Warning, analytics lovers: The next three weeks will not be easy.<\/p>\n
Like most sports, college basketball has been steadily infiltrated by math types who have built careers on analyzing every win, every loss, every strength of schedule \u2014 all in the name of gaining that .1 percent edge for those who take this bracket-filling thing seriously.<\/p>\n
Then the games start. March Madness. It\u2019s a one-game, and, sometimes, one-shot proposition that may as well be called the Anti-Analytics championships.<\/p>\n
Jim Valvano. Danny and the Miracles. George Mason. Bucknell over Kansas. VCU and Butler (The first time). From a pure statistics point of view, none of that should have happened. Because it did, we spend the next three weeks obsessing over upsets, unknowns and the unimaginable.<\/p>\n
But the math geeks don\u2019t give up.<\/p>\n
Among them is Ed Feng, who runs the website thepowerrank.com, which promises better predictions through analysis. A PhD in chemical engineering from Stanford, Feng decided to leave the world of polymers and plasma and devote himself to the important stuff \u2014 like figuring out who will win Thursday\u2019s Iona-Iowa State game. (By the way, picking that game, or any game in the first week, doesn\u2019t really matter in the big picture, Feng says. More later.)<\/p>\n
He\u2019s done well. Feng\u2019s 2002 through 2015 pre-tournament numbers predicted the winners of more than 71 percent of March Madness games, a stat even he admits gets skewed a little because some things really never do happen \u2014 like a No. 16 seed beating a 1 seed. At least not yet.<\/p>\n
About that other 29 percent?<\/p>\n
\u201cYou really can\u2019t see everything coming, in some ways,\u201d Feng said. \u201cThe 70-foot bank shot, the fluke injury to key players. There are some things you just don\u2019t know about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ah, that 70-foot bank shot. That happened last week in the quarterfinals of the American Athletic Conference tournament. Connecticut was losing by three with 0.8 seconds left when Jalen Adams took an inbounds pass and launched the ball bucket-ward. It went in. Mayhem ensued. The shot forced a fourth overtime and UConn came out on top. In addition to helping UConn punch its once-shaky ticket to the dance, it served up a nice refresher in the randomness of sports \u2014 and just in time for tournament week.<\/p>\n
Feng\u2019s job is to find that delicate balance between the unthinkable and the hard numbers, and give subscribers the best chance of winning their contest, whether it be a 10-person office pool, or some huge contest offered by ESPN. Some of this involves straight analytics \u2014 basically, analysis of who beat who, and by how much, and the strength of the opponents they played. He also offers a \u201ccontrarian\u201d analysis, in which he studies brackets that have already been submitted to allow people to best position themselves for victory.<\/p>\n
Last year, with undefeated Kentucky dominating the sport, Feng noticed a relative dearth of brackets being filled out in Duke\u2019s favor. He recommended taking the Blue Devils to go all the way, which, in fact, happened. Picking the eventual champion, especially if that champion isn\u2019t everyone\u2019s favorite, makes a much bigger impact on most pools than nailing five upsets in the opening week.<\/p>\n
Of course, Duke\u2019s win didn\u2019t come without its own bit of anti-analytics \u2014 something nobody saw coming.<\/p>\n
In last year\u2019s title game against Wisconsin, Duke was struggling \u2014 losing by nine to a veteran team that had knocked out the Wildcats two days earlier.<\/p>\n
Coach Mike Krzyzewski went with a hunch and called on Grayson Allen, who, at the time, was an overshadowed freshman averaging four points a game.<\/p>\n
Allen made a 3-pointer to start Duke\u2019s comeback and screamed, \u201cLet\u2019s Go,\u201d in an attempt to bring his team back to life. He finished with 16 points and became the focal point of a comeback for a team filled with NBA talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrayson put us on his back,\u201d Krzyzewski said.<\/p>\n
While Allen won\u2019t sneak up on anyone this year \u2014 he\u2019s Duke\u2019s leading scorer at 21 points per game \u2014 there\u2019s almost certainly another Grayson Allen lurking in some part of the country, ready to break a bracket near you.<\/p>\n
It brings back memories of a game from 15 years ago \u2014 not a \u201cOne Shining Moment\u201d game, mind you, but one that offered a valuable lesson nonetheless.<\/p>\n
The great Temple coach, John Chaney, was in his fifth and last regional final, still looking for his first trip to the Final Four \u2014 a destination he would never reach.<\/p>\n
In a game against Michigan State, Chaney\u2019s vaunted matchup zone did just about everything it was designed for. Except one. It did not account for unheralded David Thomas, a 5-point-per-game scorer who came off Tom Izzo\u2019s bench (and now serves as Izzo\u2019s director of basketball operations).<\/p>\n
Thomas went 8 of 10 for a career-high 19 points, including a key 3-pointer with a minute left that sealed the game.<\/p>\n
With the tears still fresh on his face, Chaney gave an explanation that summed up both the pros and cons of analytics \u2014 and did so years before they became an industry unto themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to look at statistics with everyone, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn\u2019t,\u201d Chaney said. \u201cThere\u2019s always one guy. You always deal with the known and leave the unknown alone. I\u2019ve done that all my life. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve won 70 percent of our games. I live and die by that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"