Can the NCAA Basketball Tournament Seeding be Used to Predict Margin of Victory?

Abstract

Following the announcement by the NCAA of the seeding and placement of men's basketball teams in the regional tournaments there is often much discussion among basketball afficionados of the fairness. A statistical analysis of simple regression models for the tournament games shows that indeed there is a strong association between the seed positions of the teams and the actual margin of victory; in fact, fairly reliable prediction models of actual margin of victory in tournament games can be achieved based primarily on the seed numbers alone.

Key Words:

• Nonlinear effects
• Press
• Regression