evaluated the tempo statistics and tourney results of the 120 teams seeded one through six since 2004 (restricting our analysis to the teams expected to have the most success), and here's what we found:

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Predicting the Brackets based on Tuition Paid

Real America: March Tuition Madness

http://www.theawl.com/2010/03/real-america-march-tuition-madness