{"54946":{"#nid":"54946","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Tech Professors Make 2010 Final Four Predictions","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe calculations have been\ncompleted and the predictions are in: Kansas will face Duke in this year\u2019s NCAA\nbasketball finals with Kansas emerging as the victor.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003ELRMC (Logistic Regression\nMarkov Chain), the computer ranking system designed by three professors at the\nGeorgia Institute of Technology, has forecast this year\u2019s NCAA Final Four match-ups\nwill be Kansas vs. Syracuse and Duke vs. West Virginia with Kansas taking the\ntitle.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003ELRMC\u2019s Final Four predictions\ndiffered from the NCAA\u2019s seeding this year in selecting West Virginia to beat\nKentucky to reach that coveted bracket. A few other surprises emerged as well.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere are several\nupsets predicted in the earlier rounds,\u201d said Joel Sokol, operations research\nprofessor in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at\nGeorgia Tech. \u201cAmong others, San Diego\u0026nbsp;State, Utah State, Murray State and\nBrigham Young could be surprises.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EDeveloped by Professors\nSokol, Paul Kvam and George Nemhauser, LRMC utilizes data such as scores, teams\ncompeting, home court advantage and margin of victory in past performances to\ncalculate likely victors along with potential underdogs that could emerge as\nstatistical spoilers. The system has been impressively successful, particularly\nin 2008, when it predicted not only the Final Four and eventual victor, but\nalso several upsets in earlier rounds.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThis year, the professors have\nupgraded the system\u2019s probability calculations, an improvement that could\nenhance the accuracy of the results. For this new research, Georgia\u0026nbsp;Tech\u0027s\nLRMC team welcomed a new member: math professor Mark Brown of The City\u0026nbsp;College\nof New York.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003ELRMC is not an infallible\nresource. There\u2019s always the chance of an upset, injury or other factor that\naffects the outcome of competition.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of\nrandomness,\u201d Kvam said. \u201cStatistically, we\u2019re going to have years where we\u2019re\noff.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003ENonetheless, the system has proven\nmore reliable with its predictions than the NCAA\u2019s own Ratings Percentage Index\n(RPI). \u0026nbsp;Historically, the\u0026nbsp;upgraded LRMC method has picked the winner\nof more than 74 percent of NCAA tournament\u0026nbsp;games correctly, while the RPI\nhas been right less than 70 percent of the time.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThis year\u2019s LRMC bracket can\nbe accessed at \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www2.isye.gatech.edu\/~jsokol\/profspicks\/profspicks10.htm\u0022 title=\u0022http:\/\/www2.isye.gatech.edu\/~jsokol\/profspicks\/profspicks10.htm\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/www2.isye.gatech.edu\/~jsokol\/profspicks\/profspicks10.htm\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ELRMC (Logistic Regression Markov Chain), the\ncomputer ranking system designed by three professors at the Georgia Institute\nof Technology, has forecast this year\u2019s NCAA Final Four match-ups will be\nKansas vs. Syracuse and Duke vs. West Virginia.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"LRMC, the computer ranking system designed by three professors at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has forecast this year\u2019s NCAA Final Four match-ups."}],"uid":"15436","created_gmt":"2010-03-16 14:56:26","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:05:33","author":"Automator","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2010-03-16T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2010-03-16T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"55030":{"id":"55030","type":"image","title":"LRMC Brackets","body":null,"created":"1449175490","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:44:50","changed":"1475894486","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:41:26","alt":"LRMC Brackets","file":{"fid":"190201","name":"LRMC.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/LRMC.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/LRMC.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":21252,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/LRMC.jpg?itok=-L7Eg06y"}}},"media_ids":["55030"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www2.isye.gatech.edu\/~jsokol\/profspicks\/profspicks10.htm","title":"http:\/\/www2.isye.gatech.edu\/~jsokol\/profspicks\/profspicks10.htm"}],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"}],"keywords":[{"id":"8967","name":"LRMC; Final Four; NCAA"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDon Fernandez\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:don.fernandez@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Edon.fernandez@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\n404-894-6016\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["don.fernandez@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}