march madness pool

March brings March Madness, the annual conclusion to the U.S. men's college basketball season with two single elimination basketball tournaments showcasing the best college teams in the country. Almost as mad is the plethora of office pools across the country where the object is to pick a priori as many game winners as possible in the tournament. More generally, the object in an office pool is to maximize total pool points, where different points are awarded for different correct winning predictions. We consider the structure of single elimination tournaments, and show how to efficiently calculate the mean and the variance of the number of correctly predicted wins (or more generally the total points earned in an office pool) for a given slate of predicted winners. We apply these results to both random and Markov tournaments. We then show how to determine optimal office pool predictions that maximize the expected number of points earned in the pool. Considering various Markov probability models for predicting game winners based on regular season performance, professional sports rankings, and Las Vegas betting odds, we compare our predictions with what actually happened in past NCAA and NIT tournaments. These models perform similarly, achieving overall prediction accuracies of about 58%, but do not surpass the simple strategy of picking the seeds when the goal is to pick as many game winners as possible. For a more sophisticated point structure, however, our models do outperform the strategy of picking the seeds.
Enter as many online pools as possible. This is just playing the odds that the more chances a person has the better the odds of winning. 2Step TwoPick the highest rated teams in the first round. The first or second seeds in each region usually win their first round. In fact, a number one seed has never lost a first round game in the long history of the tournament. 3Step ThreeChoose at least one number one seed to make the Final Four. Every year but one, at least one number one seed has made it to the Final Four. However, do not choose all four number one seeds to make to the final four because that has never happened. 4Step FourPay attention to match-ups in the tournament. For instance, some teams run effective zone defenses. Moreover, when they play teams that lack outside shooting this can result in an upset no matter what the ranking of either team is. 5Step FiveCheck the tournament coaching record for the coach of each team. Some coaches always seems to get their teams to at least the sweet sixteen, like Duke Head coach Mike Krzyzewski, while others always seem ripe for an upset, such as Arizona coach Lute Olson. 6Step SixInvestigate where the teams are playing their tournament games. Often teams will play games very close to their home campus and this can create a home court advantage for that team. 7Step SevenTake special note of teams that have good guards. The NCAA tournament is defined by good guard play and teams that have that usually go far in the tournament.