ReSolve 2017 March Madness Bracket Challenge: Round 2 Update

We’re going to do a full analysis of your entries when the March Madness Tournament is over, but here are some early observations:

• You are, as expected, still biased toward higher-seeded teams. Despite every team having an equal expected return in the tournament, you still got chalky.  But…
• This year’s first round was also weirdly chalky (at least on day 1), with higher seeds winning the most games in 17 years. Which means…
• Your biases may be getting more entrenched.

But there’s a chance that this is all about to change.  Why?

Because despite lacking any major early upsets, there are a handful of mid-seeded teams that made moves in the second round.  Specifically, Xavier, Wisconsin, and Michigan are all on high-point underdog runs, having disposed of #3 Florida State, #1 Villanova, and #2 Louisville respectively. (I excluded South Carolina, because despite their impressive underdog run, and eliminating #2 Duke, nobody in our challenge had them making it past this point.)

To wit, the top of our leaderboard is heavy on Xavier, with our leaders generally attributing 20-25% of their current points to that single team.

The other team with the potential to dramatically change things moving forward is Michigan.  While their run has been less valuable than Xavier’s and on-par with Wisconsin’s, quite a few brackets have the Wolverines in the Sweet 16 and beyond, meaning that if they make a deep run our leaderboard could get a major shakeup.

One last thing is worth a specific mention:

ReSolve’s beloved President, Mike Philbrick, is in dead last.

Feel free to point and laugh.