Straightforward Scoring: The "Pomeroy Bracket"
Again I used the Pomeroy Ratings for my straightforward bracket, and this year it was a success. Well, at least it was successful as getting three Elite 8 and one Final Four team can be, since that one Final Four team was Duke, who I also had winning the championship.I can also thank Pomeroy for correctly putting Tennessee, Butler, and Xavier in the Sweet 16, and Baylor in the Elite 8. Outside of that, though, I mostly have to attribute my success to luck.
Upset Scoring: The Expected Value Method
I had one my upset scoring bracket two years in a row, but this year my luck ran out. And yes, it was luck, since part of my method involves picking which regionals to which I would apply my expected value methods (detailed here and here).Those methods served me well in getting Cornell into the Sweet 16. But my major setback was a combination of bad luck and my own fault. My method calls plays the odds by putting all four number ones in the Final Four, and this year that wasn't a good strategy. On top of that, I decided to hedge my bets by picking Kansas over Kentucky in the finals, instead of relying on Pomeroy to have Duke as my champion again.
So, I finished in fourth, just out of medal contention. For next year, I'm going to study my previous brackets to see if it would have been better to use the expected value method on all four regionals, or whether I should continue to use "control" regionals. Stay tuned for those results.
