Well – I obviously need to do more Internet analysis. But as you know, I put in my 4 hours of effort to try to predict the bracket – in an attempt to show that it is not as hard as the mainstream sites make it seem. Then, typically, I say how badly I did – because I have a crazy hard scoring system. Well, apparently there is this site called the Bracket Project that tracks all these people.
This has made me aware of a few things.
- There are a crazy number of people who project the bracket. There were 115 entries (assuming I counted right) this year.
- The mainstream isn’t as good as some of the fans / lesser known sites (although Brad Evans from Yahoo appears to be the best of the main sites).
- I might owe Jerry Palm an apology for my comment on his perfect bracket last year. The bracket project says he missed two teams last year – so it must have been something I saw on CBS’ site that changed after the fact.
- I am not good at this – but I am not as bad as I thought (especially since I typically spend only Sunday afternoon coming up with it). But I am still pretty bad.
In 2010, I finished in 66th of 84 brackets – in 2011, I was 71st of 90 brackets. This year, I was 71st of 116 brackets. So, I guess I am getting better.
More importantly, I think the comparison to the main site bracketologists is interesting.
| 2010 | 2011 | 2012 |
| Jerry Palm (CBS) – 312 (65 of 65) | Andy Glockner (SI) – 323 (66 of 68) | Brad Evans (Yahoo) – 333 (67 of 68) |
| Brad Evans (Yahoo) – 308 (64) | Brad Evans (Yahoo) – 316 (66) | Joe Lunardi (ESPN) – 332 (67) |
| Ryan Fagan (Sporting News) – 303 (63) | Joe Lunardi (ESPN) – 310 (65) | Jerry Palm (CBS) – 329 (66) |
| Andy Glockner (SI) – 302 (64) | THE LUNATIC – 304 (65) | THE LUNATIC – 325 (67) |
| Joe Lunardi (ESPN) – 300 (64) | Jerry Palm (CBS) – 301 (66) | Ryan Fagan (SN) – 321 (66) |
| THE LUNATIC – 296 (63) | Ryan Fagan (SN) – 294 (65) | Andy Glockner (SI) – 321 (65) |
So, I can’t claim that I am any good at this – but I think it proves my initial point of doing the bracketology. I have actually beaten some of the main site providers – and if I could figure out seeding better, I could be competitive. 🙂 It also shows, if it is just about picking the correct number of teams, I am almost the same as the main sites.
Maybe one of these years I will put more effort into it and really try to beat the bracketologists.
If you are interested in this stuff, here is a link to the Bracket Project site.
One response to “The Bracket Project”
Hmm, 116 competitors in picking the brackets. Sounds like first we need to set up a pool for picking the brackets. Then, next level of abstraction, we set up a pool for picking who will win the bracket picking competition. I am not sure how many folks are going to follow us into this world. -Bill