Four March Madness Tips from Mathematicians

he first round of March Madness starts tonight.  And if you’re still filling out your bracket, here are four tips from mathematicians that could help . . .

1.  Don’t let bias come into play.  In other words, don’t pick Boise State to win it all just because you went to Boise State.  They’re an 11 seed, and no one above an eight seed has won before.

2.  Don’t pick Kentucky to lose, just to be different.  They’re the favorite because they’re undefeated.

Nate Silver is the statistics guy who predicted almost everything right in the 2008 election.  And he’s calculated that Kentucky has a 41% chance of winning, followed by Villanova at 11%, and Wisconsin at 10%.

3.  Don’t pick any team lower than a five seed to win it all.  Meaning a number six seed, a number 10 seed . . . the higher the number, the lower ranked they are.

According to Silver, any team with a lower seed than that has less than a 1% chance of winning.  And Utah is the ONLY five seed that has at least a 1% chance.

4.  Look at who’s been winning recently.  A math professor in North Carolina had a cheerleader fill out a bracket last year after looking at teams that won a bunch of games late in the season . . . and she beat 96% of all the brackets on ESPN.com.

If your looking for a bracket to fill out… play King Of The Bracket with Rock 93-7