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Using Graph Theory To Predict NCAA Tournament Outcomes
New submitter SocratesJedi writes "Like many technically-minded people, I don't have a lot of time to keep up with sports. Nevertheless, trying to predict the outcome of the NCAA men's basketball tournament is a fun activity to share with friends, family and colleagues. This year, I abandoned my usual strategy of quasi-randomly choosing teams and instead modeled the win-loss history of all Division I teams as a weighted network. The network included information from 5242 games played during the 2011-2012 season. From this, teams came be ranked using tools from graph theory and those rankings can be used to predict tournament outcomes. Without any a priori information, this method accurately identified all the #1 seeds in the top 5 best teams. It also predicts that at least one underdog, Belmont (#14 seed), will reach the Elite Eight. Although the ultimate test will be how well it predicts tournament outcomes, initial benchmarks suggest 70-80% accuracy would not be unreasonable."
wouldn't running the algorithm against past years' records and testing against past tournament results be the best possible test to tune the algorithm?
Everyone knows who the big names are who are likely to make it to the final four. It's predicting how things will go at the middle and bottom, where teams are much more likely to be evenly matched, that's really hard.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Okay, you can get 50% accuracy just by flipping a coin.
If you go with "the higher seed wins", you get to 85% or so. Color me unimpressed.
It's not. This is just a puff piece trying to drive hits to their site by mentioning the NCAA tournament.
That may work for pro sports, but not for college sports. In fact, because teams usually lose their nucleus after winning it all (players declare for the draft), it is rare for a team to make it to the final game two or more years in a row.
Some problems I see. Disclaimer: I know there's a margin of error here as the author said, and I know my observations will be based largely on anecdotal evidence, making it inferior. But if sports were so easy to predict there would be no sports gambling.
- That's probably too far for Belmont; a #14 has only ever gotten as far as the Sweet 16, twice (Cleveland State '86, Chattanooga '97). Lowest seed to make an Elite 8 is Missouri in 2002 as a #12 . Belmont is actually going to be one of the more popular upset picks, but they would have to upset two far superior teams twice in 3 days.
- It's a bit too "chalk". #1 seeds generally survive the first two games (undefeated against #16's, 55-14 v. #8's, 59-6 v. #9's), but the #2's have it worse (only four losses v. #15's, but 58-21 v. #7's and 29-21 v. #10's). I know two #12's, a #13 and a #14 doesn't seem like "chalk" but historically it's much more likely that we'll see more #5-7 or #10-11's. To have only one #2 not make the Elite 8 and all the #1's would be almost unheard of.
- A #12 always beats a #5, but three of them doing so in one year would seem unlikely, as they're only 39-89 overall.
- Some of the other first round matchups seem a bit improbably. It has every #6 and every #7 winning, for example.
March Madness is notoriously hard to predict, partly because of the number of teams involved and also because of the single elimination system that I love so much. Its prevalent in few sports and makes each game mean a lot more, also opening the door for cinderalla to take her 15 minutes of fame. 7-game playoff rounds like they have in Baseball and the NBA tend to nullify those outliers. I honestly think that's a big reason for the success of the NFL too - every game and every play means a hell of a lot more when the best possible record is 19-0.
I disagree - how good a team is can vary wildly year to year. Coaching changes, injuries, age, experience and so on can play huge roles in how a team performs especially on a collegiate level where there is so much growth between juniors and seniors in terms of development. This is less so in professional sports but still relavent.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Can you write a windows installer for it and sell it to gamblers?
Not quite. Picking winners =/= winning at gambling. Margin of victory, aka the spread, comes into play. That is a bit harder to account for in these types of situations involving so much human variable. Granted, being able to identify some potential upsets could allow someone to bet big on those and become potentially rich.
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein
Just have to find one with 32 tentacles. Or a large appetite.
Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
Yes but last year's tournament had 2 small schools, Butler and VCU, in the Final Four. While Butler made it to the championship 2 years in a row, they were a surprise both times. VCU has never made it that far in the tournament and there were some TV pundits that said they should not have been selected for the tournament at all when the bracket was announced. VCU got to the Final Four after the same pundits predicted they would lose in the next game for every single game.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
You don't have time to follow sports, but you have time to model "information from 5242 games played during the 2011-2012 season".
You could be honest and just say you don't really care, but get involved in the playoffs because everyone else is talking about it.
I'm guessing your level 80 warlock probably doesn't 'have time' either. :)
Yes. If fairly valued at a PE of say 25 or so (which is still low for their growth rate), their stock should be at $875 or so.
MOT, INTC, EMC, JNPR are all similarly valued. But have much lower growth rates.
BIDU is the only large tech company with a similar growth rate. It's PE is 46, which would put AAPLs stock price at $1615.
VMware has lower growth, but a PE of 60. AAPL would be at $2100 if similarly valued.
http://www.google.com/finance#stockscreener
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Ah, you would think that the casino sports book odds were the most accurate availibe and only determined by scientific study of the sports.
BZZZT! Wrong. Casinos need to make a profit. So they determine the *initial* odds by studing the sport, but then change the odds in reaction to the bets that are placed. They try to have equal amounts on both sides of a bet. They pay less to the winners than they get from the losers.
What's the point of pointing that out? Well, you have some pro gamblers who actually do make an incredible living off of betting on sports who use the above factlet. They simply move the odds the casino gives by placing money on the other side of the bet. So they want the odds to go up on a team A winning, they place a large bet on the opposite team B, the casion increases the odds of team A winning in order to attract gamblers to help them balence out the bet on team B. So they now place an even larger bet on team A with the odds they really wanted in the first place. If team A wins, it will cover the loss of the first bet on team B. If Team B wins, they obviously lose more money than they win.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
At least in Skyrim, you're an interactive participant. That, and Skyrim isn't just a polite way for people to act out their base tribalistic instincts.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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You know, for stereotypical nerd behaviour like communicating to each other in incomprehensible jargon and obscure references that other people don't get, obsessive behaviour, dressing up in ridiculous costumes for gatherings, etc, I've come to realize that nothing beats a hard-core sports fan.