Can the talking heads explain 11 Big East bids now?

[bigdawg]

Statistically, the Big East should have gone about 12-6 so far. They are 9-9. Definitely not good, but not the worst performance ever like many seem to think.

Huh? Weren't they the better seed in 9-10 of the first round games and all of the second round games? They lost games they should have won- lots of them. Just like last year.

[Jamar Howard 4 Pres]

Check out my blog, http://www.march247.blogspot.com for a detailed breakdown of the conferences. Here’s my logic summarized:

If 4 teams are underdogs, most people would say that the expected record of those teams is 0-4. However, if each has a 25% chance of winning, then the true expected outcome is 1-3 because, on average, 1 of the 4 will pull off the upset. This means that going 0-4 is actually worse than expected despite being the underdog in each game. 1-3 meets expectations exactly, and 2-2 or better would exceed expectations.

Now look at the Big East. They were favorites in almost every game, meaning that to say the favorite should win every game causes you to vastly overestimate their true expected record. I simply went back through and looked at previous years. 1 seeds win 100% of the time. 2 seeds win 96% of the time. 3 seeds 85% of the time. And so on...

The result is that the Big East’s expected record, based on the games they played so far, is actually 12.1 – 5.9... basically 12-6. This is the true mathematical expectation, and is much more reasonable.

Make sense?

[Red]

I'd argue that a 4 should beat a 13 everytime. By losing, Louisville did much worse than expected even if there might ba a percentage probability that a 14 will win every now and then. I'm not sure why the past results should have any bearing on the probability of a particular matchup. A loss by a heavy favorite which most of the Big East teams were seems pretty indicative of failure.

If you want to argue that the Big East was seeded too high I'll listen to that. But once the games begin, a heavily favored team should win.

[Jamar Howard 4 Pres]

If Louisville plays a 13 seed 100 times, how many should they win? If they go 99-1, did they do better or worse than expected?

[bigdawg]

If Louisville plays a 13 seed 100 times, how many should they win? If they go 99-1, did they do better or worse than expected?

A 13 seeded team should win 1 out of 1 times. These teams play only once so extrapolating over 100 games is dumb.

[Jamar Howard 4 Pres]

Does anyone else besides bigdawg disagree with me? I’m not going to beat a dead horse just to try to win over a single convert, but I’m more than willing to explain myself further if there are others who disagree with my statements.

[Snapshot9]

If Louisville plays a 13 seed 100 times, how many should they win? If they go 99-1, did they do better or worse than expected?

Just for fun, the equation works out to 97.8% of the time, or about 98 games out of a 100, so the 13 seed is a 50-1 shot to win.

[oneNEIGHBOR]

Does anyone else besides bigdawg disagree with me? I’m not going to beat a dead horse just to try to win over a single convert, but I’m more than willing to explain myself further if there are others who disagree with my statements.

i disagree with you. i dont think there is justification for a conference getting over half of its teams in.

[Jamar Howard 4 Pres]

If Louisville plays a 13 seed 100 times, how many should they win? If they go 99-1, did they do better or worse than expected?

Just for fun, the equation works out to 97.8% of the time, or about 98 games out of a 100, so the 13 seed is a 50-1 shot to win.

Snapshot9, Good job making something up out of thin air!

Since the field expanded to 64 teams, 4 seeds have won 79% of their games vs 13 seeds. That would equate to 79 out of 100. In my scenario, Louisville winning even 90 out of 100 games vs 13 seeds would be a significant overachievement.

oneNEIGHBOR, that is sort of off-topic, but can you tell me why you think that?

[WSUbballer]

Jamar is being a Big East apologist on Shockernet too. I don't need any type of statistical analysis to tell me that the Big East was undeserving and overrated. 2 teams out if 11 making the Sweet 16 when statistically you were the "best" conference with most of the advantages of being the overwhelmingly higher seed.

Beating everybody up in your league to create a higher RPI but doing it by losing 13 or 14 games is a damn joke.