Some people consider baseball America’s pastime, but if that’s the case, March Madness might come in a close second. March Madness is a 3 week college basketball extravaganza where 68 National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball teams will compete in 63 games over the next several weeks to see who becomes the 2019 NCAA basketball champion. And while many people love to watch March Madness because of the of the athletic talent, the randomness and the upsets, many try and accurately predict the outcomes of the games, which makes things especially interesting, especially if you like to bet. Most people who try and accurately predict game wins and losses use some sort of statistical analysis, which, of course, requires math. How so you might ask? Glad you asked.
To start, let’s go over some basics. First, there are 68 teams who enter from 32 different conferences. Conferences have tournaments that lead to a winner of each conference, so that 32 of the teams who go to March Madness are winners of their conferences. But that’s not all. There are then 36 other teams that are chosen by a selection committee that gives them to teams they feel are the most deserving. There is a list of criteria these teams have to have to be chosen, but this part can be a bit controversial, as it is somewhat subjective as to which teams are deserving and which aren’t. All of the teams are then split into four regions of 16 teams. When it comes to the March Madness games themselves, the top ranked team (team who has the most wins) in each region plays the lowest ranked team (team who has the most losses) in that same region. So the #1 and #16 teams play each other first. Next the #2 and #15 ranked teams play each other and, so on so forth. The winners of each of those games move on to the next round and then the next and then the next, until there is only one team standing.
Onto the math portion! People who try and predict how teams will do against one another use brackets to do so. Brackets can be filled out either online or with a good old-fashioned paper and pencil. Brackets are then one giant statistics chart. To take it a step further, some like to bet on games and the accuracy of their bracket predictions. By entering pools with other people, predictions are compared against others in the pool and whoever has the most accurate guesses wins that pool.
Now let’s talk about the accuracy of predicting. Anyone can take guesses, right? And there are probably some that do, but the accuracy of a 100% correct prediction is very, very unlikely. So unlikely that you are more likely to win a million dollars on Wheel of Fortune or be hit in the face with a piece of space trash. Theprobability of a perfect bracket is so low that statisticians have actually tried to put a number to it, and you won’t like your odds. The odds of picking a perfect March Madness bracket are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808. In case you missed it, that’s quintillion!
So, now that we’ve squashed your dream of March Madness perfection, you might want to know if there’s anything you can do to improve your March Madness bracket predictions. The likelihood of doing better if you understand either college basketball or bring in statistics, is definitely higher. For example, most people who create March Madness brackets and use them to bet can consider it safe for the first top 3 teams to beat the bottom 3 teams. As the teams start to get closer in ranking, it becomes harder. Doing research on the 36 teams that were chosen by the committee is also something that any bracket better should do. For every game you can reliably pick correctly, your probability of being correct further along in the bracket increases, so starting with good predictions for the first round of games is necessary to increase your chances of a higher score.
Choosing teams just based on ranking statistics alone isn’t enough though. Statistics based on the ranking of teams played, when and where the games were played, and the number of points that were scored in each game by the winning and losing team should also be considered. For instance, you might look at how many points teams average on their homecourt throughout the season and compare them to their scores at away games. You could then take that information and compare it to other teams. so many combination and statistics that can be measured, it’s no wonder why you’re 500+ times more likely to get a Royal Flush in Texas Hold ‘Em. Still, that shouldn’t stop you from taking a 1 in 9.2 quintillion shot at a perfect guess!
Want to learn more about how we would come up for statistics for predicting our March Madness brackets? Come in and see us at Mathnasium of Cherry Hills!
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