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Brown Columbia Cornell Dartmouth Harvard Penn Princeton Yale



Username Post: Ivy Title/Tourney Odds
mrjames 
Professor
Posts: 6062

Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
01-13-17 12:39 PM - Post#218166    

Finally got a moment to fire up the old R script and (with some changes to account for needing to know order not just winner) here's where we stand:

Share/Solo Title Odds
share solo
brown 0% 0%
columbia 2% 1%
cornell 0% 0%
dartmouth 0% 0%
harvard 25% 12%
penn 9% 3%
princeton 65% 43%
yale 30% 14%

That makes a fair deal of sense. Since I run this off KP, and KP is still adding some sort of bias to the results when it comes to stickiness of his rankings, Princeton remains far ahead of where it is in other ranking systems. Add to that the fact that an average difficulty game has been passed with a win and it's no wonder that the Tigers are a decent-sized favorite.

Penn would be a bit closer to Harvard and Yale, but obviously starting 0-1 (even with it being the most difficult Ivy game on every team's schedule) knocks it down a little bit.

Worth noting as well that, at present, we have about 27% odds of two teams tying for the number one seed.

Average Exp Wins By Team:
avgwins
brown 4.7
columbia 6.1
cornell 4.8
dartmouth 3.5
harvard 9.0
penn 8.0
princeton 10.5
yale 9.2

Here we start to see the Top 4/Bottom 4 gap in more concrete, tourney-relevant stats. Columbia is clearly the leader of the chase pack, but is still 1.9 expected wins behind Penn. That's only slightly less than the gap between Penn and first (2.5 wins).

Top 4 finish odds and overall tourney odds:
first second third fourt h tourneyodds
brown 0% 1% 2% 6% 9%
columbia 1% 4% 8% 17% 29%
cornell 0% 1% 3% 8% 11%
dartmouth 0% 0% 1% 1% 2%
harvard 18% 27% 26% 19% 8 9%
penn 6% 15% 26% 26% 72%
princeton 54% 26% 12% 6% 98%
yale 21% 27% 24% 18% 90%

And now the gap is really clear. Harvard, Princeton and Yale are all at 90%+ to make the tourney, while Penn remains at a solid 72%. Columbia has a decent shot at near 30%, while Cornell and Brown are down near 10%. Dartmouth has already lost an average to slightly-below-average game on its schedule, so it's really, really in a deep hole.

Finally, the wins required for fourth place:
5 6 7 8 9 10
0.003 0.074 0.335 0.450 0.134 0.004

Right now, it looks like 7-7 or 8-6 is going to be the most likely fourth seed record.

NOW, the fun part. How might some weekend scenarios affect the tourney odds:

Penn loses to Yale (other weekend games remain at same odds):

Penn drops to 64% to make the tourney, while Yale vaults up to 96% (breaking on the road amongst the Top 4 is going to be HUGE this year in terms of solidifying one's spot).

Penn beats Yale (all else equal):

Penn's tourney odds rise to 82%, while Yale's fall only a little bit to 87%. More importantly, the odds of the chase pack all fall a little (starting out with a loss makes Penn the most vulnerable to falling out and winning a Top 4 game will solidify their chances). Meanwhile, it becomes slightly more likely that it's going to take 8-6 not 7-7 to claim the final tourney spot.

Yale sweeps:
Yale rises to 98% to make the tourney and becomes the odds on favorite to win at least a share of the title (59%). Princeton still is in great shape (96%) to make the tourney. Obviously Penn remains at around ~64% to make the tourney.

Yale gets swept:
It's a tough roadie, so Yale is still in decent shape (82%) to make the tourney. Princeton is essentially a lock (99.3%). Penn is in good shape as well (80%). Harvard remains pretty much unaffected at 87%.

What the bottom four want:
Any scenarios that cause separation amongst the Top 4 are welcome. The WORST case scenario for the bottom four is that the top 4 comes darn close to splitting with each other. While that would be the best scenario for sneaking away with the title, it's also the worst scenario for making the path to fourth easier. Thus, as we progress throughout this year, the bottom four will want to see a dominant Princeton team and one of the other Top 4 be dominant as well, to push down the 3rd/4th place win totals closer to 7 or even under.

Happy to run any other scenarios as well!
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