Arch Madness Simulator

by **Eville Ways** » October 22nd, 2019, 6:40 am

Hi guys, I just wanted to let the fans here know that this season there's a new UE blog Eville Ways, that we've built a model to simulate Arch Madness, and that we'll post those results every Tuesday morning.

Basically I use KenPom to model out the results of the regular season, use those results to build the MVC Tournament bracket, and then use the same formulas to simulate the nine games in St. Louis. The first simulation of the season is here, and it also explains some of the underlying math for those of you who are interested in that kind of thing.

In my opinion the coolest thing is that we have a chart showing the likelihood of each team getting each seed, as well as the probability that a team will have to play on Thursday. That's useful information I'm pretty sure you can't find anywhere else on the internet, though I suspect most fans are only going to care about whether their team "won" that week's simulation.

This week's winner is, coincidentally, the same as last year's winner. The computers liked Bradley to win out as the three seed.

I'll also announce each week's simulated champion on the blog's Twitter account @EvilleWays if you want to follow me there.

**Sponsor**

by **MissouriValleyUnite** » October 22nd, 2019, 6:52 am

That is a seriously good blog. Nice to have something to read in addition to valleyhoopsinsider.

MVC Charlie Brown post
https://eville-ways.com/its-the-missour ... lie-brown/

“What does it mean to be from Evansville?”
https://eville-ways.com/what-does-it-me ... vansville/

Ticket Sales for Screamin’ Eagles/Purple Aces
https://eville-ways.com/how-are-ticket- ... ame-going/

The creativity and uniqueness of those entries are what make writing an art and a blog memorable.

by **BuBrave2006** » October 22nd, 2019, 7:41 am

Eville Ways wrote:This week's winner is, coincidentally, the same as last year's winner. The computers liked Bradley to win out as the three seed.

"So given all these caveats, should Bradley fans gloat about this result on Twitter? ABSOLUTELY. They won and you didn’t. Deal with it, Buttercup."

I mean I guess if you twist my arm, I'll do it.

by **Majik45** » October 22nd, 2019, 8:04 am

Let's just not play the season and send the Braves to the NCAA tournament. I'd be happy with that!

In seriousness though, interesting read for sure. It will be fun to see how things change throughout the year. It will be like having the hacksaw graph all year long.

by **ACECARD** » October 22nd, 2019, 10:28 am

In my opinion the guy who does this blog is a genius. He comes up with an interesting, and informative, blog EVERY DAY. Anything above first year high school algebra is Greek to me, but these projections are interesting, but I don't like them because it takes the human element out of the equation. If your team doesn't want to play on a certain night, you're not going to win, no matter what the math says. Example: Loyola at the Ford Center last year.

by **squirrel** » October 22nd, 2019, 10:46 am

ACECARD wrote:In my opinion the guy who does this blog is a genius. He comes up with an interesting, and informative, blog EVERY DAY. Anything above first year high school algebra is Greek to me, but these projections are interesting, but I don't like them because it takes the human element out of the equation. If your team doesn't want to play on a certain night, you're not going to win, no matter what the math says. Example: Loyola at the Ford Center last year.

Pomeroy does take into account unexpected results in his calculations. That's why his projected records for each team don't always match the tally of the projected individual game results.

by **Eville Ways** » October 28th, 2019, 7:18 am

First weekly power rankings of the season were posted earlier this morning. I have Missouri State as the Reese's Pieces of the Missouri Valley.

by **Blers42** » October 28th, 2019, 11:16 pm

I'm a fan of the simulator and the weekly power rankings, I'm looking forward to it for the rest of the season

by **Sir Sci** » October 29th, 2019, 3:31 pm

Hi Eville Ways. I have enjoyed reading your blog and I just wanted to comment some on your 100 things you believe (and this is long):

"1.Fans who root against their undergraduate institution in any sport, ever, will rot in Sports Hell."

Agreed. All the Mizzou fans who went to Missouri State and would root for the Tigers over the Bears can rot in Sports Hell.

"5.As such, I’ll root for the Aces to win every game they play… unless they play my undergrad institution. Boiler up!"

For me, it's that I'm a lifelong Indiana Hoosiers fan, but I AM a Missouri State Bear. They don't play each other in anything ever, but I would definitely root for the Bears over the Hoosiers if it happened.

"10.The best sports blog in the world is Off Tackle Empire."

This is straight up truth (at least for college sports). Don't comment on OTE much, but the content is fantastic. I'd have to rank them just below Viva El Birdos for me, personally, though.

"13.People hate Dan Dakich, but he’s actually a really good color guy for Big Ten games."

I'll rephrase this to make it more correct: Dan Dakich is a really good color guy for Big Ten games, but people should still hate him because he represents all of the worst things that sports fandom has to offer.

"24.A good student section is the heart and soul of the arena.
25.The sweet spot is when the students are about 20% more vulgar than the athletic department is comfortable with."

These things pair nicely together and you are correct.

"32.Kentucky has the most dedicated basketball fans in the country, and it’s not even close. Whether crazy is good or crazy is bad is up for discussion, but BBN is crazier about basketball than any other fanbase."

This is also true, but that doesn't diminish my hate for Kentucky at all, so its relevancy is questioned.

"38.Alternating possession is a dumb rule. Give tie-ups to the defense. Games shouldn’t be decided by which teams have the arrow."

I've never thought of this possibility before, and I really like this idea a lot. It needs to happen.

"71.There are plenty of D-I schools within a 300-mile radius of Evansville. UE shouldn’t schedule anybody farther away than that; fans like playing schools they’ve heard of."

To generalize this, I also like it when teams focus on scheduling teams in their area rather than some far flung program nobody cares about. Sure, it's more exotic if Missouri State brings in Jacksonville, but I'd rather have a game against Arkansas - Little Rock any day because it feels like something closer to home. It would also save a lot of mid-majors some money. The exception here is if you're able to schedule a team that actually improves the quality of your schedule (like Missouri State travelling to play LSU this season).

#80 is something that I found interesting but was long so I didn't quote it. It always fascinates me how different people experience sports. It seems like you used to have a wide net of sports knowledge and have forsaken that to gain a greater depth of college football and basketball knowledge. I definitely fall on the wider net side of things, except that I focus in deeply on the history of the teams that I personally love and root for (and knowledge of other teams simply follows as it becomes relevant to the teams I really like). I have never considered, though, focusing deeply on one or two sports to such a degree that I lose touch with other ones, and it fascinates me that you've had that transition occur. I don't know if I could bring myself to do that, even if it would have some benefits. I'd also never considered how this is likely how many people who know, say, football schemes much better than I do have accomplished that level of knowledge. They likely had to sacrifice knowledge of some other sport to focus so much on that one. I'd never thought of that before.

"82.The College Football Playoff destroyed the prestige of most bowl games and isn’t a better system than the old BCS."

Preach.

"93.Putting on a cold, wet sock is the most viscerally unpleasant mundane experience someone can have."

Having cold, wet socks is already miserable. Putting them on is beyond miserable.

"97.Major League Baseball is the sport with the most exciting postseason, relative to the regular season."

Huh, I don't know how to take this because you said "relative to the regular season," which adds so much more to the statement. It requires me to inquire as to if you're saying the MLB postseason is exciting, the MLB regular season is dull, or both. I'd argue that the MLB postseason, regardless of "excitement," is the best playoff of all major professional sports because it only admits the best teams, unlike the NHL or NBA where half the league practically get into the playoffs.

"100.Almost anyone can swim, and almost everyone should."

I don't know how to swim.

by **PantherSigEp** » October 29th, 2019, 3:41 pm

You should learn. It may save your live...or someone else's one day.

I used to teach swim lessons to both adults and children. Plenty of adults take swim lessons with zero experience, so while it can be a little frustrating and awkward to learn a new skill like that, please don't confuse that with shameful or embarrassing. You're doing something to improve and enhance your life that could ultimately make the difference in someone else's under the wrong circumstances. There is nothing wrong or embarrassing about that.