Wall Street Journal Blindfold Bracket
My brother sent me this link earlier, found it very cool. It shows you the matchups for March Madness but gives the teams alias' and shows the matchups based on the teams:
-Seed range
-RPI Range
-Conference Profile (low-major, Mid-, High, etc.)
-Hot streak level of team (out of 5)
-Experience (out of 5)
-Size (out of 5)
-Offense (out of 5)
-Defense (out of 5)
-Three point shooting (out of five)
A very interesting way to pick teams and analyze the matchups. Suprisingly my blindfold bracket was eerily similar to the one I chose aside from IU being in my final four ( like what?)
Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704893604576200252914852590.html
Ya, I made a comment on another thread about this, I think its a really neat way to avoid bias. I still ended up with a very reasonable bracket, and I'll definitely consider using most of the games from it in my real bracket.
I searched 'Blindfold Bracket' in the site searchbar trying to see if someone had made a prior post about it before myself. I agree, its a very good way not to pick on bias. However, its also important knowing a teams history (tradition and in big games and tournys) as well as the coach. Some aspects the BlindFold bracket doesn't cover.
Don't worry, I didn't even think to make a thread, you got me there.
Wow, this is actually fascinating. My bracket came out about the same as well. Looks like I'm awesomely unbiased.
I had Witchita St, Murray St, Syracuse, and Kansas with Kansas beating Witchita St for the Championship.
I was valuing defense, 3-point shooting, and experience and it led to some strange results.
Colorado over Duke in sweet 16, Belmont to the sweet 16, and temple over michigan and then over unc in the sweet 16.
I have concluded that defense, 3-point shooting, and experience are no way to evaluate a basketball squad.
I also had them winning it all. I really had to go back and take a closer look at a few things after doing this exercise. Also, I'm not sure they updated those projections to include Cuse losing Melo.
I had very similar results, except with Murray st losing to MSU in the Elite 8. I also had Gonzaga going to the Elite 8 but losing to Syracuse.
I ended up with a strange, but not that unbelievable bracket. I suppose that is what they end up looking like by the end of the tournament anyway. So do you think if I win a million dollars on ESPN do I owe the WSJ some of that?
Because we had some issues with rebounding, I valued size, experience and defense.
I kind of figured out which team Michigan was based on having only two seniors, so I had them go past North Carolina just for fun.
My final 4 ended up being: New Mexico, Missouri, Syracuse and Kansas
I'm going to have to change the Syracuse part because of Fab Melo.
It would be great if it offered some stats along with the "out of # of basketballs" metric. Like average height for size, or more importantly 3PT% or something. How much bigger is a 3 rating than a 2? It was difficult to balance importance without knowing the scale.
On a scale of 5? Oh, about 20%.
I assume you are being sarcastic, but I see how my wording set me up for that. I really question whether they use this linear model. So for 3PT, does a team with 0 shoot 20% and a team with 5 shoot 40%, meaning a team with 2 shoots 28%? What is the difference between 3 and 2 in terms of %.
It matched my Midwest Region exactly. Cool stuff.
I, too, had Kansas over Wichita State, but had Syracuse and Sparty as the others in the Final Four.
...and I thought I hated Kansas.
I had a final four of Memphis, Duke, Kansas and Ohio State with Kansas winning the whole thing. Two of my No. 1 seeds last in the second round (UNC and MSU). I like how this bracket turned out.
Just for the heck of it, I entered a bracket where I assigned a probability to each game based solely on historical records of seed posiitions, then generated a random number (flipped a lopsided virtual coin) to determine each winner. The outcome had Michigan, Ohio State, and Michigan State all in the final four. No way that happens, but weird it came out that way (I swear I didn't cheat).
I wasn't surprised in some areas but in both runs I did of it I saw that Kansas would be hard to beat (no duh) and Vanderbilt was in both of my final fours. 2 championship games were Kansas over Kentucky and then Duke over Vanderbilt. Michigan won one game in my first one and two in my second.
also Michigan to the Elite Eight!
It isn't that hard to figure out who the teams are when you look at seed range, rpi range, and conference profile.
Go Mice!
I had Kansas winning the whole thing. A final Four of Kansas, Kentucky, Vandy and MSU.
Strangest part of my bracket: S.Dakota St. in the Sweet 16. I entered it in some generic "Fans of Michigan" bracket on ESPN to see how it does compare dot my regular bracket lol.
I ended up with a final four of Michigan State, Kansas, Vanderbilt and Wichita State. Kansas beats MSU in my final, and Michigan was in the Elite 8.
Indiana, Michigan State, Vanderbilt, Kansas - Kansas all the way
Didn't see that coming. Great link.
UK over KU, MSU and Wisco as my other Final Four teams. I have Cal beating Michigan, Long Beach State in the Sweet 16, and Cincinnati over Ohio, but other than that mostly chalk.
Somebody should do one just based on the fake names they give teams--who is would win, a lobster or a honey bee?
It was probably just my Big Ten bias, but I ended up with Indiana, Michigan State, Ohio State and Kansas in the Final Four with Kansas beating Indiana in the championship.
Pretty damn close to what a few of my brackets look like. Only one small problem: I had South Florida beating Michigan in 2nd (3rd) Round to play UNC in Sweet 16. How does that happen?! I actually thought I knew which one was Michigan and even tried to get them to advance to play UNC!
I tended to favor size and defense. Ended up with Kansas, 'Cuse, UK and Louisville with Kansas winning over Kentucky.
March 13th, 2012 at 11:46 PM ^
Though I would have picked Michigan over Temple, of course. Though for what it's worth, I had Temple over UNC in the next round.
Final four of Kansas, Kentucky, MSU and OSU. Kansas to win it all.
Seems like a lot of people had Indiana deep. I had them winning it all.
Hell, I left it for one bracket. That's the whole point right?
March 14th, 2012 at 10:43 AM ^
I had some weird results, as you can see.
Mine resulted in Kentucky out in the Elite 8. South Dakota State, Colorado State and South Florida were in my Sweet 16.
But it did have three of my four Final Four that I had - Michigan State, Kansas, and Ohio State.