Another good blog post at KenPom. This one's about the NCAA selection committee watching games, generally live.

http://kenpom.com/blog/

My take is this: they watch them because they're basketball fans, and being on the selection committee is the excuse, not the reason. They want someone else to pick up the tab, too. So they justify it as being somehow necessary to picking teams for March Madness, when it's really a form of corruption. There's no evidence that watching games leads to a greater ability to determine which teams are better, although these guys might not be bright enough to know that, because most people aren't bright enough to know that.

Handicappers, for example. There is zero evidence or logic behind the idea that watching a game, especially live, is somehow a better time investment than merely breaking down the stats, especially by program. Yes you can occasionally pick up a handicapping nugget. Maybe watch 10 games live and once pick up a nugget of info worth an extra 5% chance of winning one bet. Or use that 30 hours reading college team fan forums and pick up 10x that number of nuggets. Or run a computer program that entails turning it on and get 100 nuggets in a few seconds.

Especially interesting is the handicapping errors these NCAA basketball experts are making: they think it matters who has the better post play, point guard, clutch shooting, etc. It doesn't matter how a team's apparent ability breaks down, only it's overall ability (and I say apparent because, really, observers are often mislead by appearances, not realizing that rebounding is often merely a role, not a skill, for example, or that shooting % varies not just with randomness, but with what teammates are on the court with the shooter).

It's like the goofs who think defense wins championships or pitching wins the WS or whatnot. EVERYTHING put together wins. A team's overall ability in every facet of the game determines who wins. It's especially moronic to think that defense "wins." Offenses and defenses define each other, for chrissake.

Further, people who watch games lose track of the randomness, the variance, of performance levels. Watch Duke suck one day and have it emotionally, experientially imprinted in your mind that Duke sucks. Watch them live one day when they're unstoppable and think: Duke is unstoppable.

But load up Duke's stats and schedule and break it down and think: Duke neither sucks nor is unstoppable.

/rant. Props again to Mr. Pomeroy.