Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Mathematics and Basketball


My high score the first time I took my ACT to get in college was...drum roll please... 18! Thinking I could improve and do better the second time I got a...17! Yes ladies and gentlemen, tests do not mix well with me. I really did bad on the Math portion of my ACT when I took it long ago. Not sure how I graduated and got a business degree from one of the best business schools in the midwest. Oh well miracles do happen. Just ask the 1980 USA Hockey team.

So I found this website that is lots of statistics. I love stats, but I suck at doing the math. I can understand them and interpret them, but that is about it. Ask me to calcuate statistics is basically the equivalent of asking me to find the cure for AIDS globally. Not happening anytime soon, but there is progress. I could play with formulas trying forever to figure it all out, but its pointless.

Baseball statistics are the worse to decipher. There are way to many damn calculations for me. The website above and the table below are just basketball percentages. Easier to understand than some might think.

Team Quarterfinals Semifinals Finals Champ
1 Texas 100% 75.71% 51.96% 22.46%
8 Texas Tech 52.5% 13.1% 5.31% 1.21%
9 Oklahoma St 47.5% 11.2% 4.31% 0.92%
4 Oklahoma 100% 54.36% 21.13% 6.16%
5 Baylor 78.07% 40.6% 16.41% 4.99%
12 Colorado 21.93% 5.05% 0.88% 0.1%
2 Kansas 100% 84.16% 67.16% 50.3%
7 Nebraska 55% 9.27% 3.97% 1.47%
10 Missouri 45% 6.57% 2.54% 0.84%
3 Kansas St 100% 54.43% 14.57% 6.36%
6 Texas A&M 76.7% 39.88% 11.16% 5.06%
11 Iowa St 23.3% 5.69% 0.6% 0.13%

Ok so lets figure that table out together. The website used stats. I could not find what they used to come up with these percentages, but it looks like to me that the percentages show the likelyhood of each team to advance to the next round. Kansas has a 67.16% probability to make it to the finals with Texas 51.96%. Seems like the popular opinion of media and fans proves out mathematically as well.

Kansas looks to be the winner too at 50.3%. Ok i'm sold. I would take forever to figure out calculations like that. But teamrankings dot com did a good job putting it all together so people like me don't have to look stupid.

Well, not true. I will look really stupid once baseball comes here in a few more weeks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, statistically, the Jayhawks have it in the bag. That makes me feel good.

Anonymous said...

This website also shows KU with the highest probability of winning the NCAA Tournament. I like these kinds of statistics.