Mediaboss Marketing

Whether it's the mascots, team colors, or the cool uniforms, everyone wants an edge in filling out their NCAA tournament brackets. And it seems like every year someone comes up with a new formula to predict winning teams.

This year, one expert says he doesn't care how well the teams played during the regular season, all he cares about is how the teams are seeded by the NCAA.

Meanwhile, a Harvard student has put his study time to good use, figuring out a computer model to predict which teams will get upset in the first two rounds of the tourney based on this season's rebounds, turnovers and RPI, a measure of a teams' strength of schedule.

NEWS: Are Math Smarts Innate?

Both are using the logic of mathematics and statistics to predict what many of us think of as a magical tournament of small-conference Davids beating big-school Goliaths, and the possibility of seeing upset-minded Cinderellas dancing at the Final Four.

For University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana computer scientist Sheldon Jacobson, the 68-team NCAA basketball championship is a numbers problem begging to be solved.

"Of course I like basketball being at a Big-10 school," said Jacobson, "but this is really a cornucopia of excitement for the mathematically inclined."

Jacobson is an expert in complex systems that involve humans and technology. He figures out the best way to design aviation security systems or how cellphone use affects traffic accident rates. But for the past few springs, Jacobson has come up with his own science of bracketology, even though he doesn't really make his own picks.

He's looked at win-loss data back to 1985 and has come up with some interesting recommendations. First, don't pick all number ones to reach the Final Four. In fact, it's seven times more likely the Final Four will have zero number one seeds than all four.

Don't go too far the other way either. The odds that a 15th or 16th seeded team will reach the final four is 304-to-1. He says that by the time the "Elite Eight" teams are selected, their prior records or seedings are irrelevant.

Read the original post:
March Madness Bracketology: The Science

"The man in the moon came down too soon, and asked his way to Norwich, They sent him south and he burnt his mouth By eating cold pease-porridge."

-- Traditional nursery rhyme

It's human nature to see shapes and patterns all around us, and ascribe a meaning to what is actually just a random coincidence. The phenomenon is called pareidolia, and includes things like seeing the Virgin Mary in a piece of burnt toast, for example.

But some examples are more persistent than others -- like the Man in the Moon. It's not a real face, of course, just a quirk of how the dark areas (the lunar maria, or "seas") and lighter highlands of the lunar surface are arranged. Yet the illusion is powerful enough to have a Western mythology dating back thousands of years, inspiring all manner of nursery rhymes and literary references.

ANALYSIS: Did the Moon Conspire To Bring Down Titanic?

And there's some interesting physics at work here as well, at least according to a new paper in the journal Icarus. See, the Man in Moon is always staring at us here on Earth -- or, if you want to be all science-y about it, those particular features of the lunar surface always face Earth.

It happens because the moon is locked in what's known as a "synchronous orbit": for every orbit it completes around the Earth, the moon also rotates exactly one time. So we always see that face.

But it didn't necessarily have to be that way; why is this side of the moon, and not the other, the one that faces Earth? There had to be a 50/50 chance of it being one way or the other. Or so astronomers have thought -- until now.

Two Caltech astronomers, along with an Israeli colleague, think that there's a perfectly good explanation why the Man in the Moon always faces us -- and it's not due to the proverbial coin toss. Rather, Oded Aharanson, Peter Goldreich, and Re'em Sari propose that it's due to the fact that the Moon spun around its axis much faster in the past than it does today. And the rate at which it gradually slowed its pace could explain why it eventually became locked in the current orientation.

Read the rest here:
Why the Man in the Moon is Always 'Looking' at Earth

Want to be sure you have the perfect March Madness bracket this year? Not possible.

If you were to stack the amount of paper it would take to fill in every bracket with every possibility among the 68 teams who will play 67 games over the next three weeks, it would not fit inside the universe.

So says Michael Weimerskirch, a math professor at Augsburg College who gets paid to think about numbers and the way they affect the Kentuckys, Butlers and VCUs of the world.

But there's this small glimmer of hope. Weimerskirch says you could simply start flipping coins. The odds of finding perfection that way by flipping a coin to pick the winner of every game: 1-in-100,000,000,000,000,000,000. For those keeping score at home, that's 1-in-100 million trillion.

Or, to put it another way: "You're just as likely to win Powerball three consecutive times as you are to picking a perfect bracket by flipping a coin," Weimerskirch says.

Of course, the NCAA tournament is all about making the impossible seem possible. Butler, a school with only 4,000 kids, made it to the finals two years in a row. VCU started the tournament last year as a No. 11 seed and wound up playing in the Final Four.

For those setting their sights on winning their friendly office pool, there are, in fact, ways to improve your odds.

Weimerskirch suggests looking at the number of people in the pool. The more people in the pool, the more you must stray from picking a slate of straight-line favorites. Kentucky, by the way, is the odds-on pick at 2-1, followed by North Carolina at 6-1.

"It's one thing to pick favorites to win the whole thing, but you have to know others are picking the favorites to win the whole thing, too," he said. "So, if you're in an office pool with 1,000 people in it, you need to do something a little bit unusual."

He recommends selecting a No. 14 seed to make it to the Sweet 16. Or an 11 to go to the Final Four, a la VCU.

Continued here:
Picking perfect bracket a tough numbers game

Want to be sure you have the perfect March Madness bracket this year? Not possible.

If you were to stack the amount of paper it would take to fill in every bracket with every possibility among the 68 teams who will play 67 games over the next three weeks, it would not fit inside the universe.

So says Michael Weimerskirch, a math professor at Augsburg College who gets paid to think about numbers and the way they affect the Kentuckys, Butlers and VCUs of the world.

But theres this small glimmer of hope. Weimerskirch says you could simply start flipping coins. The odds of finding perfection that way by flipping a coin to pick the winner of every game: 1-in-100,000,000,000,000,000,000. For those keeping score at home, thats 1-in-100 million trillion.

Or, to put it another way: Youre just as likely to win Powerball three consecutive times as you are to picking a perfect bracket by flipping a coin, Weimerskirch says.

Of course, the NCAA tournament is all about making the impossible seem possible. Butler, a school with only 4,000 kids, made it to the finals two years in a row. VCU started the tournament last year as a No. 11 seed and wound up playing in the Final Four.

For those setting their sights on winning their friendly office pool, there are, in fact, ways to improve your odds.

Weimerskirch suggests looking at the number of people in the pool. The more people in the pool, the more you must stray from picking a slate of straight-line favorites. Kentucky, by the way, is the odds-on pick at 2-1, followed by North Carolina at 6-1.

Its one thing to pick favorites to win the whole thing, but you have to know others are picking the favorites to win the whole thing, too, he said. So, if youre in an office pool with 1,000 people in it, you need to do something a little bit unusual.

He recommends selecting a No. 14 seed to make it to the Sweet 16. Or an 11 to go to the Final Four, a la VCU. You need something unusual to go your way, Weimerskirch says.

Here is the original post:
NCAA tournament: Picking a perfect bracket a tough numbers game

Want to be sure you have the perfect March Madness bracket this year? Not possible.

If you were to stack the amount of paper it would take to fill in every bracket with every possibility among the 68 teams who will play 67 games over the next three weeks, it would not fit inside the universe.

So says Michael Weimerskirch, a math professor at Augsburg College who gets paid to think about numbers and the way they affect the Kentuckys, Butlers and VCUs of the world.

But there's this small glimmer of hope. Weimerskirch says you could simply start flipping coins. The odds of finding perfection that way by flipping a coin to pick the winner of every game: 1-in-100,000,000,000,000,000,000. For those keeping score at home, that's 1-in-100 million trillion.

Or, to put it another way: You're just as likely to win Powerball three consecutive times as you are to picking a perfect bracket by flipping a coin, Weimerskirch says.

Of course, the NCAA tournament is all about making the impossible seem possible. Butler, a school with only 4,000 kids, made it to the finals two years in a row. VCU started the tournament last year as a No. 11 seed and wound up playing in the Final Four.

For those setting their sights on winning their friendly office pool, there are, in fact, ways to improve your odds.

Weimerskirch suggests looking at the number of people in the pool. The more people in the pool, the more you must stray from picking a slate of straight-line favorites. Kentucky, by the way, is the odds-on pick at 2-1, followed by North Carolina at 6-1.

It's one thing to pick favorites to win the whole thing, but you have to know others are picking the favorites to win the whole thing, too, he said. So, if you're in an office pool with 1,000 people in it, you need to do something a little bit unusual.

He recommends selecting a No. 14 seed to make it to the Sweet 16. Or an 11 to go to the Final Four, a la VCU.

Continued here:
Basketball brackets have you busted? Coin flip chances are 1-in-100 million trillion