Tournament Simulation

Here's an interesting link if you want to see what a tournament simulation, run over 2,000 times, yielded:



http://www.whatifsports.com/BracketPreview/MarchMadness/2011/Southeast/Round1/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Let's hope the cougars can do as well (or better) than they did in the simulation. One other interesting point is that SDSU goes as far as BYU in the sim, but UNLV is one and done.

Another thing they have is a select the teams simulator. I pitted BYU against Pitt, and saw a final score of BYU 72, Pitt 65. Jimmer went 11-20 scored 32, had 7 rebounds 5 assists and 3 steals. Jackson went 4-9 scored 12 had 4 boards, 4 assists and 4 steals. Abouo went 5-7 for 14 points, with 4 boards, 2 assists and 2 steals.



If that really happened I would be ecstatic. I would love to see BYU booking a ticket to Houston. :)

Ungoy wrote:
Another thing they have is a select the teams simulator. I pitted BYU against Pitt, and saw a final score of BYU 72, Pitt 65. Jimmer went 11-20 scored 32, had 7 rebounds 5 assists and 3 steals. Jackson went 4-9 scored 12 had 4 boards, 4 assists and 4 steals. Abouo went 5-7 for 14 points, with 4 boards, 2 assists and 2 steals.



If that really happened I would be ecstatic. I would love to see BYU booking a ticket to Houston. :)

Mongo like that simulator. Simulator my friend. Go Cougs!!

One of the radio stations interviewed some local individual who runs simulations. He had done the tournament 50,000 times. He said BYU had a (and I'm trying to remember) 3% chance of winning the NC. Bottom line was it wasn't this doom and gloom that I've heard from many other "experts" and I believe our percentage to a Elite 8 was way better than most project.

The problem with these mathematical models is that they probably consider the season as a whole, which for BYU included Brandon Davies for 85% of the games. I would take BYU to the Elite 8 or Final 4 too if Davies were still playing.

If you run an individual game simulation, you will see that it is simulating the players on the team without Davies. That said, I'm sure that each player's data is for the whole season, and we've seen that they don't (as individuals) play the same without Davies.

BlueBaron wrote:
The problem with these mathematical models is that they probably consider the season as a whole, which for BYU included Brandon Davies for 85% of the games. I would take BYU to the Elite 8 or Final 4 too if Davies were still playing.

That question was of course asked and in some way they did extract him from the team. There were so many elements that comprised this simulation that it made you wonder why someone spends that much time doing something like that, but it was interesting, but nothing will be more interesting than getting to the game and getting it played.

If you're interested in real data, here's an interesting article, out this morning, regarding Jimmer's percentage of the team's shots since Davies left:



http://tourney.si.com/2011/03/16/how-many-shots-is-too-much/?xid=cnnbin&hpt=Sbin" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



The author makes the case that it is difficult for one-dimensional teams to progress much past the elite 8, at least according to history. The interesting part is the rise in Jimmer's shot percentage since the departure of Davies.