Tag: tournament

Science Picks Brackets, Part 2

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This is a continuation from yesterday’s post.

The Second Round

In this round we have 4 different groups of games. Again I’ll start with the easier ones.

1/8/9/16 – The 1 seed wins here 87% of the time. A 16 seed has never actually made it to this game so the remaining 13% is split between the couple of times that an 8 or 9 pulled off the upset. Only way I’d pick an upset here is if I were in a big pool and wanted to go with a high risk strategy.

2/7/10/15 – While this isn’t as cut and dry as the 1 seed games, the 2 seed moves on 65% of the time. If you’re looking for a 2 seed to fall, look at experience. This year Missouri is a 2 seed but they got a pretty new coach and they could go against Florida with Billy Donovan who’s taken his squad to the Elite 8 4 times. Other than that, go with #2.

4/5/12/13 – If for some reason you have a 12v13 match here, pick the 12 seed as they have a 8-1 record but if you want to dig deeper, pick the team with more experience in the tournament. If you have a 12/13 going against a 4/5 It’s not as cut and dry as the seed value may imply as, historically, this upset is relatively common. The most likely match-up is, of course, the 4v5. History doesn’t tell you too much with 4’s having a slight edge winning 52% of the time. I’d look at points per game and Pythagorean expectation here… and that makes me look at maybe New Mexico over Louisville, but it would be hard to pick against Pitino and his experience.

3/6/11/14 – If it’s 3v11 or 6v14 you should probably go with the 3/6 as they have won 72% of these past match-ups. The 3v6 game is where you need to spend some time. If I had to pick an upset here, I’d go with Cincinnati. Maybe you want to go against the crowd? Pick UNLV to upset Baylor, hell, pick them to take down the Blue Devils. No one likes Duke so it’s a feel good pick and if it happens, no one else in your pool made that pick.

On to the Sweet 16!

1 Seed Bracket – on average, three out of 4 top seeds will make it past this round. Remember that when you decide you want to take down a 1 seed. Which one of the 4 looks ripe for the picking this year? Syracuse. They’d most likely take on a very good Wisconsin team and they are down one of their better players. Then again, you could play the odds and just advance the 1 seed if you wanted to be a bit more low risk. 2 Seed Bracket – In general the 2 seed wins here (70%) but if it’s 2v3 then it’s more reasonable (62%). If you’re looking for a team other than the 2 seed to come out of this bracket, I’d say maybe Baylor (or maybe even UNLV) over Duke or, for even more madness, pick Florida over Marquette – It could happen.

Success in NCAA by Seed Chart

Elite 8!

Look at the blue lines in the above chart. You should probably keep your Final Four selections to that realm of possibility. Look at what 1 seeds look weakest (Syracuse) or look at the better 2/3/4 seeds (Ohio State, Kansas, Baylor, Wisconsin) and make you selections from them.

Chart: Cinderella Plot 2001-2011
The darker the color the larger the seed number. The lighter the graph the further the 1,2,3,4 seeds have gone.

Final Four!

Seeding can now be tossed out the window for the birds because that doesn’t matter anymore. Here’s where you pick the better teams for some other reason. Maybe you want to go by AP rankings? Kentucky (champion pick) over Missouri (because you have Missouri (3) over Michigan State (5) in the Elite 8) and Syracuse over North Carolina. Perhaps you want to go with Pythagorean expectation, that would be Kentucky (champion pick) over Michigan State and Ohio State over Kansas. Whatever you go with make sure that you have a road for a good…

Champion

Look at that chart above. 4 of the last 11 years it was a team that was not a 1 seed. Want to go back another 11 years? The 1 seeds won 68% of the time. That’s 2 out of every 3 years. So you want to win your pool? You should probably stick with a 1 seed. Perhaps go with North Carolina like President Obama:

http://youtu.be/NQ5VK2wUZXE

I hope that this helps you, because it helped me make my decisions even though I went against the math a few times.

Bracketology: Science Picks Brackets

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There are hundreds of ways to go about picking your office pool brackets. You can go with your gut. You can go with the cooler mascot. You can go with whatever school has a higher seed and toss-ups based on a coin flip. Or you can be a giant nerd like myself and pour over a giant spreadsheet full of numbers trying to predict the future better than Miss Cleo. All of these strategies have merit and when it comes down to it, it’s still the future and we don’t know what will happen.

What I’m going to do today and tomorrow (in the morning so you can use this knowledge for yourself) is post my opinions and feelings and you can do with that what you will. (My suggestion would be to do the opposite of whatever I think.)

First a little primer from ESPN’s Numbers Never Lie for a quick rundown of making your picks with the help of numbers.

http://youtu.be/gBJNh1-MsTM

Round of 64ish:

Let’s start with the 1 seeds: The #1 seeds have lost the opening game 0% of the time So here’s an easy 4 points. Actually, I’ll go even further: Advance the 1 seeds to the Elite 8 (History shows that #1s make it this far 85% of the time). If you pick against a 1 seed here, you are probably giving away points. The tough call would be Syracuse with a missing Fab Melo, and a lower Pythagorean Expectation then Wisconsin.

Now the 2 v 15 games: A 15 has done the upset 4 times in the past 27 years, so I wouldn’t get your hopes up. There hasn’t been a 2 over 15 upset in 11 years now, so I guess we’re ripe for the picking. But even if the 15 did win, they never make the Sweet 16, so hedge your bets, and take the point (or loss of a point that no one else is gonna get anyway) and stick with the #2.

3 v 14: The #3 has won 85% of time in the past so now is the time to look into possible first round upsets, but looking at the field this year, I don’t see anything upsetting.

4v13: The lower seed wins 78% of the time here. So picking the right upset at this level might be nice. If I had to choose one, I’d take a look at New Mexico State over Indiana. Upset here would probably come from a high scoring team doing well, and NM St. are the highest of the 13 seeds with an average of 78.5 points per game.

2012 NCAA Mens Bracket
Another suggestion is to print this out and then throw darts.

5v12: Time to stop giving the low seeds a free pass. Lower seeded teams only take 67% of these games historically. This year I’d think about upsets from VCU, who did well last year, or Cal (if they win tonight) based on their Pythagorean expectation.

6v11: Again 67% to the lower seeded team historically and that is against the trend of recent years. Possible upset here would be Texas over Cincinnati based again off Pythagorean  but also coaching experience.

7v10: 60% for the 7 seed. Possible upsets here would be Purdue over St. Mary’s or Virginia over Florida.

8v9: Pretty much 50-50 — Actually the 9 seed wins this 53% of the time. Since this is pretty much a toss-up anyway, go with your favorite method to pick these. Mine (as you may have noticed) is Pythagorean  expectation. With this the only “upset” (can a 9 over an 8 be an upset?) being Alabama over Creighton. Don’t worry too much about these games, because the winner is just going to lose to the 1 seed in the second round.

That should cover you for about 32 games. I hope to go over the remaining 32 games and to finish this all up tomorrow morning. Until Then you can check out this list of reasons to root for each team in the tourney. Also check out Wired for their method of going against the crowd to gain points that no one else in your pool will.

Is It March Yet?

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So it’s holiday time and most of us have finished worrying about gifts and fantasy football, but there are a few people still out there with last minute shopping and still in the running to win their league Super Bowl (sorry, NFL) Big Game. To those people I say good luck. For the rest of us, we shall prepare for the future. 

What happens in the near future to prepare for? Well, there’s the NFL playoffs, the Super Bowl, baseball spring training, and March Madness and other march tournaments. But if you’re like me, you can’t wait another 3 months for some tournament action. So I’ve scoured the internet for some interesting sport or nerd tournaments and this is what I’ve found:

  • Paul and Storm have set up a Geek Madness tournament. They have realized that Obama might be our first geek president (he’s on YouTube, he was on Twitter, and he carries a blackberry) and therefore he may choose a Secretary of Geek Affairs.
  • WIRED magazine is running a Sexiest Geek contest. And I have to post this because they say “Every geek’s a little bit sexy, somehow. Maybe it’s the glasses, the hot talk about black holes or the Asperger’s-like obsession with sci-fi, science or gadgets.” 
  • Think that you are the best Madden player around? Perhaps you’d like to find a tournament where you can prove this fact. Try looking at Get Your Tournament.
  • Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone around here is nerdy enough to want to play in a Star Craft tournament or even watch the matches happen.
  • There’s another tournament going on right now. One that I am not a part of (but should be). It’s the Sports Blogger of the Year tournament at Busted Coverage. I’m not going to complain that we didn’t make the cut (we were on the bubble, I promise) but Fire Joe Morgan made it and they no longer blog.

Also before the weekend, I wanted to post an update about the Patriots status about making the playoffs this year. And while I’m at it, why not just cover the whole AFC East. Read More

March Madness – Nerds on Sports – The Sweet Sixteen

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VTech coach Seth Greenberg may be griping about this year’s NCAA men’s basketball bracket – but nobody could complain about the Nerds on Sports Tournament! It’s had its share of triumphs and surprises already, and it’s only a week old!

Blowouts
Luke SkywalkerIn the Paragon City Conference, Wolverine absolutely demolished Bowser, controlling the clock from the start of play and refusing to let up until the buzzer sounded. Coach Koopa suggested Bowser’s all-mushroom regimen in the month before the tournament may not have been a good move. Earlier that day, Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker wiped the floor with commando Solid Snake. Colonel Roy Campbell complained to reporters that Snake should have been higher seeded, to avoid such a disastrous first-round washout. He ended his press conference by shouting, “SNAAAAKE” into the microphone. Also, Curt Schilling injured his shoulder in his 32-6 loss to Harry Potter, a first-year rookie out of Hogwarts Academy.

The Hyrule Conference was more closely matched, the only blowout coming when Batman outwitted legendary swordsman Li Mu Bai. The Caped Crusader’s proficiency with dozens of martial styles overwhelmed Li Mu Bai’s mastery of only one, but for this the use of the right equipment such as an ear guard for jiu jitsu is essential to practice these sports. Neither of the two combatants had any words for the press following the game.

Squeakers
Jack BauerThe Hyrule Conference, however, went down to the wire on far more showings. The T-1000 nearly suffered a humiliating upset against Inigo Montoya, only winning in the 4th quarter when the quixotic Spaniard began to tire. Paul Atredies and Captain James T. Kirk went blow for blow in a truly memorable game. Captain Kirk’s experience in unseating alien gods proved handy in defeating the God Emperor, however, and Muad’Dib fell in the end. And in a match that we refuse to call the “Ultimate Jack-Off,” Jack Bauer narrowly beat Captain Jack Sparrow. Bauer credited his victory to the fact that his sidearm, a Sig Sauer P220, carries more than one cartridge in its magazine and does not take 30 seconds to reload.

Upsets
Rick DeckardOnce again we return to the Paragon City conference, and man is your office pool in trouble! Dr. Indiana Jones turned over the Alien Queen, luring her into a complex network of traps that hinged on obscure Aramaic texts. The Alien Queen, not knowing Aramaic, fell to its death. Many pundits expected Warmech to wipe the floor with harried cop Rick Deckard, given Warmech’s titanium armor and nuclear payload. But these experts forgot that Rick Deckard only has one item on his resume for the last fifteen years and that’s murdering robots.

Back in Hyrule: bulletproof plating didn’t help Master Chief either – he got staked in the chest and kicked in the head by Buffy Summers. After blowing the Marine up with one of his own plasma grenades, Buffy said something that was probably meant to be clever but just came off wordy and weird.

Round Two – The Sweet Sixteen

Hyrule Conference

Jack Bauer vs. T-1000

Batman vs. Mr. Incredible

Buffy Summers vs. Morpheus

Captain James T. Kirk vs. Drizz’t Do’urden

Paragon City Conference

Indiana Jones vs. Wolverine

Optimus Prime vs. The Operative

Rick Deckard vs. Luke Skywalker

Legolas vs. Harry Potter

Your Vote Counts!

Voting ends on midnight Sunday, March 23rd. Choose your side and stay tuned for the results!

March Madness – Nerds on Sports Style

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Nerds on Sports is hosting its own March tournament – to see who’s the winner among all nerd icons. We sent out invitations to thousands of video game characters, comic book heroes and sci-fi action stars. Thirty-two responded and the tournament was formed.

You decide the winner – by voting in our scientific surveys!

Bracket #1: The Hyrule Conference

Bracket #2: The Paragon City Conference

Edit: Don’t forget to vote in both brackets!

The Hyrule Conference
Hyrule
Jack Bauer
Captain Jack Sparrow
Batman
Li Mu Bai
Master Chief
Buffy Summers
Paul Atredies
Captain James T. Kirk
Drizzt Do’urden
Major Kusanagi
Morpheus
Serra Angel
Snake Eyes
Mr. Incredible
The T-1000
Inigo Montoya

The Paragon City Conference
Paragon City
The Alien Queen
Indiana Jones
The Predator
Optimus Prime
Warmech
Rick Deckard
Captain Lysander
Legolas
Curt Schilling
Harry Potter
Solid Snake
Luke Skywalker
The Operative
Gordon Freeman
Wolverine
Bowser

Cast your votes before midnight on Sunday the 16th. We’ll tally the winners, then move on to the next bracket on Tuesday the 18th.