2023 March Madness - Finals Set

I’m glad I didn’t care too much about the late game.  It was kind of a snooze fest.  Miami was out of sorts all game.  The best they could do was get to about 10 points in the second half, but never any closer than that.  Some of that is probably Connecticut’s fault, but it wasn’t a great game for Miami.

That means we are down to only one game left.  It also means that there was one last change in the standings.  The way this tournament has broken down has been really interesting.  If you read the last post, you know that Charlotte N. was guaranteed something.  She is now guaranteed to finish in the Top 3.  She was the only person that got both finalists right.  As a result, she is now 15 points clear of the field.  That is huge.  I don’t have all the records going back too far, but if Connecticut wins, she may have had the biggest margin of victory in pool history.  If Connecticut wins, she will win this pool by 19 points.  That’s about 10% of all available points, and that would be what we call domination.

However, if Connecticut doesn’t win, she still has a shot at either 2^nd or 3^rd.  This was the tie-breaker I was mentioning.  There will be no tie-breaker needed where someone gets nothing.  That’s not bad.  I can live with that tie-breaker.  There weren’t many points to be had in the pool this year, so I’m glad we don’t need a more complicated tie-break.

There’s only 2 ways this can go, so here are the only remaining scenarios:

If Connecticut wins:

Charlotte N. wins 1^st place.

Pete J. #4 wins 2^nd place.

CAAT #4 (Adam O.) wins 3^rd place.

Harrell R. #2 wins 4^th place.

 

If San Diego State wins:

Rob I. #1 wins 1^st place.

Winner of tie-breaker between Charlotte N. and Mustard (Nikolajs B.) wins 2^nd place.

Lower of tie-breaker between Charlotte N. and Mustard (Nikolajs B.) wins 3^rd place.

Ryan W. wins 4^th place.

If you remember, only 2 people actually picked SDSU to win the whole thing (Rob I. #1 and Mustard (Nikolajs B.)).  However, Charlotte N. is currently sitting exactly 32 points ahead of Mustard (Nikolajs B.), so the best he can do is tie Charlotte N.  Thus the need for a tie breaker.  Another perspective on Charlotte N.’s dominance – Mustard is in 22^nd place right now, and 32 points behind.

In the “never give up hope” category, Ryan W. had Purdue winning the whole thing and he can still finish in the money.  That’s why you always have a chance as long as your bracket is alive.  I would have thought all people with Purdue or Arizona would be long dead by now.

I’ll reach out to Charlotte N. and Mustard (Nikolajs B.) for their tiebreakers.  Remember that it is the total points scored – closest wins.  If it’s still a tie, we’ll go to PKs.  Just kidding, if it’s still tied, I’ll just split 2^nd and 3^rd so both people get the same amount of money.

Go Aztecs!!!!!

2023 March Madness - Cardiac Aztecs advance

At no point in the 2^nd half did I think, “Oh yeah.  San Diego State’s got this one”.  Most of my thoughts in the second half were “They’ve missed 5-6 layups” and “You’ve GOT TO make your free throws!!!”  However, I looked up and they would be a little bit closer.  Then a little closer still.  I figured they’d call a TO before the last play.  Remembering back to last year, San Diego State had a chance to win the game in the last seconds against Creighton and they kind of fumbled the ball around and never got a shot off.  Maybe Brian Dutcher just decided he was better served playing it out.  I was kind of amazed about that.  I mean, SDSU had largely a defensive team in the game.  They didn’t have a ton of offensive options, but I guess they didn’t need one.

I was talking to my wife before the game, and I was ranking the ways the game could play out in order of stress level.  First was blow-out win.  Second was blow-out loss,  about dead last on this list was the way it actually ended.  The only more stressful game would have been if SDSU had missed the last shot.  Luckily for me, I can now relax while the next game goes on.  I don’t really care who wins that game at this point.

There is an update in the matrix.  We have our first guaranteed prize winner.  What that prize will be has yet to be decided, but Charlotte N. now has a 100% chance of finishing in the money.

Here is the updated Matrix:

It looks like there will be a tie-breaker in play regardless of how this second game plays out.  I’ll contact people for tie-breakers as soon as we know who is involved.

Game 62

Connecticut v Miami

Vegas Line: Connecticut -5.5

Picks for Connecticut: 13

Picks for Miami: 1

Steve D. #1 is looking pretty smart right now as the only person to have Miami in this game.  That’s how you keep your bracket alive.

Here are the eliminations:

If Connecticut wins:

Charlotte N. is eliminated from 4th place contention.

Chun W. #3 is eliminated from 4th place contention.

Hack a Zach (Dave F.) is eliminated from 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th place contention.

Noah N. is eliminated from 4th place contention.

Rob I. #1 is eliminated from 4th place contention.

Steve D. #1 is eliminated from 3rd place contention.

If Miami wins:

CAAT #4 (Adam O.) is eliminated from 3rd place contention.

Harrell R. #2 is eliminated from 4th place contention.

Mustard (Nikolajs B.) is eliminated from 3rd place contention.

Pete J. #4 is eliminated from 2nd place contention.

Ryan W. is eliminated from 4th place contention.

Good luck to everyone!!!!

2023 March Madness - Weighted averages and eliminations.

Good morning.  After what seemed like an eternity, we are back today with more basketball.  Only 12 people are alive for anything today, and after today’s games, that number could still be as high as 8.  My hope for today is that San Diego State wins, and whatever the result of the other game, no tiebreakers will be needed to determine any of the payouts.

One gripe I’ve heard (mostly from myself) has been the way I’ve weighted the games in order to generate the probabilities of winning.  If you remember, I treat every outcome as being equally likely to happen.  So, a Florida Atlantic beating Miami in the finals scenario get just as much weight as a Connecticut over SDSU final.  We all know those probably aren't reality (especially when there are 16 teams involved).  The reason I do that is because in order to figure out the weight of any one scenario, I’d need to derive the odds of every game winner in that scenario.  When we are in the Sweet 16, that would mean deriving odds for 15 games over 32,000+ scenarios and applying them.  That’s a lot of work.  However, now that there are only 3 games left, it’s much, much easier.  As a matter of fact, I needed to do very little as most gambling sites have what they call the “Exact Result” odds.  Since there are only 8 possible outcomes, there are odds for every remaining scenario.  I just needed to do a little normalizing to get things to add up to 1 and voila!!  Weighted probabilities of winning.

First, here’s the matrix with even probabilities for every outcome:

…and here’s what the weighted matrix looks like:

For some people, you can see the odds go way up.  For others, their odds get longer.  You can see that Charlotte’s probability of winning goes over 50% because she will win if Connecticut beats SDSU (the most likely outcome) and also if she wins the tiebreaker if Miami beats SDSU in the finals.  If you look at the unweighted probabilities, it looks like Hack a Zach has about the same chance as Charlotte, but remember that he has Purdue winning it all, so he kind of needs chaos.  He only wins if there is a Florida Atlantic / Miami final or he wins the tie-breaker with an SDSU / Miami final.  Right now, those outcomes seem a lot less likely.  But that, they say, is why they play the games – especially this year.

Game 61

San Diego State v Florida Atlantic

Vegas Line: SDSU -2.5

Picks for SDSU: 4

Picks for Florida Atlantic: 0

I feel bad for Paul K. #3 here.  There are 4 people that picked San Diego State to make the Championship game and he’s the only one eliminated from all spots.  I always say that they key to winning these pools is taking some risks and then having those risks work out.  Well, Paul K. #3 took a big risk taking SDSU to the finals, and it may still work out.  His problem was that he only has 40 points right now, which puts him in 174^th place.  If SDSU wins, he’ll get 16 points.  That would put him around 32^nd place.  A big jump, but that’s all the points he can get.  Unfortunately, his bracket died with Houston way back in the Sweet 16.  At least he can have some bragging rights about getting at least SDSU in the Final 4.

I am not going to even pretend to be unbiased here.  Florida Atlantic is a cute story, and if situations were different, I’d probably be rooting for them.  Not today.  I hope they get mercilessly pounded.  I hope the announcers are hyping up the second game with about 15 minutes to go in the second half.  I remember the second time I went to the Final 4 in Houston.  The National Semifinal was Villanova / Oklahoma.  Villanova was killing Oklahoma by so much, my wife and I decided to stop watching the beatdown and beat the crowds to the concession stand for dinner.  Villanova won that game by 44 points.  That’s the kind of game I want here….

I guess the consolation would be that the loser can go to their respective beaches.  That’s not the worst thing in the world.

Here are the eliminations:

If San Diego State wins:

Chun W. #3 is eliminated from 3rd place contention.

Emily T. is eliminated from 2nd, 3rd & 4th place contention.

Noah N. is eliminated from 3rd place contention.

Ryan W. is eliminated from 1st place contention.

Steve D. #1 is eliminated from 2nd place contention.

If Florida Atlantic wins:

Mustard (Nikolajs B.) is eliminated from 2nd & 3rd place contention.

Rob I. #1 is eliminated from 1st & 4th place contention.

Ryan W. is eliminated from 4th place contention.

Steve D. #1 is eliminated from 3rd place contention.

I’m going to guess that none of those eliminations are a surprise to those people.  Steve D. and Ryan W. look like they are going to lose an option either way.  Or, you could look at it positively and say that they will still be alive for something either way.

Back with more commentary and an updated breakdown between games.

Good luck everyone!!!

2023 March Madness - A 9, Two 5s and a 4

I’m sure you all have heard it.  The conventional wisdom for these brackets is to pick a #1 to win it all, or at least make the Final 4.  It’s also considered smart to pick a 12 to beat a 5.  12s are usually the best of the small conference schools, and the 5s are often times fading major conference schools.  This year could not have gone any more against conventional wisdom.

Two #5 seeds and 0 #1, #2 or #3 seeds made the Final 4.  Other than Connecticut, none of the other 3 teams had EVER made a Final 4.  I’d like to think it’s a bit of a changing of the guard in college basketball.  I mean, blue blood teams like North Carolina, Villanova, Michigan and Wisconsin didn’t even make the field.  Other teams like Kentucky, Duke, Purdue and Kansas were long gone by the time the Sweet 16 rolled around.  It’s just a strange set of teams this Final 4, and having gone to at least 2 Final 4s when they were held in Houston, I had to pick this year to NOT go.  D’oh!

3 of the 4 teams in the Final 4 made it there as underdogs if you go by the seeds.  The only non-underdog: SDSU.  I also see that they are installed as a 1.5 point favorite.  Seeing them make the Championship game would be amazing.  I think San Diego will be a pretty fun place to be in the next week or so (I mean, it usually is, but you know what I mean).

If you look at the South region, the far away winner was Charlotte N.  She wound up getting 28/32 points out of this region.  The second best was 22.  The only 3 games she missed were Virginia over Furman, and Arizona winning 2 games.  That’s it.  She had SDSU beating Creighton in the Regional final.  The average number of points won in this region was 9.05, so if you are wondering why she’s so high up in the standings, there are 2 things going for her: she still has options going forward and she racked up a lot of points up until now.  Impressive.

As for the Midwest bracket, there was another clear winner.  Alyssa B. finished with 27/32 points.  She was 3 clear of the #2 bracket in this region.  The only games she missed were Iowa State over Pitt in the 1^st round, and Xavier over Texas in the Sweet 16.  That’s it.  Unfortunately for her, she was totally knocked out of the pool with the UCLA loss, so probably has no idea she did that.

I’m getting the idea that it might be fun to offer some prizes for people that win these regions.  Maybe something like $50 if you win a region.  I could run numbers from the opening weekend if I did that.  The overall prize money would be lower, but it might keep more people interested.  I’ll give it some thought.  It’s more work for me, but it would also be really fun.  I’ll think about it.

We are down to 12 people that are still alive for something.  Only 4 people can win it all, which shouldn’t be all that surprising given the last game counts for 32 points.  What is amazing is that 2 of those 4 people that can still win had Purdue winning it all.  Just goes to show that you should never give up on your bracket until you are officially eliminated.  A big chunk of that reason is because no one picked Miami-Florida or Florida Atlantic to win the whole thing.  If they win, it goes to whoever had the most points going into the finals.  No one had Florida Atlantic in the Final 4, much less the finals.  Only one person had Miami-Florida in the Finals, but he only has 56 points right now, and 16 extra points would not vault him into the lead (Hack a Zach has 77).  That’s pretty rough.

There are 3 people that can finish in the money, including Hack a Zach, who can still win that can not get any more points.  They need chaos to happen, but given the tournament so far, chaos seems totally possible.

Charlotte N. solidified her hold on finishing in the money, and is now sitting at 75% and is still the only person that get all remaining points.  Hack a Zach is kind of the opposite.  He has a 62.5% chance to finish in the money, but he can’t get any more points.  Everyone else falls in between.

I was also hoping that tie-breakers wouldn’t be needed, but we have not been able to eliminate them entirely.  As a matter of fact, in 5 of the 8 remaining scenarios, 4^th place ends in some kind of tie.  There is still a scenario where 4^th place ends in a 3-way tie, and 2 of the 3 places will get nothing.  I hope that doesn’t happen, but that’s why the percentages look a little weird.  If there were no ties, all the odds would be multiples of 12.5%.

Here is the Matrix:

Name	1st Place	2nd Place	3rd Place	4th Place
Charlotte N. - Connecticut	31.2500%	16.6667%	16.6667%	10.4167%
Hack a Zach (Dave F.) - Purdue	31.2500%	10.4167%	10.4167%	10.4167%
Steve D. #1 - Purdue	Creighton	25.0000%	12.5000%	Kansas St.
Rob I. #1 - San Diego State	25.0000%	Gonzaga	Princeton	4.1667%
Chun W. #3 - Texas	Texas	Texas	12.5000%	16.6667%
Noah N. - Alabama	Creighton	Texas	12.5000%	16.6667%
CAAT #4 (Adam O.) - Connecticut	Texas	Texas	25.0000%	Creighton
Harrell R. #2 - Connecticut	UCLA	Texas	Texas	25.0000%
Mustard (Nikolajs B.) - San Diego State	Xavier	18.7500%	6.2500%	Gonzaga
Pete J. #4 - Connecticut	Creighton	25.0000%	Creighton	Texas
Ryan W. - Purdue	12.5000%	Creighton	Kansas St.	12.5000%
Emily T. - Alabama	Houston	4.1667%	4.1667%	4.1667%

Good luck to everyone that is left.  It’s been really fun, and I hope you can contain your excitement for another week.  I’ll be back later with a breakdown of the first semi-final game.

Good Luck!!!!!

2023 March Madness - Wait, there's another game today?!

I can breathe a little.  I was pretty upset most of that game.  If SDSU had lost, I would’ve been complaining about 4-5 missed layups and dunks.  Luckily for me, I didn’t have to.  I’m elated about SDSU.  This team is clearly going to go down in SDSU history.  They may already have started erecting a statue to Brian Dutcher outside of Viejas Arena.

By the way, Kenny Smith talking about the stopwatch was one of the dumbest, most incoherent arguments I’ve heard this tournament – and he just kept doubling down on it.

I’m going to limit the matrix to just the people that are still alive in the pool.  We are down to 19 people.  2 people have managed to creep above 50% in total chances of winning something.

Here’s the truncated matrix:

Name	1st Place	2nd Place	3rd Place	4th Place
Charlotte N. - Connecticut	21.8750%	14.5833%	14.5833%	5.2083%
Hack a Zach (Dave F.) - Purdue	28.1250%	11.4583%	5.2083%	11.4583%
Chun W. #3 - Texas	12.5000%	3.1250%	12.5000%	11.4583%
Noah N. - Alabama	Creighton	3.1250%	12.5000%	11.4583%
Rob I. #1 - San Diego State	25.0000%	Gonzaga	Princeton	2.0833%
CAAT #4 (Adam O.) - Connecticut	6.2500%	6.2500%	12.5000%	Creighton
Harrell R. #2 - Connecticut	UCLA	3.1250%	9.3750%	12.5000%
Pete J. #4 - Connecticut	Creighton	12.5000%	Creighton	12.5000%
Mustard (Nikolajs B.) - San Diego State	Xavier	12.5000%	6.2500%	Gonzaga
Steve D. #1 - Purdue	Creighton	12.5000%	6.2500%	Kansas St.
Brandon B. - Texas	Alabama	Alabama	Alabama	12.5000%
Brent S. #2 - Texas	UCLA	Princeton	12.5000%	Alabama
Bryce S. - Texas	Sweet 16	12.5000%	Princeton	Alabama
Ryan W. - Purdue	6.2500%	Creighton	Kansas St.	6.2500%
CAAT #2 (Adam O.) - Arizona	Sweet 16	Creighton	6.2500%	Creighton
Emily T. - Alabama	Houston	2.0833%	2.0833%	2.0833%
Luis B. #4 - Alabama	Alabama	Houston	Houston	6.2500%
Pete J. #5 - Alabama	Alabama	Alabama	Creighton	6.2500%
Quinn1130 (Brett G.) - Duke	Creighton	6.2500%	Creighton	Creighton

Here are the eliminations for the next game

If Texas wins:

CAAT #4 (Adam O.) is eliminated from 3rd place contention.

Charlotte N. is eliminated from 4th place contention.

Emily T. is eliminated from 2nd, 3rd & 4th place contention.

Hack a Zach (Dave F.) is eliminated from 3rd place contention.

Harrell R. #2 is eliminated from 4th place contention.

Pete J. #4 is eliminated from 2nd place contention.

Rob I. #1 is eliminated from 4th place contention.

Ryan W. is eliminated from 1st & 4th place contention.

Steve D. #1 is eliminated from 2nd & 3rd place contention.

If Miami-Florida wins:

Brent S. #2 is eliminated from 3rd place contention.

Bryce S. is eliminated from 2nd place contention.

CAAT #2 (Adam O.) is eliminated from 3rd place contention.

CAAT #4 (Adam O.) is eliminated from 1st & 2nd place contention.

Chun W. #3 is eliminated from 1st & 2nd place contention.

Harrell R. #2 is eliminated from 2nd & 3rd place contention.

Noah N. is eliminated from 2nd place contention.

Quinn1130 (Brett G.) is eliminated from 2nd place contention.

Brandon B. is eliminated from 4th place contention.

Luis B. #4 is eliminated from 4th place contention.

Pete J. #4 is eliminated from 4th place contention.

Pete J. #5 is eliminated from 4th place contention.