Talent Is Nice, but Luck Is Vital
By NATE SILVER
NYT
The college basketball fan in your life, unless she went to Florida or Virginia Commonwealth, undoubtedly thinks the draw her team received in the men’s N.C.A.A. tournament was fair at best — and a gross miscarriage of justice at worst.
This will make her exceptionally annoying to talk to for the next 96 hours or so. So here’s a guide as to whether she actually has a credible case.
The draw, undoubtedly, can make a huge difference. For instance, Ken Pomeroy’s ratings — which are better at predicting the outcome of tournament games than the Ratings Percentage Index formula used by the tournament’s selection committee — regard Washington as the 15th-best team in the country and Florida as the 19th best. Our tournament projections, however (based in large part on Pomeroy’s ratings and others like them) give Florida a 3.3 percent chance of winning the national championship, but Washington just a 0.4 percent chance. That’s almost a tenfold difference based solely on where the teams were placed in the bracket.
Washington’s road to the Final Four is especially bumpy because of geography. For their first game, the Huskies fly across the country to face Georgia in Charlotte, N.C. — 169 miles from Georgia’s campus in Athens, but 2,281 miles from Seattle. If the Huskies win that game, they will probably face North Carolina, also in Charlotte. Up next? Probably Syracuse. In Newark, where the stands will be as orange as the basketball.
(More here.)
NYT
The college basketball fan in your life, unless she went to Florida or Virginia Commonwealth, undoubtedly thinks the draw her team received in the men’s N.C.A.A. tournament was fair at best — and a gross miscarriage of justice at worst.
This will make her exceptionally annoying to talk to for the next 96 hours or so. So here’s a guide as to whether she actually has a credible case.
The draw, undoubtedly, can make a huge difference. For instance, Ken Pomeroy’s ratings — which are better at predicting the outcome of tournament games than the Ratings Percentage Index formula used by the tournament’s selection committee — regard Washington as the 15th-best team in the country and Florida as the 19th best. Our tournament projections, however (based in large part on Pomeroy’s ratings and others like them) give Florida a 3.3 percent chance of winning the national championship, but Washington just a 0.4 percent chance. That’s almost a tenfold difference based solely on where the teams were placed in the bracket.
Washington’s road to the Final Four is especially bumpy because of geography. For their first game, the Huskies fly across the country to face Georgia in Charlotte, N.C. — 169 miles from Georgia’s campus in Athens, but 2,281 miles from Seattle. If the Huskies win that game, they will probably face North Carolina, also in Charlotte. Up next? Probably Syracuse. In Newark, where the stands will be as orange as the basketball.
(More here.)
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