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‘They call it madness for a reason’
Professor of bracketology
U of I computer expert’s conclusion: ‘They call it madness for a reason’
Sheldon Jacobson, University of Illinois computer science professor. (Courtesy Sheldon Jacobson / March 6, 201
By Shannon Ryan, Tribune reporter March 14, 2010
College basketball fans are busy penciling, erasing and re-penciling teams into their NCAA tournament brackets.
Most are guided by the 10-member selection committee's seeding order.
But Sheldon Jacobson, a computer science professor at Illinois, says don't waste your time.
At least not after the Sweet 16.
From the Elite Eight on, chance is as much a determinant as seeding. After the first two rounds, where seeds No. 1, 2 and 3 dominate, the seeding system falls apart, according to a study he conducted on the 25 years of NCAA tournaments since it expanded to 64 teams in 1985.
"Whoever's in the Elite Eight, you can flip a coin," said Jacobson, whose field is operations research and probability. "You think, ‘If a 1 is playing a 7, should we do that?' Statistically speaking, you can. As you go further in the tournament, the seeds erode even more."
Jacobson plunged into the study three years ago, not to predict national champions or fill out brackets but to discover if the top three teams' seeding in each bracket is a predictor of how far they advance.
Some of the statistics from his study, which he updates each year, are noteworthy for this week's bracketeers:
•In the Final Four, No. 1 seeds are 7-8 against No. 2 seeds and 2-4 against No. 3 seeds.
•A No. 1 seed doesn't want to see a No. 2 or No. 3 seed in the Elite Eight either. The No. 1 seed is 18-17 against No. 2 seeds and 10-8 versus No. 3 seeds in this round.
•Although Jacobson found higher seeds more likely to win in the first two rounds, there are some anomalies. The No. 12 seed wins 34 percent of the time against the No. 5 seed in the first round. But keep in mind another anomaly: No. 12 seeds (34-66) perform better than No. 11 seeds (31-69) in the first round.
•Of the 100 No. 1 seeds, 44 have advanced to the Final Four. Of the No. 2 seeds, 22 have made the Final Four and No. 3 seeds 13 times.
•Only in 2008 did all four No. 1 seeds land in the semifinals. Only three times did three No. 1 seeds make it.
•It's still a good idea to pick a No. 1 seed to win it all. Of the 25 champions, 15 have been No. 1 seeds, four have been No. 2 seeds, three have been No. 3 seeds and a No. 4, 6 and 8 seed have each won one title.
George Mason's run to the 2006 Final Four as a No. 11 seed demonstrates his findings — as long as a lower-seeded team can survive the first two rounds, its chances of advancing are equal to a higher-seeded team in the remaining rounds. The Patriots beat No. 6 Michigan State in the first round, No. 3 North Carolina in the second, No. 7 Wichita State in the Sweet 16 and No. 1 Connecticut in the Elite Eight.
For Jacobson, who grew up a hockey fan in Montreal before earning his doctorate at Cornell in the 1980s, the ncaa tournament is a numbers game.
With the research aid of graduate student Douglas King, his study was published in The Journal of Gambling Business and Economics in 2009.
Jacobson said he's stopped "sporadically" for bracket advice on campus. He doesn't fill out a bracket and watches the televised Selection Sunday show purely for entertainment.
When the games start, that's when he starts computing the probability of what will happen.
"We're just looking at the numbers with rigorous statistical analysis to find out the anomalies and trends," he said. "You can use that to come up with a sense of what might happen. But it's very difficult. They call it madness for a reason."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports...,3088174.story
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i have seen so many upsets so far in the conference tournaments that i think the same pattern will continue in the big dance
Originally Posted by flyingillini
