Comments on: Mens Tournament Bracket Predictions: Spartans Reach Detroit, but Year of the Big East Continues

By: JRod

JRod — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 03:08:45 +0000

@mike, yeah…I goofed picking Kansas and Memphis to bow out early. Those are really killing me in my bracket. My Elite 8 is still intact though, so hopefully that remains true after tomorrow.

By: mike

mike — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:31:54 +0000

@Annie, ohio state losed, so. Wisconsin won and ohio state beat wisconsin like a week ago.

By: mike

mike — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:29:58 +0000

But I also took some of your later round picks and hope were right. other than that we’ll see what happens.

By: JRod

JRod — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 02:51:48 +0000

@Ben, best of luck to you! I am just hoping I haven’t completely torn up my bracket after tomorrow’s games.

By: Annie

Annie — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:51:28 +0000

i think some of your upsets are a little off but i won’t doubt your system. surprisingly,i actually matched up all my south picks with yours. i hope you right! and good luck.

p.s. Ohio State won’t go out first round, i promise you that.

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:18:49 +0000

good luck, I decided to borrow your picks (a lot I had previously picked, but I had no system beyond eyeballing) for my pool. We’ll see!

By: JRod

JRod — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:17:33 +0000

@Dustin, in the above analysis, yes. In a perfect, more advanced, and probably more accurate analysis, no.

As I said, I know that there are a plethora of holes in the system used above. I wanted to create something that was simple, only took a few stats into account, and that I could apply to every game in about the 3-hour window I had to complete all of my picks.

The truth is, even the most “perfect” analysis is going to end up predicting games incorrectly. That’s the beauty of the NCAA Tournament. For me, I wanted to go through the above exercise so that I had something to help me make picks other than gut feeling and my own incomplete knowledge of all the teams in the field.

Next year, I hope to add more stats and sophistication to the prediction system. As it is, I’m relatively happy with the picks that resulted. Until the games start tomorrow and everything goes haywire, of course.

By: Dustin

Dustin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:11:15 +0000

Do you completely ignore efficiency, offensive rebounding, Effective Field Goal%, and distribution of point scoring… Interesting…