March Insanity 2025 Mannequin – The Information Jocks

We spent the previous few days constructing a brand new kind of mannequin for the March Insanity Event this 12 months. Our outcomes have been submitted to the Kaggle March Insanity Machine Studying Mania Competitors for the 2025 Event. The winner will get $10,000 and testing our mannequin on the previous few years reveals aggressive performances yearly, with a theoretical second place end in 2023.

The mannequin is predicated on the Elo ranking system with two key modifications. First, every group doesn’t begin the season with the identical Elo ranking. Reasonably, we use a really specifically chosen prior to present the mannequin a head begin. This permits us to make use of a smaller “Ok-value” and have extra secure scores. Second, our mannequin takes under consideration margin of victory in a brand new means. That signifies that a 20 level win nets extra factors than a 2 level win. A heavy favourite that wins by solely a pair factors may very well lose ranking because of this, a stark distinction from current fashions that incorporate margin of victory into Elo scores. I’ll write extra about these strategies intimately if the mannequin does properly within the competitors. If not, the purpose is moot anyway.

Listed here are the scores we got here up with for the march insanity 2025 match. It seems that our mannequin thinks, far and away, that Florida is the group to beat and stands one of the best likelihood of successful the entire thing. Not solely that, however it thinks that Duke is nearer to #5 Tennessee than they’re to Florida.

As a substitute of deep diving each matchup like we typically do, I wish to level out some attention-grabbing observations.

• The speak of the media was that Louisville was an enormous snub, being tenth within the rankings and an 8 seed. Nevertheless, our ranking system thinks Gonzaga is the larger snub! They edge Louisville by a pair factors.
• Our mannequin thinks that Purdue is among the most overrated groups within the match, barely prime 25 however snagging a fourth seed. They might get upset early. However they aren’t practically as huge of an overseed as Memphis.
• Plenty of dialogue about North Carolina not deserving to be in, however they precise rank because the second better of the 11s, simply behind VCU.
• Missouri is perhaps means underrated
• Finest group at every seed:
  • 1: Florida
  • 2: Tennessee
  • 3: Wisconsin
  • 4: Maryland
  • 5: Clemson
  • 6: Missouri
  • 7: St. Mary’s
  • 8: Gonzaga
  • 9: Georgia
  • 10: Arkansas
  • 11: VCU
  • 12: Liberty
  • 13: Excessive Level
  • 14: Lipscomb
  • 15: Robert Morris
  • 16: Norfolk St.
• Of the highest seeds, the worst at every seed:
  • 1: Houston
  • 2: St. Johns
  • 3: Kentucky
  • 4: Purdue
  • 5: Memphis
  • 6: Mississippi St.
• Fast picks:
  • Cinderella groups: (double digit seed) Arkansas (single digit seed) Gonzaga
  • Staff outdoors prime 4 that would win: Missouri
  • More than likely early upset: Kentucky and Purdue

Have enjoyable with the match this 12 months, and I hope these rankings assist!

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