{"57607":{"#nid":"57607","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Margin of Victory Is Truer Indicator of Teams\u0027 Strength","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003ENew York Times\u003C\/em\u003E - March 17, 2008\u003Cbr \/\u003EColumn by Joel Sokol, associate professor at the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. The North Carolina Tar Heels had a good day Sunday. They beat Clemson for the Atlantic Coast Conference title, were at the top of the polls and were rewarded with the No. 1 overall seed in the N.C.A.A. men\u0027s tournament. They have plenty of momentum, not having lost in more than a month. But will they win the championship? Not in my bracket. . . .To test that hypothesis, we at the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech took a four-year sample of college basketball results and extracted the thousands of games in which teams played each other twice during a season. If the purists are right, a team that beats an opponent once, even by only a point, should be more likely to win the rematch because the first victory (however small) shows that it is a better team.  \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/03\/17\/sports\/ncaabasketball\/17score.html?scp=1\u0026amp;sq=sokol\u0026amp;st=nyt\u0022\u003ERead more\u0026gt;\u0026gt;\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2008-03-18 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:06:32","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2008-03-18T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2008-03-18T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"57458","name":"ISyE External News"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}