The Maverick

Everyone has someone they would like to meet for personal or professional reasons. For me, that person is Mark Cuban. He is a genius. I've mentioned him before, but his blog is awesome. I check his blog out once a week or so to see what he has posted. Most recently, he did a blog on start-up companies.

If you have a dream or goal for your professional career and want to be run your own company eventually read it. He may be a free spender and his Mavericks have the largest payroll in all the NBA, but he wants to win and will do anything to make it happen. He is like that in the real world as well with all the companies he has ran.

Seriously good stuff.

Basketball is here....

And I am in my buddy's wedding this weekend. I won't get to see much hoops action during the Big 12 Tourney. I will have my cell on and checking scores often. Hopefully I will be able to watch Sunday's game.

Anyway my new favorite website, Hot Chicks with Douchebags.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

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.

Hey Tiger and Jayhawk fans...

nope, not a basketball post. just a way for you college football fans to get your school more exposure. check it out an vote for your mascot!