Bracket Definitions

Definitions:   

1. “Lower Expected Point Production” – Based on the Offensive and Defensive Points Per Possession statistics for both teams, this risk indicates that you have selected the team that is likely to score fewer points based on these statistics.
   
   
2. “Not In Last Year’s Tournament” – Teams that were not in last year’s tournament are statistically significantly worse that teams that were in the tournament last year in certain rounds.  For example in 2010, only one team that wasn’t in the tournament last year, beat a team that was in the tournament last year in the first round.
   
   
3. “This Has Never Happened” – This is reserved for anyone that wants to pick the 16 or 17 seed over a 1 seed.
   
   
4. “Teams are mis-seeded” – Based on statistical performance and computer rankings, this risk indicates that you may not be selecting what you think you are.  For example, a 6-11 match-up may be closer to an 8-9 match up based on the data we look at.  We could have called this “The Committee got it wrong” risk.
   
   
5. “Major vs. Major Upset Potential” – In certain matchups, when two major seeds play each other, a certain seed outperforms the other seed by a statistically significant amount greater than across all games with that seed match-up.
   
   
6. “Mid-Major vs. Mid-Major Upset Potential” – In certain matchups, when two mid-majors play each other, a certain seed wins by a statistically significantly above the performance for that seed across all games.
   
   
7. “Major vs. Mid-Major Upset Potential” – In certain seed matchups, when a Major plays a mid-major, the Major significantly out performs the Mid-Major.
   
   
8. “Mid-Major Seed Performance Risk” – Mid-Majors underperform in these specific match-ups.
   
   
9. “Short Team Advancement History” – This is school specific.  Some schools (most actually) have a history of not advancing far in the tournament and while a team may be a better pick based on statistics, they are likely not to advance based on the distribution of teams for this round in previous tournaments.  This may also be a good play to take some risk as the team with better stats is unlikely to survive another round, regardless.
   
   
10. “Computer Ranking Too Low” – Based on several computer rankings that are available, we have derived a composite formula and based on past performance, <10% of teams that have this low of a computer ranking are likely to win in this round.

Seed Evaluator Color Codes:

Green:  Green indicates a likely outcome within 1 standard deviation of the average outcome.

Yellow:  Yellow indicates a less likely outcome and close to 1-2 standard deviations from the average outcome

Red:  Red is a low likelihood outcome and approximately 2 or more standard deviations from the average outcome