Who Will Win the Big Game?: April 2013

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Quant Fact Predictions now 33-20 (62.3%)

After a slow start, Louisville won a relatively close game. Our quant fact prediction for the NCAA Men's Basketball national championship game selected Louisville to win -- albeit in a close game. This makes our quant fact predictions correct 62.3% of the time (33-20) -- since we started the book's blog several years ago.

Carlton Chin, CFA, is a quantitative researcher and portfolio strategist for Price Asset Management and Adamah Capital, a fund manager specializing in alternative assets & Computer Aided Research & Trading (CARAT). Jay Granat, PhD is a psychotherapist and founder of StayInTheZone.com.

Carlton and Jay are particularly interested in factors related to sports psychology -- traits that can be more readily coached and practiced. Our research has shown that these traits can help sports organizations improve performance -- and win championships.

Monday, April 8, 2013

NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Game (2013)

Below is an excerpt from our article in the NY Times, based on quant research of factors related to sports psychology,

...we focused on factors that might help predict the winner of the N.C.A.A. tournament championship game between Louisville and Michigan. Last year’s article correctly selected Kentucky to win the national title.

With an eye toward key concepts of sport psychology, we looked at factors like big-game experience, leadership behind the bench, leadership on the court, error control and consistency.

Consistency: The team with the higher 3-point shooting percentage has won 11 of the last 14 title games. Free-throw shooting percentage is also a measure of consistency, and teams with the higher free0throw percentage have gone 10-4 over the past 14 championship games.

In the table below, we list the performance of the Final Four teams in consistency categories like 3-point shooting and free-throw percentage. We also included turnovers and a defensive measure because these are also championship traits.

	Louisville	Michigan
3-pt shooting%	32.9%	38.3%
Free-throw %	70.7%	70.0%
Turnovers per game	12.5	9.4
FG shooting defense	39.2%	42.3%

Who Will Win the Big Game? Louisville has more championship factors in its favor, by a narrow 4-3 margin. Based on our championship factors and season statistics, we developed a Monte Carlo simulator for college basketball, similar to the methodology we used for our football analyses. The most frequently-occurring score was Louisville 70, Michigan 69.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Quant Facts now 61.5% (32-20)

Our methods continue to perform particularly well in March Madness, with our quant facts correctly predicting the winners of both semifinal games of the Final Four. Our Monte Carlo simulations also performed well, with predictions relatively close to the actual final scores.

Our model predicted a Louisville win of 69-62 (Louisville wins by 7), with the actual final score being 72-68 (Louisville by 4). Similarly, our Monte Carlo simulations predicted Michigan to win by a score of 69-66 (Michigan by 3). The actual final score was Michigan 61-56 (Michigan by 5).

Stay tuned for our analysis of the National Championship game on Monday.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

2013 Final Four (March Madness)

Based on quant research of factors related to sports psychology, we focused on several championship characteristics that might help predict the winner of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Last year’s article correctly selected Kentucky to win the national title.

Consistency: Research has shown that consistency and error measures are also important to winning championships. The team with the higher 3-point shooting percentage has won 11 of the last 14 title games. Free throw shooting percentage is also a measure of consistency, and teams with the higher free throw percentage have gone 10-4 over the past 14 championship games.

In the table below, we list the performance of the Final Four teams in consistency categories such as 3-point shooting and free-throw percentage. We also include experience and leadership factors we discussed – as well as turnovers and a defensive measure, because these are also championship traits.

Who Will Win the Big Game? Louisville has more championship factors in its favor than Wichita State, including big game experience and coaching leadership. Wichita State has three-point shooting in its favor – while two factors (FG Shooting Defense and Turnovers per game) are very close. In the other semifinal matchup, Michigan has more championship factors in its favor.

Syracuse has coaching leadership and defense in its favor, but the other factors point to Michigan.

Based on our championship factors and season statistics, we developed a Monte Carlo simulator for college basketball, similar to the methodology we used for our football analyses. The results for the simulations are centered around: Louisville 69 – Wichita State 62 in the first semifinal game, and Michigan 69 – Syracuse 66 in the second semifinal game.