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Playing the Percentages: Elite Eight Saturday

March 24, 2007

By Benjamin Miraski

Another sweep in the MRI for Friday night. That means the MRI perfectly predicted all eight games in the Sweet Sixteen. The way the tournament stands with 8 teams left feeds directly into my theory before it began that there was an elite group of teams, though with their flaws, and everyone else. We have seen the flaws judging by the close scores in the games, but we have also seen 7 of those elite ten teams advance to the Elite Eight. The one outsider: Oregon. And Oregon is a team that was one a roll coming into the tournament, much like Florida was last year. Can Oregon beat Florida and continue looking just like the Gators? We have to wait until Sunday for that.

One other side note. For those that are curious, the MRI was entered as an expert into the bracket contest on FanIQ, using the bracket based on the results in the first Tournament Projection article post-Selection Sunday. As it currently stands, the MRI is the 3rd best expert in the field, and 83 overall out of 827 entries. Not bad a bucket of chips. Should North Carolina win the tournament as predicted by the MRI, the computer will not only have a chance at being the #1 expert (which it will likely be as the entries above it have Ohio State as the champ), it also has a chance to be the #1 overall entry into the pool. How about them apples?

OK, let's not get ahead of ourselves. There are still seven games remaining in this tournament and anything is possible, especially with the group of teams we have remaining.

For now, let's look at the numbers for Saturday and the updated statistics.

Updated statistics for the tournament so far:
1st Round: 25 for 32 overall, 2 for 6 upsets
2nd Round so far: 11 for 16 overall, 1 for 2 upsets (Only 1 off the expected value of wins - 12)
Sweet Sixteen: 8 for 8 overall (2 over the expected value of wins - 6)
Tournament overall: 44 for 56, 78.6%

And Saturday's numbers...

Posted March 24, 2007 9:00 AM

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