Stomp The Lunatic

Very short message since it is late! But after much cursing myself for trying to improve the site, I have the registration page and entry form up – just look at the 2011 Entry links (Register and Login). Please remember the email that you use when you register – not only is it the email I will send updates to, but it is also your login password! If you have problems with the site, let me know through email atthomas@tehodgson.com- I will check at night to see what people need. Good luck to all of you in stomping the Lunatic!

Admittingly, I have not put as much effort into this as last year. Maybe it is just because I am more excited about getting the site up and running – hopefully, people will really like the changes such as being able to view and edit their picks after they enter. They might seem like small changes to you – in fact, if done correctly, they should be… But they will be large shifts in the amount of time I need to maintain the site – which is always a big win to me.

Anyways, I have quickly ranked the conferences – and then haphazardly merged them into a jumbled mess that would represent my version of the tournament. One of these years when I get to follow the whole season closer – like when my kids are in college – I will do better at this. But still, we will have to see what my haphazard attempt against the experts. To see who I think is in, go to the link in the 2011 Lunatic’s ramblings section.

Which means time for me to rant on the media. I am tired about hearing how weak the bubble is this year. The media obviously has an agenda against the NCAA for expanding the tournament. If you read some of the ESPN analysts, you hear the comments like – thank goodness they didn’t go to 96 teams, we don’t have enough good teams at 68.

But then, when you look at Lunardi’s first 7 teams knocked out of the tournament – they include the following: Alabama – SEC West champ at 12-4, Missouri St – MVC champ (RPI 42), UAB – Conf USA champ (RPI 31), Harvard – Ivy champ (RPI 32). Not to mentionGeorgiaandBostonCollege.

I am sorry, but when you are leaving out 3 regular season champs with RPIs lower than 50 and a SEC West champ that has the crime of scheduling poorly, but has beaten bothKentuckyandTennessee- you have no right to say this is a weak field.

I don’t know that I have time to do the bracketology thing again this year – not to mention I did so poorly at it last year. And they do a good job of understanding the committee. But saying the bubble is weak is an insult to some really talented teams. You can argue whether or not these teams deserve one of the last spots in the field over other deserving teams – they all have flaws which is why they are in that conversation. But don’t take away from these talented teams and say there aren’t enough good teams out there to fill a field of 68 – when you are leaving that many regular season champions out with good RPIs, you lose the right to that claim.

As many of you know, one of my insane features is that I try to provide people with data about the teams in case they want to do research on the teams. Each year, we get several people who have demonstrated the power of statistics by building models in order to predict the games. Some of them have been extremely successful with this – especially Bill Kahn with his Bradley-Terry models, showing that even something extremely unpredictable as sports can be forecasted through good statistical techniques. But the part of this that has made me happy – and why I do this – is because a few people who were not statisticians but were taking a stats training course at work used this data for their class project and ended up having some success – including our 2006 champion, David Shaddick.

So, since that point, I decided to provide the scores to everyone in an attempt to provide people as much of a chance to try to leverage data to make their decisions. I realize that most of you will probably spend three to five minutes just looking at the teams and figuring who will do best – I probably don’t need a model to decide that the number 1 seeds will beat the 16 seeds… In fact, the way I have been going this year with trying to innovate the site, I will likely being doing the same thing late on Wednesday night.

However, if I can give people a chance to try to learn something about statistics in a very fun environment, it is well worth the effort. So, in the 2011 Statistics section is a link to an Excel file with the basic box score numbers for each game for every Division I team.

My classic caveats on this data are the following: I have only checked that standings match with ESPN’s page. I don’t have time to error check over 5000 box scores. I also tried to identify all the neutral court games – I believe I have done that since I was able to match the March 6th RPI standings, which uses site of games in the calculation as a weight. But no guarantees. Also, obviously, the 4 championships on Sunday are not in the file. If you notice something terribly wrong, let me know – no promises I have time to fix it, but at least everyone will know.

Enjoy the data!!!!

That’s right! In attempt to add even more fun for all of you, I have added a User’s Blog! This is your chance to ramble about how your team is going to win the championship or got a horrible break in the seeding. Actually, it is your chance to ramble about almost anything – preferably relating to the tournament or the contest. Just click on the link in the contents – Users Blog, and it will let you read what everyone else has said as well as let you add to the commentary. Enjoy!!!!