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March 31, 2007
Playing the Percentages: Final Four
And so the magic that was the first part of the tournament crumbles. It could have been expected. The top teams, despite the percentages the MRI put out, are all good, and they know how to win. Otherwise, I wouldn't have thought that 7 of the eight teams that were remaining were in that group. Unfortunately for me, the numbers didn't hold.
If you listen to the ESPNU podcast on college basketball, you know that last week, Jay Bilas and Andy Glockner backed off making predictions on the show. As Glockner said, when Bilas, or Dick Vitale (ok, Vitale's picks have a little bias in them towards teams that wear blue), or any expert give predictions, they do it based on percentages, just like the MRI. And so when they are wrong, it wasn't like they were wrong. The analysis can show that one team has the better chance of winning. However, things don't always go right. Memphis got into foul trouble which stopped them from taking advantage of Greg Oden's time on the bench. North Carolina decided that the rim was smaller than the size of a basketball. And Kansas forgot they could run.
And that is how the MRI ended 1 for 4 in the Elite Eight. Despite that (and going ice cold in the NIT predictions), the computer is still at 75% for the tournament.
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)
Elite Eight: 1 for 4 overall, 0 for 1 in upsets (2 below the expected number of wins - 3)
Tournament overall: 45 for 60, 75%
Let's go to the Final Four Numbers.
(2) Georgetown vs. (1) Ohio State: Ohio State - 66.41%
(2) UCLA) vs. (1) Florida: Florida - 73.29%
Expected wins for Saturday: 1.4 rounded down to 1
Enjoy the games.
Copyright 2007 by MRISports.com. Ben Miraski writes for MRISports.com and is a featured blogger on FanIQ. Readers can contact Ben at bmiraski@mrisports.com
Posted by bmiraski at March 31, 2007 12:40 PM
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