NCAA March Madness 2010 Recap

After losing on points with Duke -7 in the final, I finished even-steven at 31-31-2 against the point spread in this year's March madness.

My modified Gibbs system regressed to the mean over 3 years. In 2008, I finished 37-27 or 58% against the spread. In 2009, I declined to 34-29-1 or 54%. Over 3 full years from 2008 through 2010, I am 102-87-3 or 53.9%. Good, but not great and we won't have enough data to know whether my modified Gibbs system is a statistically significant winner for another 10 years or so of NCAA tournaments. I wonder if I will still be as great-looking 10 years from now.

Before I get carried away with my good looks and basketball-picking prowess, I should admit that just by picking favourites in every NCAA tournament game for the past 3 years, you would have finished ahead of me every year and would be sporting a 108-81-3 or 57.03% record.

Lady G vs. President Obama

President Obama picks winners straight-up with no point line for each bracket and round.

http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/en/entry?entryID=3288143

He had a tough time this year with none of his final 4 picks coming through. But, when he picked upsets in the early rounds, I could identify games where Lady Godiva and the Baracketer-in-Chief disagreed. Since Obama took office, I am 7-9 womano-a-mano against the Baracketer. I won 5-3 last year, but the President can at least boast that he defeated me 6-2 this year.

And, speaking of mano-a-womano, kudos to the President for picking the women's NCAA brackets this year.

http://games.espn.go.com/tcwomen/en/entry?entryID=125259

Lady G's System

I myself take no interest whatsoever in American college basketball, but toy boy fiancé Archibald can't get enough roundball. Every year he organizes a friendly, non-profit office pool for the NCAA men's tourney. Instead of picking bracket winners, the object of his pool is to pick winners against the point spread each and every day as the tournament unfolds. The winner of his winner-take-all pool is the contestant who picks the most winners against the spread over 64 matches. All matches are weighted equally starting with the play-in game to determine the 64^th team.

To humour Archibald, I participate by relying on economists' studies showing that "heavy" underdogs win more than their fair share of college basketball games against the point spread, while "non-heavy" overdogs win slightly more than 50% (although this particular result is not statistically significant).

http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/print/179073423.html

Super Bowl 2010

Kudos to President Obama for correctly calling the Saints. He's undefeated as President with his Super Sunday picks straight-up.

And, I have now lost 3 Super Bowls on the trot against the points.

At least, I ended up on the + side at 6-5 for the playoffs. Nothing great, but my first winning playoff season since 2002.

Underdogs vs. overdogs now even-up at 21-21-2 in 44 Super Bowls.

I will be less active with this blog until March madness aside from the occasional NBA pick. But, tune in for the NCAA tournament when I hope to repeat my feat of outpicking the Baracketer-in-Chief.

NFL Semi-final Picks

If your friendly, non-profit pool extends through the playoffs, stick with the home overdogs in the conference championship games even though there is no strong tendency to go on in the historical data.

Favourites have won 65% of 78 conference championships since 1970 – actually a touch below the 2/3 outright winning rate for overdogs in the regular season. I recommend taking the favourites and ignoring the points. My unproved hypothesis is that fewer playoff games turn on points because winning teams go all out to pile up the score in elimination games.

Speaking of piling up the score, Minnesota went beyond the bounds of good taste throwing for a TD on 4^th down leading 27-3 late in the game.

Pick	+/-	Against
NEW ORLEANS	-4	Minnesota
INDIANAPOLIS	-7.5	NY Jets

Indy covering the points is my choice for best bet this week. Sorry, former Godiva toy boy Reginald and still diehard Jet fan. Not this year for your beloved Jets. Too bad you loved the Jets and football more than you loved me.

Playoff Picks So Far:

3-1 with the home overdogs last week was easy-peasy. Favourites playing with the extra week of rest have won nearly ¾ of 80 divisional round games since 1990. The godds of probability definitely tilt to home overdogs in the divisional round.

Picks	Right	Wrong
All	5	3
Best Bets	3	1

 

NFL Regular Season Results + Wild Card Picks

If your friendly, non-profit pool extends through the playoffs, take all the home overdogs this week.

I admit to flying blind with playoff picks. The historical data show that favourites won 51% of all playoff games against the point spread from 1992 through last season, well above the 48% winning rate for overdogs in all regular season games since 1992. But, 187 playoff games since 1992 is too small a sample to draw conclusions. Plus, the overdog playoff tendency over the entire period since 1992 is based on 60% dominance from 1992 through the 1999 Super Bowl. Underdogs plus the points have prevailed in 55% of playoff games since then. If anyone out there has NFL playoff stats against the point spread prior to 1992, I would be very interested if you could pass that information along.

Pick	+/-	Against
ARIZONA	-1	Green Bay
CINCINNATI	-2.5	NY Jets
NEW ENGLAND	-3.5	Baltimore
DALLAS	-4	Philly

 

2009 Regular Season

7-9 last week pushed me down to 129-123-4 or 51.2% for the entire regular season.

At 8-8 with my ``value overdog`` selections, I did not provide any value-added ending up even-steven with the simplest strategy of picking all underdogs all the time. By picking all the road teams this year, you would have finished 132-120-4 or 52.3%.

But, I will say that I am adding value for those readers who did not know that tilting toward the underdogs is the best approach you can take when playing in a friendly, non-profit NFL pool. Underdogs have taken 52% of NFL regular season contests going back through the 1992 regular season and have prevailed over favourites in 14 of the past 18 seasons. Taking mostly underdogs must be the backbone of any systematic approach to participating in a NFL pool picking winners against the point spread.

28-23-1 or 55% for Lady G's best bets this year. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen for this week's special wild card selections.