Data Dunk

               Maybe this will be the year. I have watched a lot of college basketball, and I have a pretty good feel on which teams may be legitimate contenders versus the frauds. Maybe, just maybe, I can pick the perfect bracket this time around. Or at least make the best bracket in my pool and win some money. Maybe I have finally figured out something that others have not…               This is often the mindset of millions of college basketball fans come March (myself included). Every year, once the final version of my bracket (or top 5-10 versions) has been submitted, a very small piece of me truly believes that I have built one of the best brackets in the country. However, regardless of my confidence year in and year out, my bracket’s results often look like I had just flipped a coin on every game by the end. With a 1 in 120 billion chance in crafting a perfect bracket accor...

  Getting the Numbers to Agree with the Voters (and Vice-Versa) The NBA All-Star Game – one of the most exciting, interesting, and contentious accolades awarded every season. To be recognized as an All-Star shows that you truly made it in the league, and that your worth as a top-tier basketball player in the world has been recognized. Or does it? All-Star selection is historically a pretty arbitrary and subjective process. Media members, former players, and fans all have a say in selecting the top 12 players from each the Western and Eastern Conferences which from the surface may seem like a rather holistic and unbiased selection method. But how do these people make the decisions that they do? Is voting a popularity contest/social media content driven (think Alex Caruso, who had almost as many All-Star votes as Chris Paul this season)?  Or is it biased towards more successful teams while leaving out players on less successful ones (think Draymond Green, who, although a grea...