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0 Subject: March Madness 2008

Posted by: Great One
- [27154129] Thu, Feb 21, 2008, 15:37

Did anyone else notice that the Opening Weekend of the tourney this year falls on Easter weekend?
Thats awesome! games all day on Good Friday... and something to watch after Easter dinner on Sunday.

Weird dates. Don't remember the tourney starting this late or Easter being so early.
1Kyle@work
      ID: 301122210
      Fri, Feb 22, 2008, 15:01
The game have been starting around the start of spring (20th, 21st) if I remember correctly.

In my 20 years of being alive Easter has never been this early. Good Friday is my birthday which is just really strange. Spring break (not "Spring (Easter) Break") usually starts around my birthday.

But usually (when my birthday is on a weekend) I can watch the First or Second rounds.
2Seattle Zen
      ID: 529121611
      Mon, Mar 17, 2008, 01:12
If Memphis wins this thing, they would finish 39-1. Would that not be a record number of wins in a season?

I'm surprised the team with the best record is so seriously overlooked. I haven't heard anyone pick Memphis today.
3The Beezer
      Dude
      ID: 191202817
      Mon, Mar 17, 2008, 02:42
That would be correct, SZ. The best until now has been 37 wins.

I may end up going to an NCAA game as my fiancee (Indiana alum) and I (Arkansas alum) seem destined to attend this game since it's in Raleigh and it's late enough we could make it after work. What are the odds?
4Guru
      ID: 330592710
      Tue, Mar 18, 2008, 08:36
BUTT
5Weykool
      Leader
      ID: 41750315
      Tue, Mar 18, 2008, 10:25
#2
Not sure how many undefeated seasons it was but UCLA won 88 straight games.
6Tree
      ID: 72171817
      Tue, Mar 18, 2008, 19:21
but never 39 wins in a season. i believe they had back-to-back 30-0 seasons.
7Building 7
      ID: 22271821
      Wed, Mar 19, 2008, 21:41
Weird dates. Don't remember the tourney starting this late or Easter being so early.

I'm in total agreement Great One.

Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the first day of spring. Which is on March 21 this year. And there is a full moon on March 21. From Wikipedia:

The calculations for the date of Easter are somewhat complicated. In the Western Church, Easter has not fallen on the earliest of the 35 possible dates, March 22, since 1818, and will not do so again until 2285. It will, however, fall on March 23 in 2008, but will not do so again until 2160. Easter last fell on the latest possible date, April 25, in 1943 and will next fall on that date in 2038. However, it will fall on April 24, just one day before this latest possible date, in 2011.

Probably more than you wanted to know.

8Twarpy
      Leader
      ID: 386242821
      Wed, Mar 19, 2008, 22:15
The girlfriend asked me to help her with her pool, and its a bit different than any I've seen before in terms of scoring, and have been trying to think through the optimal strategy if there is one. Let me ask if anyone of you guys can see a strategy with this format.

Rules
There are 6 rounds within the tournament (1st and 2nd round, sweet 16, elite 8, final 4, championship game)

The first round: If you pick the favorite and they advance you receive 1 point; if you pick the underdog and they advance your points received are determined by the seeding spread (eg: if you pick a 12 seed to beat a 5 seed you receive 7 points).

The second round: the same system but your points are multiplied by 2 (eg:if that same 12 seed beats the 4 seed you receive 16 points - 8x2)

and so on.
-----

To me it seems that this rewards upsets, if a 12th seed manages to make it to the third round you have gained 36 pts (Much more than a #1 seed even winning it all getting only gets 21 pts). I don't get to watch a whole lot of college ball being from Canada, and know a couple of statistical trends, but can anyone figure out the optimal balance of underdogs and favourites that one might want to try out in a format like this?
9Twarpy
      Leader
      ID: 386242821
      Wed, Mar 19, 2008, 22:23
wait nm a 12th seed making it to the third round would depend on who they upset and not just a straight multiplication of their rank. Still seems screwy to me.
10dpr
      ID: 1733917
      Wed, Mar 19, 2008, 22:48
seems like fill out your bracket like you normally would and then if you have a team losing in the next round look back at the game you just picked them to win and if you were iffy on the game go with the upset
11The Beezer
      Dude
      ID: 191202817
      Wed, Mar 19, 2008, 23:55
Let's work through Twarpy's GF's pool:

Proposal

- for each first round game, determine the % change of each team winning
- multiply this by the # of points that team gets for winning
- pick the team with the expected higher return.

Examples:

8 vs 9 - pick the team that is the favorite (same score either way)
6 vs 11 - the 11 seed has an expected higher return if they have a greater than 16.7% chance of winning (I'm currently showing every 11 seed with better odds than this)
4 vs 13 - the 13 seed only needs to win 10% of the time to tilt this in their favor (I'm showing every 13 seed with better odds than this, too)

Another argument against picking against 3-6 is that they can't score many points in the first two rounds anyway (6 seeds can only score 7 points at the most, 3-5 seeds can only score 3).

So you might go with this method:
- pick all the 1-2 seeds to win in the first round
- pick every 11-14 seed to win (an average of .87 14 seeds, 1 13 seed, 1.61 12 seeds, and 1.61 11 seeds has won since 1985, which would give you an expected ~37 points versus only 16 if all the 3-6 seeds actually won)
- pick the 8/9 and 7/10 games as normal

That should give you an expected score of nearly 52 points in round 1, which will likely put you in the lead.

In round 2, the slight edge that some of the 8/9 teams against the 1 seed is balanced by the fact that the 1 seeds tend to get much further in the tournament. Same with the 2 seeds vs 7/10 - just pick these as normal. The 12/13 and 11/14 games you marked down should just be picked with the higher seed as they have a better shot of actually making the Sweet 16 and getting you mucho bonus points (as they will likely face a higher seed in real life). An average of around 2 of the 11 or 12 seeds make it each year, which would score you an extra 32 points if they take down a 3 or 4 seed.

After that, I'd just pick all the 1 and 2 seeds to win into the Elite 8 (unless you picked them to lose in round 2, then just pick the team you had beating the 1 or 2 seed), then just pick who you think will win from there.

Feel free to cut me a check from your winnings (or you can just advance me some of your hockey windfall). :)
12TB
      Sherpa
      ID: 031811922
      Thu, Mar 20, 2008, 05:47
butt
13Twarpy
      Leader
      ID: 386242821
      Thu, Mar 20, 2008, 10:09
Thanks Beezer I went over that strategy with her last night, of course she didn't quite comprehend why on earth I was picking so many upsets, but she is happy. She vetoed me on a couple of teams that she liked the name of, and some of her favourite areas in the US (Needless to say she much preferred UCLA over NC in her finals). Of course being Easter she probably wont know how well shes done till Monday, but I will keep you updated.
14Great One
      ID: 1122611
      Thu, Mar 20, 2008, 13:04
My bracket is your typical point scores for each round (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12) - but then DOUBLE points for any upsets. Thats right folks... its been really awesome to see some crazy brackets come in with all the underdogs and teams like USC and Notre Dame and Louisville winning it all. Its really made it more exciting than everyone just having UCLA or UNC or whatever.
15Kyle
      Donor
      ID: 052753312
      Thu, Mar 20, 2008, 20:40
I know this makes no diference in the brackets but for some reason this year I picked all 9 seeds out of the first round. I don't think I usually do that....
16Seattle Zen
      ID: 29241823
      Thu, Mar 20, 2008, 21:25
If you hadn't figured this out on your own, Duke sucks. They should have paid off tonight, guess I'll have to wait one more round.
17steve houpt
      ID: 451161019
      Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 01:21
Trivia - Kentucky did not win at least one game in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1991 - 16 years. They were 45-14 during that span [2-Championships, 1-Runnerup, 1 Final Four]. But the game remembered most during those 16 years may be one they lost. In an Elite 8 game in 1992 to Duke in OT at the Spectrum in Philadelphia, 104-103. Grant Hill to Christian Laettner.

Significant streak?

Next longest streak in this tourney - UNC - at least one win in previous 4 years. Boston College had a streak of 4 years broke by missing the tourney.

UCLA, Texas, Pittsburgh, Memphis, Georgetown, Tennessee, Texas A&M & Indiana are the only other teams coming into the tourney with at least one win in each of the previous two years.
18Chris
      ID: 35252114
      Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 16:06
Western Kentucky's Buzzer beater

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo28WxLcJGc
19Perm Dude
      ID: 16219217
      Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 16:13
20jedman
      ID: 59012312
      Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 18:15
San Diego just screwed up a lot of brackets beating UConn. Wow!
21Great One
      ID: 2241519
      Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 21:43
The Drake loss sucks for me... I had them beating UCONN - so the fact that Drake could have gotten San Diego next round would have made that a lot easier.
22GoatLocker
      Leader
      ID: 060151121
      Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 22:25
All ya had to do was ask about USD.
I had them going through.

Watched them beat Gonzaga in the Conference Tourney and knew they were for real.

Will be fun to see how far they can get.

Cliff
23Donkey Hunter
      Leader
      ID: 916288962
      Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 23:38
Looks like there are no more perfect brackets. Several Yahoo brackets had 27 games right but no 28s. I am not sure what TSN scoring system is but one person had a high score of 460 and they had missed two or three games. Actually just checked ESPN and there is one person who is 28 out of 28 but they have Clemson winning the national championship and they are down a few right now and probably not a real big threat to win the whole thing. Either way i wouldn't be betting on a favorite in Tampa right now.
24The Beezer
      Dude
      ID: 191202817
      Sat, Mar 22, 2008, 00:39
VERY happy to have only lost one Sweet 16 team out of all the day's upsets. No complaints so far. And Arkansas and Oklahoma even managed to win.
25Perm Dude
      ID: 4222288
      Fri, Mar 28, 2008, 15:17
Freaking sweet XU/WVU game.
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