{"200851":{"#nid":"200851","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Computer System Predicts NCAA Basketball Champion","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen Georgia Tech opens the doors to the Georgia Dome next month as the host institution for the 2013 Final Four, expect third-seeded Florida to walk out as the national champion. That\u2019s the prediction from Georgia Tech\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www2.isye.gatech.edu\/~jsokol\/lrmc\/about\/\u0022\u003ELogistic Regression\/Markov Chain\u003C\/a\u003E (LRMC) college basketball ranking system, a computerized model that has chosen the men\u2019s basketball national champ in three of the last five years.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe LRMC predicts that Florida, Louisville, Indiana and Gonzaga are most likely to advance to the Final Four in Atlanta, with Florida and Gonzaga playing for the title on Monday, April 8. It\u2019s the first time in the LRMC\u2019s 10-year history a team that isn\u2019t a number one seed is picked to win the title.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJoel Sokol, an associate professor in Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Industrial \u0026amp; Systems Engineering (ISyE) whose research specialties include sports analytics and applied operations research, oversees the annual project. During the season, the LRMC uses basic scoreboard data to create a weekly ranking of all 347 Division I NCAA teams. The mathematical formula looks at every game and factors in the margin of victory and where each game is played. When the field of 68 was announced last Sunday, Sokol\u2019s team released its \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www2.isye.gatech.edu\/~jsokol\/profspicks\/profspicks13.htm\u0022\u003Ebracket\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELast year, the team presented a paper that shows the LRMC has been the most accurate predictive ranking system over the last 10 years. The model outperformed more than 80 others, including the NCAA\u2019s Ratings Performance Index (RPI), the system most experts use to justify who should and shouldn\u2019t get into the tournament.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOur system combines the aspects of performance and strength of schedule by rewarding game performance differently according to the quality of each opponent,\u201d said Sokol. \u201cCompared to something like RPI, LRMC is able to predict which team is better by taking the margins of victories and losses into account.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe LRMC identifies which team is most likely to win each game. However, upsets sometime get in the way \u2013 in fact, about 25 percent of all NCAA tournament games are upsets. If you\u2019re trying to find this year\u2019s Cinderella, Sokol says Bucknell, Davidson, Belmont and St. Mary\u2019s are the most likely \u201csmall schools\u201d to make the Sweet Sixteen. Memphis, UCLA and Butler are the teams most in danger of being eliminated early (each is seeded sixth).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAside from picking tournament winners, the LRMC has also been used through the years to dispel a few myths. For example, in the long run, certain teams don\u2019t have big home court advantages. Almost all home courts are about the same.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe reason that you hear people say things like \u2018Duke is one of the toughest home courts - it\u2019s so hard to win there\u2019 isn\u2019t because of the court or the fans,\u201d said Sokol. \u201cIt\u2019s that Duke is usually such a good team. When you give them even a three- or four-point home court advantage on top of the skill advantage they usually have, it\u2019s hard to overcome.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlso debunked is the popular belief that \u201cgood teams know how to win close games.\u201d Sokol\u2019s team looked at home-and-home conference results through the years.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIf the clich\u00e9 was true, teams that won close games at home would have a significantly higher winning percentage in the road rematch than teams that lost close games at home,\u201d he said. But close home winners won about 35 percent of their road rematches. Close home losers won about 33 percent. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen the NCAA was considering expanding the tournament to 96 teams, Sokol also used LRMC simulations to point out that the dramatic upsets fans love to see would decrease by a factor of five, potentially leading to a sharp decrease in fan interest.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESokol is joined on the LRMC team by fellow ISyE Professors Paul Kvam and George Nemhauser, as well as Professor Mark Brown of City College, City University of New York.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen Georgia Tech opens the doors to the Georgia Dome next month as the host institution for the 2013 Final Four, expect third-seeded Florida to walk out as the national champion. That\u2019s the prediction from Georgia Tech\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www2.isye.gatech.edu\/~jsokol\/lrmc\/about\/\u0022\u003ELogistic Regression\/Markov Chain\u003C\/a\u003E (LRMC) college basketball ranking system, a computerized model that has chosen the men\u2019s basketball national champ in three of the last five years.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27560","created_gmt":"2013-03-20 10:33:53","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:13:51","author":"Jason Maderer","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-03-20T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2013-03-20T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"107631":{"id":"107631","type":"image","title":"Joel Sokol Makes NCAA Tournament Predictions","body":null,"created":"1449178188","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:29:48","changed":"1475894725","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:45:25","alt":"Joel Sokol Makes NCAA Tournament Predictions","file":{"fid":"194004","name":"12c3046-p1-003.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/12c3046-p1-003_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/12c3046-p1-003_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2221546,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/12c3046-p1-003_0.jpg?itok=-ZtTMAl6"}}},"media_ids":["107631"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www2.isye.gatech.edu\/~jsokol\/profspicks\/profspicks13.htm","title":"LRMC Bracket"},{"url":"http:\/\/www2.isye.gatech.edu\/~jsokol\/lrmc\/about\/","title":"LRMC System"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/","title":"Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering"}],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2142","name":"basketball"},{"id":"62071","name":"Bracket"},{"id":"62061","name":"March Madness"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003EMedia Relations\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-385-2966\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["maderer@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}