
FiveThirtyEight’s NCAA Tournament Predictions - gmu3
http://fivethirtyeight.com/interactives/march-madness-predictions/
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digikata
What's often quoted in Warren Buffet's Billion dollar NCAA contest are the
odds of randomly picking the perfect bracket of teams, but I have to think
that Buffet's insurance actuaries actually calculated the odds of randomly
selecting the right bracket with a millions of random guesses around a locus
of likely guesses informed by analysis like the posted page (and from other
stats analysis professionals.. vegas oddsmakers for example...). Otherwise the
risk of taking that bet is actually much higher than a fully random pick, yes?

Edit: As it turns out, Warren Buffet, as usual, seems to have done his
homework and even adds the interesting angle of "buying out" a possible winner
partway through the contest:

[http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2014/03/bill...](http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2014/03/billion_dollar_bracket_challenge_why_it_s_a_bad_idea_to_enter_warren_buffett.2.html)

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jofer
Similarly, this NPR article discusses that a bit:
[http://www.npr.org/2014/03/15/290283283/why-you-wont-win-
war...](http://www.npr.org/2014/03/15/290283283/why-you-wont-win-warren-
buffetts-billion-dollar-bracket)

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ajstiles
Silver's round-by-round projection percentages are included in the HTML
source. If you like building rule-specific points projections, here's the
data, extracted:

[https://gist.github.com/ajstiles/06e2ac52927d3f292255](https://gist.github.com/ajstiles/06e2ac52927d3f292255)

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danvideo
I find the discussion of their model much more interesting than the results:
[http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/nate-silvers-ncaa-
basket...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/nate-silvers-ncaa-basketball-
predictions/)

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TheBiv
A #16 seed has never beaten a #1 seed in the history of the tournament, yet
the percentages of moving on for #1 seeds against #16 seeds vary from 96%-99%.

I wonder if there would be any of this variance (4 percentage points from
100%) if computers, without human input, were used to place the likelihood of
moving on.

~~~
streptomycin
There was a big variance in the regular season performances of the #1 seeds
this year, which is what the computers are picking up on. If anything, I think
humans have the opposite effect of what you suspect, as they do things like
overrating Wichita St for emotional reasons (undefeated record) while the most
famous computer ranking
[http://www.usatoday.com/sports/ncaab/sagarin/](http://www.usatoday.com/sports/ncaab/sagarin/)
puts Wichita St as only the 13th best team.

Also, historically #1 seeds were stronger than they are now because top
players didn't go to the NBA so quickly.

~~~
selectodude
I would say the exact opposite, really. Players can't jump straight from high
school anymore. So you have a larger base of extremely talented freshmen.

Also, I would consider the Pomeroy rankings to be better (many more variables,
Sagarin uses point differentials which are silly).

~~~
streptomycin
There were only like 5-6 seasons when it was popular to go straight to the NBA
from high school. In the last millennium, it was very uncommon. Instead, it
was typical for top players to stay for 3-4 years. Now, they usually stay for
just 1. Compare:

Mostly freshman/sophomores:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_NBA_Draft#Draft_selections](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_NBA_Draft#Draft_selections)

Nearly all juiniors/seniors:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_NBA_Draft#Draft](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_NBA_Draft#Draft)

(EDIT: Christ, look at UNLV in that '91 draft. Seniors from that team were
picked #1, #9, #12, #29. That's completely unfathomable today.)

~~~
moonka
Along the lines of UNLV, check out the 2005 draft with UNC. #2, #5, #13, &
#14. I think that's the most lottery picks from one school in a year, and
three were in the same class (#2 was a freshman)!

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hansy
Is this the first year Nate and his team have modeled the NCAA Tournament? I'd
be curious to know if they applied a similar statistical approach last year
and, if so, how that model faired against the actual tournament results.

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bpm140
Florida has a higher percentage of winning every round than Louisville, but
Louisville has a higher overall chance of winning the tourney.

What am I missing?

~~~
jaredmck
They don't have as high a percentage of winning the final round - 15/24 vs
14/26

