Bp. Carlin, IMPROVED NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT MODELING VIA POINT-SPREAD AND TEAM STRENGTH INFORMATION, The American statistician, 50(1), 1996, pp. 39-43
Several models for estimating the probability that a given team in an
NCAA basketball tournament emerges as the regional champion were prese
nted by Schwertman, McCready, and Howard. In this article we improve t
hese probability models by taking advantage of external information co
ncerning the relative strengths of the teams and the point spreads ava
ilable at the start of the tournament for the first round games. The r
esult is a collection of regional championship probabilities that are
specific to a given region and tournament year. The approach is illust
rated using data from the 1994 NCAA basketball tournament.