Stomp The Lunatic

So, in a desperate attempt to help me with my handicapping page, I quickly went back to my old try to beat Vegas days, and built the Lunatic simulator.

So, it is what you might think it is.  I quickly overfit models to predict what a team’s FG percentage, TPG percentage, FT percentage, turnover rate, FT rate, TPG / FG ratio, offensive rebounding rate, and estimated number of possessions based on playing their opponent (and vice versa).

Then, I throw those predictions into a simulator that uses random numbers and the predictions to simulate 1000 games between the two teams.

Currently, I am running it through the first round of the tournament to determine if I should use it for my “sane” picks (we all know that I will pick Purdue in my insane picks).  Also, waiting to see what happens in the last play-in game.

The reason I never got comfortable using the simulator in the past is I never was able to figure out how to adjust for a team that plays against weaker teams.  The tool tends to like smaller conferences more than I would like – for example, it says that Arizona State only has a 41% chance of beating Nevada – and my experience with the Mountain West is to not trust them in the tournament.  If the Sun Devils blow out Nevada, I might have to reconsider, but so far, it is doing well.  It would have missed on Mississippi State (who was a 52% favorite, but would have been correct when accounting for the spread (since it said take Pitt and the 2.5 points).  It was also right on everything else so far.

Seems like I could do something fun like take the underdog if it has a 45% chance or better of winning.  Then again, it is also taking a while – guess it takes a while for the computer to simulate 1000 games….

If it doesn’t finish, or looks too chalky, I will stick with what I have already put in.  I figured if I was going to play with creating a model, I should at least have a backup already in place for when the model doesn’t look good at 1:30 in the morning.

Editor note: Arizona State has jumped out to an 11-3 lead.  Maybe I should stick to just using it for judging the over/unders.

Texas A&M – Corpus Christi won their first ever NCAA Tournament game 75-71 when SE Missouri St’s three pointer with 2 seconds ended up short.

Pitt advanced today with a 60-59 victory over Mississippi State’s wide open three-pointer and their tip-in on the rebound both bounced off the rim and out.

Two games into the tournament, two games went down to the final shot. If this keeps up, it will be a wild tournament!!!

So super exciting – the first of 67 games to decide a National Champion as Texas A&M – Corpus Christi and SE Missouri State have tipped off.

In my perfect world, I will do some analysis, see if it matches what I said in the podcast, and if not, likely still select what I said in the podcast. Although I do need to think about the fact that only 5 schools meet the special statistical requirements (which will not stop me from taking Purdue). I had not gotten that far before the podcast (although I had done the champions advance in my picks).

And of course have to watch the play-in games to see if anyone impresses me. Very excited the Madness is here!

The Lunatic hates giving incorrect information. Blogging leaves time to check my sources and make quick edits to the blog when I make a mistake.

Last night, the podcast was a ton of fun, and while I had some specific notes, I also talked about a lot of the research I did watching the conference tournaments and creating the cheat sheets (which are in the Research links for those who use them).

And so it pains me to have mentioning something incorrect about Illinois. They did beat two teams on the top 2 seed lines. But it was not UCLA and Houston. It was UCLA and Texas – still very impressive, but nonetheless, incorrect. I said they didn’t beat anyone else – that was also off they went 2-8 off the rest of the field, beating Michigan State and Northwestern at home. So, not quite right either.

I hopefully didn’t misspeak about anything else but that was the one that stuck in my head after the podcast – so figured I would correct it

I do still think that it is best to pick you favorite teams.  I might always feel a little sad when Purdue gets knocked out of the tournament, but I will never regret picking them to win.  That is part of the fun of March – having a team to root for.

But for those of you who want to win the whole thing.  Here are two of my best tips to pick a champion.

Statistically speaking, there is an amazing statistician name Ken Pomeroy who lists out rankings based on offensive and defensive efficiency.  Those who track his site have made the realization that his predictions are so good, they can be used to predict the games very well and make money betting on the lines.   Well, until the Sportsbooks caught on and started using his predictions to set the lines.  An analysis was done of the 20 some years that he has been doing this, and came to the realization that no NCAA champion finished worse than 40th in offensive efficiency and 25th in defensive efficiency.  There is also some research that only one champion did not finish with a total of under 50 when adding those two ranks together.  This year, those teams are:

Houston, UCLA, Alabama, Connecticut, Texas, Kansas and Creighton.  (Purdue falls just outside this list as 26th in defensive efficiency, but they would qualify under the teams totaling under 50 since they are 7th in offensive efficiency depending on which arbitrary cut you want to use).

While that cuts the list down shorter, if you want another way to look at it, you can take the championship theory.  I don’t have articles written about it, but every year, I marvel at how the champions keep showing up at the end.  It makes sense, you have to win 6 games in a very high pressure win-or-go-home setting.  So, if you didn’t show that throughout the season you were the best in your conference, or you didn’t show that you could follow through and win 4 straight to claim your conference tournament, it is highly unlikely you will get through the 6 games in March.  And no offense to the one bid conferences, but this typically is reserved only for the power conferences.  I will be kind and add in the American, West Coast and Mountain West since they have multiple teams, but it really this is for the power conferences.  That list is:

Kansas (Big 12 RS), Texas (Big 12 Tour), Alabama (SEC), Purdue (Big 10), Marquette (Big East), Virginia (ACC RSc), Miami FL (ACC RSc), Duke (ACC Tour), UCLA (Pac 12 RS), Arizona (Pac 12 Tour), Gonzaga (WCC RSc/T), St. Mary’s (WCC RSc), Houston (Amer RS), Memphis (Amer Tour), San Diego St (Mt West).

And of course, for those of you who are looking at – why not combine them, you are left with Houston, UCLA, Alabama, Texas, and Kansas.

I guess there is one last way.  The Lunatic Curse always seems to haunt me – so you could just wait until Wednesday night when I release my final bracket and pick those I avoid sending to the Final 4.  But based on if I keep what I picked on the podcast, I have Alabama, Purdue, Texas and Gonzaga in the Final 4, Kansas and Houston losing in the Elite 8, with only UCLA going out early.

And so by simple mathematical deduction, it is clear who this year’s NCAA champion will be – the UCLA Bruins.

Good luck to everyone with your picks.  (And good luck to my Boilermakers – please Lunatic Curse, go away for one year to make me happy.  I would be happy to miss all my upset picks if you will simply not curse my favorite champion pick).

 

Once again, I want to thank Kevin, Paul and Kenny for the invitation to talk about the bracket on their podcast. It was truly a lot of fun for me.

Here is the link to the podcast for those of you who want to hear about all the best upset picks and who would win in a mascot fight!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stomp-the-lunatic-tom-hodgson-joins-the-show-to/id1609309331?i=1000604040637

Tonight, on the podcast, I gave my opinions on the bracket.  And while I might do some more analysis and change a couple of those picks, that is likely what I am going to stick with.  Alabama, Purdue, Texas and Gonzaga feel to me as a good set of Final 4 teams based on the bracket and current injuries to some of the top teams like UCLA (who I really liked until second leading scorer Jaylen Clark tore his achilles and center Adam Bona injured his shoulder).  I always over-analyze things and make last minute changes that likely are bad decisions.  Speaking of over-analyzing, lets start handicapping the games.  Those who love the blog know that I actually go and handicap all 67 of the games – normally poorly.  At this point, I even have its own blog for the handicapping – just look at the links on the side of the site for 2023 Handicapping!

Enjoy the blog – probably should maybe stay away from the picks although I did end up slightly ahead last year (a rare event that I am hoping to duplicate this year).

Hi everyone! I am thrilled to announce that I will be joining Kevin Flippen and Paul Gilman for their podcast tonight. We will tape it tonight at 9:30 pm EST and it should be loaded to their Apple Podcast channel (That Flip’n Sports Podcast) sometime afterwards (looks like their last podcast loaded on Tuesday).

It was a lot of fun last year, so it should give you all lots of fun information, as Kevin, Paul and I break down the bracket, talk about favorites and Cinderellas, and who we think will make the Final 4. Although since we know I am a Purdue fan, I guess I will have to think about who can win the East if the Boilers break my heart.

To be fair, I think I am there for my energy and excitement about the tournament while you can get real expert opinions from Kevin and Paul. Those who saw last year might remember Paul picking UNC, which turned out to be magical.

Thanks so much to Kevin and Paul for letting me join them again to rant about my favorite sport for an evening!!!! It will be lots of fun!!!!

The entry form with the bracket is now available on the site.  Welcome to the 2023 Stomp the Lunatic Contest!!!!

By the end of the night, I should have the cheat sheet available to help with those of you not looking to do tons of analysis.

Reminder, you can not use your login from previous years.  You must re-register to enter the 2023 contest.  Also, I have been told that sometimes, if you don’t refresh the page, you can have an old set of links (I can’t seem to recreate that issue to try to fix it but I believe that it happens – I am certainly not a website designer….)

If you have any questions about the pool, rules, where to send entry fees, etc., please contact me at thomas@tehodgson.com.

Good luck to everyone in STOMPING THE LUNATIC!!!!!!!