Show Your Work

I have no idea if my entry (shown above) to the NCAA Bracket Contest at West Hills Auto Plex in Bremerton is valid. I picked the Gonzaga Bulldogs to win it all in a relatively low-scoring final game. Like those tiresome math teachers in high school who grade you not just on getting the right answer but also on the steps you took to get it, perhaps the contest organizers will want me to “show my work.”

I didn’t do the “work” of filling in the bracket. Who has time to write in all of the names, let alone guess figure out which team is going to win each game in each round of the tournament? Or research dozens of articles (many of which conflict) by the experts at Sports Illustrated and ESPN? (Actually a lot people do, including President Obama.) I don’t. I need to turn in my entry this afternoon.

My “work” consisted of picking Gonzaga mainly because it will make a great local media story if they do well in the tournament. All season long we have been hearing that this could be the year. If they somehow win it all, the whole state of Washington will go crazy. Gonzaga is in Spokane.

OK, there’s more to it than picking a team that’s a local media favorite. Gonzaga (31-2) finished the season ranked number 1 in the AP Top 25 poll. They are the top seed in the West, which means no cross-country travel until they head to Atlanta for the Final Four showdown. Are there tough opponents standing in the way? Sure, but it would be that way no matter what the region.

I actually spent more time picking the final score than the final team. First I looked at the scores of the last 10 men’s NCAA basketball championship games and then mostly ignored that data. There’s no pattern. Some of the games were nail biters, some were blowouts, many were close but not as close as the score I picked. The average winning margin was 8.8 points, and the winning team scored 73 or more points in seven of the games. However, the winner didn’t top 70 in any of the last three.

Next I considered Gonzaga’s stats. They averaged 77.6 points on offense and held opponents to 59.4 points. Great offense, solid defense. In a tough championship contest though, they will score about 10 points under their average. The game will be close (four points), given that the opponent will be Indiana or Kansas or Louisville or, even scarier, a school that can knock off one of the other top seeds.

That’s it then: Gonzaga by a final score of 67-63. Time to get my entry in.