BBR March Madness Pool 2010
Posted by Neil Paine on March 15, 2010
My colleague Doug Drinen of Pro-Football-Reference runs one of these things every year, and this time he's offered to keep track of scoring updates for a pool of our own here at BBR, which is awesome. First prize is I will do a post on the NBA player or team/season of your choice. Oh, and also honor and glory. What follows are Doug's rules:
Each team has a price, listed below. Pick as many teams as you want, as long as the total price stays at 100 or less. The winner will be the entry with the most total wins by all teams in the entry. First tiebreaker is greatest number of 16 seeds, second tiebreaker is greatest number of 15 seeds, etc. No point will be awarded for winning the play-in game.
Enter by putting a comma-delimited string of team numbers in the comments, like this:
3,8,12,14,...
which would correspond to Baylor, Duke, Georgetown, Gonzaga, etc. It doesn't matter what order you put the teams in. I will try to check all the entries to make sure they're legal, but I make no guarantees. It's your responsibility to make sure your entry is legal. Deadline is tipoff of Thursday's first game.
1 = (16) Ark.-Pine Bluff 1
2 = ( 7) BYU 7
3 = ( 3) Baylor 11
4 = ( 5) Butler 5
5 = ( 8) California 4
6 = ( 7) Clemson 4
7 = (12) Cornell 2
8 = ( 1) Duke 15
9 = (16) East Tenn State 1
10 = (10) Florida 2
11 = ( 9) Florida State 4
12 = ( 3) Georgetown 10
13 = (10) Georgia Tech 4
14 = ( 8) Gonzaga 3
15 = (13) Houston 1
16 = ( 1) Kansas 20
17 = ( 2) Kansas State 12
18 = ( 1) Kentucky 14
19 = (16) Lehigh 1
20 = ( 9) Louisville 3
21 = ( 6) Marquette 6
22 = ( 4) Maryland 8
23 = ( 5) Michigan State 7
24 = (11) Minnesota 3
25 = (10) Missouri 4
26 = (14) Montana 1
27 = (15) Morgan State 1
28 = (13) Murray State 2
29 = ( 3) New Mexico 8
30 = (12) New Mexico State 1
31 = (15) North Texas 1
32 = ( 9) Northern Iowa 3
33 = ( 6) Notre Dame 4
34 = (14) Oakland-Mich. 1
35 = ( 2) Ohio State 10
36 = (14) Ohio University 1
37 = ( 7) Oklahoma State 4
38 = (11) Old Dominion 4
39 = ( 3) Pittsburgh 8
40 = ( 4) Purdue 8
41 = ( 7) Richmond 3
42 = (15) Robert Morris 1
43 = (10) Saint Mary's 4
44 = (14) Sam Houston St. 1
45 = (11) San Diego State 3
46 = (13) Siena 2
47 = ( 1) Syracuse 15
48 = ( 5) Temple 7
49 = ( 6) Tennessee 5
50 = ( 8) Texas 6
51 = ( 5) Texas A&M 6
52 = (15) UC Santa Barbara 1
53 = ( 8) UNLV 3
54 = (12) UTEP 4
55 = (12) Utah State 3
56 = ( 4) Vanderbilt 6
57 = (16) Vermont 1
58 = ( 2) Villanova 12
59 = ( 9) Wake Forest 2
60 = (11) Washington 3
61 = ( 2) West Virginia 13
62 = (17) Winthrop 1
63 = ( 4) Wisconsin 8
64 = (13) Wofford 1
65 = ( 6) Xavier-Ohio 6
March 15th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
8,16,17,18,30,35,47,61
March 15th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
2,3,7,8,15,16,24,28,35,46,55,60,61,63
March 15th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
3,12,16,23,28,35,46,47,54,61,65
March 15th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
2,5,7,12,22,32,46,47,54,55,58,60,61,63,65
March 15th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
8,12,16,35,47,50,60,61,63
March 15th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
8,12,13,16,20,23,39,47,61
March 16th, 2010 at 3:34 am
6,11,17,18,21,29,30,33,35,39,41,48,49,51,56,59
March 16th, 2010 at 4:16 am
2,3,4,8,16,19,29,32,38,43,52,62,63,65
March 16th, 2010 at 4:19 am
61,3,12,56,63,4,23,33,65,6,37,50,24,38,60,30,54,15
March 16th, 2010 at 7:51 am
8, 16
March 16th, 2010 at 8:30 am
62,1,60,41,28,30,64,59,32,26,45,4,49,25,10,14,13,11,43,20,63,24,22,46,33,16
That's what Sagarin/Wayne Winston says minus Duke, Cornell, and Oakland and plus Kansas.
March 16th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
2,5,6,8,11,13,22,24,25,26,28,35,38,41,43,45,50,55,60,63
March 16th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
2,4,8,16,18,28,35,46,48,50,55,60,65
March 17th, 2010 at 2:36 am
8, 18, 58, 61, 12, 39, 40 ,63, 4, 51, 33, 21, 41, 53, 15
March 17th, 2010 at 3:36 am
4,28,24,60,20,33,23,14,41,10,35,39,22,51,18,49,58,1,31
March 17th, 2010 at 3:51 am
4, 16, 18, 23, 28, 29, 35, 41, 48, 49, 61, 65
March 17th, 2010 at 3:54 am
4,7,13,16,17,18,33,46,48,49,53,58,60,65
March 17th, 2010 at 9:58 am
Ross (14), you're over 100.
March 17th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
2,20,21,46,51,63,39,33,30,24,14,10,7,5,12,29,56,49,53,61,13,15
March 17th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
2,5,6,8,10,11,16,22,24,25,35,50,55,59,63
March 17th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
2,5,7,8,17,35,46,50,51,55,58,61,63
March 18th, 2010 at 4:05 am
2,3,4,8,16,32,35,41,47,55,63
March 18th, 2010 at 7:48 am
1,5,6,7,9,10,11,13,14,15,19,20,23,24,25,26,27,28,30,31,32,33,34,36,37,38,41,42,43,44,45,46,52,53,54,55,57,59,60,62,64
March 18th, 2010 at 8:39 am
4,5,11,12,13,16,23,24,25,26,28,38,43,46,50,54,55,59,60,63
March 18th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
26,28,24,55,7,30,44,60,59,15,45,32,34,36,11,63,43,5,41,6,64,25,14,10,13,38,4,2,33,22,54
Expected wins: 25
March 18th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Standings page. Will be updated after each block of games.
March 19th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Using my own analysis (which is basically Ken Pomeroy, but using Correlated Gaussian rather than Pythag for the actual model), I show my group averaging 28 wins now. (Already a +3 over original expectations). Basically, I think Correlated Gaussian (I also adjust slightly for hot teams/teams that play to the level of competition) tends to like the underdogs a bit more.
March 20th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Current expected wins for my teams: 27.6
March 21st, 2010 at 5:08 am
Damn you, Northern Iowa!
March 21st, 2010 at 9:57 pm
I think Wisconsin's and Maryland's losses may have sunk me...
March 22nd, 2010 at 8:26 pm
4,7,8,17,18,23,32,35,36,43,49,60,61,65
gives 13 of the 16 remaining (minus Purdue, Baylor, and Syracuse), and 1 extra point from Ohio's win for 27 points and more =)
March 25th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
NOTE: I realized yesterday that my program wasn't properly breaking ties. I fixed that and re-ran the standings page. So if you noticed a change in your probability between Sunday night and now, that's the reason.
March 28th, 2010 at 2:34 am
Wow. I actually won this thing! I wasn't expecting it. Thanks for hosting this, Neil, and thanks to Doug for managing all of the scoring!
March 28th, 2010 at 4:42 am
Kudos for the win, I'm impressed that you identified Butler, West Virginia, and Tennessee/MSU -- that's 3 of the Final 4 right there. So, what topic do you want me to write about as your prize?
March 28th, 2010 at 7:18 am
Thanks, Neil! I got quite lucky that my simulations actually seemed to pay dividends!
As for a subject of the blog, I'll go with my childhood hero, who I feel has long been unheralded by the masses, although I'll admit my bias. I'd love to see a blog dedicated to one Adrian Delano Dantley.
March 29th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Cool, I'll get an A.D. post for you as soon as we're done with the All-Time Tournament (which will coincide with the end of the NCAA tourney).
March 29th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Congratulations, Ian! Good work!
I discovered after the tournament started that I had messed up the denominator of my correlated Gaussian equation, ending up with the underdogs over-powered. (It was a simple mistake, too--just a forgotten 1/sqrt(2) ). If I had that correct, I would have picked Ohio St. and Duke instead of BYU, Houston, ODU, Notre Dame, Oakland, UTEP, Florida, and Ohio. That would delete 3 wins from my total, but add back in 6 wins and Duke as a live team. That might have been enough to win... Oh well. Next year.
Corrected projections of teams I picked: 24 Actual: 23 + 1 live team
Projection of teams I should have picked: 24.5 Actual: 26 + 2 live
March 30th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Darn it! I meant to take West Virginia (a 2-seed) but picked BYU instead (ID #2). Just check that if I had WVU, my points would have added up to 100.
Oh well, maybe next year.
November 13th, 2011 at 5:54 am
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