Resetting After the Round of 64
And here we are. We survived the traditional roller coaster that is the Round of 64 without any major bracket busting upsets. There were plenty of tight games and some upsets, but the favorites seemed to emerge relatively unscathed. The highlight of the round may have been Jalen “Sticks” Smith absolutely throwing it down against Belmont.
OH MY MARYLAND#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/rWgaH7gBvm
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 21, 2019
OH MY MARYLAND#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/rWgaH7gBvm
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 21, 2019
Bracket Performance
You can read about our methodology outlined in Part 1. Entering the round our bracket matched up pretty well. We did not predict too many upsets but we definitely had some teams we were significantly higher on than others.
By the end of the round we came out decently well. We correctly predicted 59.4% (19/32) of matchups.
We had some losses, as expected, but Marquette and Mississippi St, were our only incorrect pick that we predicted to advance to the Sweet 16 and neither of them beyond that. NCAA bracket challenges are never won on the opening round but are often lost. Managing to avoid any back breaking losses is always a good sign.
Monte Carlo Simulation
Where we really started to shine was the Monte Carlo. Entering the round Gonzaga was our favorite to win the title. They were not the favorite to make the final (we had Duke projected to beat 2 out of every 3 matchups) but our simulation provided visibility into the fact that they matched up extremely well with teams on the other side of the bracket. Gonzaga had a bit of a lagging probability the first couple rounds, but with Marquette and Syracuse out we will start to see that number creep higher.
Here at A.I. Sports, we are big fans of the work FiveThirtyEight does, which is why we feel they provide a good measuring stick. On Day 1, we were significantly higher on Saint Mary’s and they came oh so close to rewarding our faith. The simulations did not think as highly of Louisville and Auburn, yet Auburn escaped a real nail-bitter. Louisville was not so lucky.
Utah State let us down on Day 2. They always felt like they were within touching distance, but never threatening Washington. The model does not seem to think highly of Pac-12 teams which I think anyone who has watched more than 1 half of Pac-12 basketball this season can forgive. The simulation did predict Kansas State to win just barely at 51% but that was significantly lower than the 77% assigned by FiveThirtyEight! We will flesh out this topic in a future post on investing in +EV opportunities. In fact, we made some investments on UC Irvine because there was such a gap between the implied probability compared to a game we considered a coin flip.
And now for our updated Monte Carlo. Iowa St obviously dropped out with a loss. Interestingly enough, Houston’s probability to win the title went down. Our simulations liked their chances but that quadrant is pretty fierce.
Get ready for the Round of 32. Always remember in one-off tournaments anything can happen so let’s hope we see some upsets!
