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SAS software nearly nails Field of 65
CARY (AP) — For the second straight year, two university professors used
computer software and a special formula to correctly predict almost all of
the teams in the NCAA men's tournament field.
Jay Coleman and Allen Lynch matched 63 of the 65 teams on this year's
bracket, for a three-year record of 190-5 using their ``Dance Card''
formula.
After failing to anticipate Missouri being invited to the national
tournament in 2001 and 2002, Coleman and Lynch correctly picked the Tigers
in this year's field of 65.
However, the software, developed by Cary-based SAS Institute Inc., failed to
predict the NCAA tournament selection committee's inclusion of Alabama and
nearby North Carolina State University. Instead, it picked Nevada-Las Vegas
and Texas Tech, which didn't make the tournament.
Because 31 tournament slots are awarded through automatic conference bids,
the formula is actually only needed to figure out who gets the remaining 34
at-large slots.
``Big Dance'' relies mainly on six pieces of data about each team, including
the Ratings Percentage Index rank and number of victories against teams
ranked 1-25 in the RPI. The formula relies on the same formula used by large
corporations to forecast customer behavior for marketing campaigns or to
anticipate problems in manufacturing.
Coleman is an operations management professor at the University of North
Florida and Lynch teaches economics at Mercer University in Georgia.
Just don't look to Coleman and Lynch for help winning your office pool. They
say their formula is useless when it comes to predicting who wins the actual
tournament games.
Copyright 2003
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
02/23/2007 10:46:48 AM
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