Tag Archives: Odds

Issue # 13.5.2 “25th Anniversary” (History of Pool)

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Our HWCI Women's World Cup Pool begins in May...
Our 2nd HWCI Women’s World Cup Pool Begins in May!
2019 NCAA FINAL FOUR @ Minneapolis, MN
Hosted by U. of Minnesota (Big Ten)
The Final at U.S. Bank Stadium
#3-Westvs.#1-South
Texas Tech University Red Raiders (31-6)University of Virginia Cavaliers (34-3)
Big 12 Conference – Regular Season Co-Champs
Lubbock, Texas
1st Final
def #14 Northern Kentucky 72-57
#6 Buffalo 78-58
#2 Michigan 63-44
#1 Gonzaga 75-69
#2E-Michigan St 61-51		Atlantic Coast Conference – Regular Season Co-Champs
Charlottesville, Virginia
1st Final
def #16 Gardiner-Webb 71-56
#9 Oklahoma 63-51
#12 Oregon 53-49
#3 Purdue 80-75 (OT)
#5MW-Auburn 63-62

Sunday, April 7, 2019

A TOUGH DEFENSE VERSUS A SLOW OFFENSE
Six battling for final 2 money spots as 4 have clinched; 15 vying for Bonus

BANC OF CALIFORNIA STADIUM, LOS ANGELES/SANTA BARBARA, CA (smt)- Will this be a Butler-UConn type championship when just 94 points were scored?  Texas Tech has held the two Michigans to 44 and 51 points and 6th-best offense in Buffalo to 58 points while Virginia held high scoring Oklahoma and Oregon to 51 and 49 points.  Including the tournament, Virginia is #1 in scoring defense (allowing 55.5 pts/game) and Texas Tech is #3 (58.8).  Virginia is 7th in 3-point percentage (39.4%) though they take their time taking their shots. Or maybe we’ll be surprised and Texas Tech will score something like 78 or 75 like they did vs Buffalo and Gonzaga or Virginia will score 80 like they did against Purdue.  Virginia has needed luck at the buzzer twice, scoring a game-tying buzzer beater off a missed free throw against Purdue and a missed double-dribble call and foul on a buzzer-beating 3-point shot against Auburn.  Texas Tech has won each game by at least six points with four in double-digits.  With all that, Virginia is just a one-point favorite to try to complete the worst-to-first (losing to #16 seed to winning the title) and the over/under is an all-time low of 118 pts.  With so many tiebreakers in play for the top 6 and the Bonus, this low over/under is at least 10 points less than the tiebreak point giving those entries who guessed lowest a little buffer.

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Issue # 7.2.4 “Billion Dollar Time Machine” [Sweet 16 Thoughts]

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Previous Sweet 16 Themes: [ 13 - SportsNation |  12 - Amazing Race |  11 - Year-by-Year |  10 - Health Care |  09 - American Cancer Society | 08 - Who Is The Mole? | 07 - TV Shows | 06 - Awards ]


16 HINTS ON HOW TO START TO WIN A BILLION DOLLARS

And may the odds be ever in your favor!
CERRITOS/EL SEGUNDO, CA (smt)- After just 32 games, much less the 48 that have been played already, no one in the Warren Buffett-insured Quicken Loans Billion $ Bracket Challenge was perfect.  [ Quicken Loans Billion $ Bracket Challenge ]Of course, the odds up to the start of the Round of 32 was still 4,294,967,296 (4.2 billion) to 1, not accounting that each game has a different probability of winning (e.g., the 4.2 billion assumes each game has a 50/50 chance of either team winning but we know, for example, the #16 seed has basically >1% chance).  So try beating 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 1 (9.2 quintillion) to get all 63 games correct (that number is greater than the national debt of $17,560, 724,125,874 (17.5 trillion).  Even [ National Debt 3/27/2014 ]if you were to weigh each game (e.g., #1 has 90% beating #16, #2 85% over #15, #3 80% over #14, etc.), you still would be about 70 billion to 1.  And for the first 32 games, it’s about 45,000 to 1 (very reasonable and has happened (not in our pool) quite a few times in the past in other national pools).  Over 20 years, we’ve had only 1,559 entries which means sometime in the next 569 years we will have our perfect 32-0 bracket!  If the games were split evenly over the first two days (e.g., two #1 seeds play Thursday, two on Friday), then weighing the probabilities, it’s only 211 to 1 to be a perfect 16-0.  And in our pool, we’ve had 5 perfect 16-0 entries (including 2 this year) which means our actual ratio is 312 to 1, which is close to 211 to 1.  Don’t you love it when the math works out?


Anyway, if you had gone 48-0 by now, the odds are only 1 in 32,768 or if weighted, as good as 1 in 4,114 (it’ll be higher because not all #1, #2, #3, and #4 seeds will make the Sweet 16) to complete the perfect bracket.  Seems reasonable.  So, if I had a hot tub time machine and was able to tell myself how to pick the bracket to get to 48-0 to be on my way to a Billion Dollar bracket, here are 16 pieces to the puzzle.


    

  1. Chalk.  Start with all the favorites (seed-wise).  There were only 14 upsets of the 48 games.
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  2. N’names.  A couple big schools have some weird  Continue reading »
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