Raymond's highly scientific predictions for the 2008 NCAA men's basketball tournament

re: Raymond's highly scientific predictions for the 2008 NCAA men's basketball tournament

Tom — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:01:03 GMT

Well, Raymond, as of today you are 17 for 17. You even got the opening game right.

Money, man

Nathan_works — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:29:45 GMT

You got skin in the game or just pontificating ? Surely your coworkers setup a $5 bracket or somesuch.

re: Raymond's highly scientific predictions for the 2008 NCAA men's basketball tournament

Tom — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:30:21 GMT

I'd say Raymond probably doesn't have any "skin" in the game. If you check out this post < http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/03/16/552822.aspx > you'll see he doesn't know squat about basketball and just dos this for fun. The first year the teams were ranked based on whose president served the longest, and the next year it was based on the pay of the head coach.

I gave a copy of Raymond's brackets to an NCAA freak here at work and his jaw dropped when he say Raymond had predicted the UMBC upset of Georgetown. I dunno, Raymond -- you might have found a good method here!

re: Raymond's highly scientific predictions for the 2008 NCAA men's basketball tournament

Josh — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:16:35 GMT

WHOO! Go Retrievers!

I graduated from UMBC last year, and I can't remember any sort of basketball team on campus. I have no idea how they managed to make it to the NCAA tournament, much less beat the #2 team.

re: Raymond's highly scientific predictions for the 2008 NCAA men's basketball tournament

SM — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:08:50 GMT

Shouldn't they play the game before a winner is declared? It's starting on 3/21 at 3:10...

re: Raymond's highly scientific predictions for the 2008 NCAA men's basketball tournament

Neil — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:24:28 GMT

OK, I'll bite: why are so few matches played between teams with an even seed difference?

re: Raymond's highly scientific predictions for the 2008 NCAA men's basketball tournament

Euro — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:40:54 GMT

You ought to read Isaac Asimov's 'The Machine That Won The War' for the most effective statistical algorithm ever created to make the right choices in situations like this.

re: Raymond's highly scientific predictions for the 2008 NCAA men's basketball tournament

Craig — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:10:39 GMT

>OK, I'll bite: why are so few matches played between teams with an even seed difference?

All the first round games are played with an odd seed difference (1 plays 16, etc). More than half the games in any bracket are first round games, so assuming a 50-50 distribution of even and odd seed differences after the first round means that 75% of the games are odd.

re: Raymond's highly scientific predictions for the 2008 NCAA men's basketball tournament

Daniel — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:21:42 GMT

Raymond, K St. over USC, impressive.

> OK, I'll bite: why are so few matches played between teams with an even seed difference?

Because the way tournament is structured, the best team plays the worst team. If all the favorites win (they often do), you will always have an odd number for the seed difference (only an upset produce an even seed difference next round). Only exception is when 8th seed plays the 9th seed in the first round, it's a virtual coin toss. Therefore, it's a 50-50 for a first seed to meet a 8th or 9th seed in the second round of regional action. (look at row 7 and 8, nearly identical).

re: Raymond's highly scientific predictions for the 2008 NCAA men's basketball tournament

Julia — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:30:57 GMT

So far you've only missed two... looks like you have a pretty good method.

Go Michigan St.!

re: Raymond's highly scientific predictions for the 2008 NCAA men's basketball tournament

Brandon Turner — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:17:49 GMT

I like the looks of your bracket, Michigan State out front like they should be!

Go Green!

re: Raymond's highly scientific predictions for the 2008 NCAA men's basketball tournament

john — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 02:05:40 GMT

I have nothing to add other than the fact that you have two South brackets and no West bracket. I nitpick at thee!

March Madness Craziness: Part One « Esoteric Dissertations from a One-Track Mind

March Madness Craziness: Part One « Esoteric Dissertations from a One-Track Mind — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 11:23:31 GMT

PingBack from http://codesmithy.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/march-madness-craziness-part-one/

re: Raymond's highly scientific predictions for the 2008 NCAA men's basketball tournament

patrick — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:07:29 GMT

You did extremely well with your first round picks. Nice job. I'm trying to understand your methodology. You wrote that you "went for the suboptimal algorithm of choosing q = p." Can you explain that more? I don't understand but am fascinated by what you came up with.

re: Raymond's highly scientific predictions for the 2008 NCAA men's basketball tournament

ScottB — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:21:54 GMT

@patrick -- it means that instead of always picking the favorite, he'll pick the favorite most of the time: for seed difference 1 (upset rate 46%), he's 46% likely to choose the upset (probably by RNG).

re: Raymond's highly scientific predictions for the 2008 NCAA men's basketball tournament

patrick — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:22:37 GMT

@ScottB & Raymond. I don't understand... Take, for example, the choices when #4 vs. #13. Twice the #4 seed is picked to win, twice the #13 seed is picked, but the upset rate for this differential is not 50%. And the two times the #13 was picked (San Diego over UCONN, Siena over Vanderbilt), Raymond was correct. Why were these particular #13's chosen and not the other two #13s? Just trying to figure out whether this was random chance.

[You found me out. It was not random chance. I used my time machine. -Raymond]