Convenient Treatment of Vacated Wins

Like most of you that will read this, I have been following the 2013 NCAA basketball tournament and Michigan's run to the Final Four. Congratulations to those players and best of luck next week against Syracuse and beyond.

Now that that is out of the way, let me talk about what has interested me since long before this tournament- vacated wins, particularly as a penalty for rules violations.  The theory of this penalty makes sense to me but the gray area of its application has always been confusing.  I searched high and low for a good definition of what it means to vacate a win by the NCAA's standards without any luck.  The best definition I found (by what I imagine the NCAA implies) was from Merriam-Webster: "To give up incumbency or occupancy". In other words, when a team vacates a win, they no longer occupy the position that victory provided; they have vacated it, leaving the position empty or unclaimed.

The #2 image result for the search: Michigan Basketball

The gray area I referred to is most visible in the media's treatment of vacated wins.

1. Before the  tournament, I posted a link to a rivals.com blog post that tallied the Big Ten schools' historical tournament performances.  The article counted wins and achievements of Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio State with no mention that they had been vacated due to various infractions.  
2. As CBS televised Michigan's games this weekend, the references to the school's last Final Four run(s) were unsurprisingly a main storyline complete with images of Steve Fisher hugging various players.  
3. Last night mgoblue.com, THE official website of University of Michigan athletics, posted a write-up on the current team's run that couldn't get past the first sentence without referencing the schools last Final Four.

The only reason I can see for the inconsistencies is convenience.  It makes an easy storyline to sell. It's difficult to make allowances for people ignorant of the back-story.  It's easy to say how two things are the same. It's difficult to say how they are different.  It's easy to subtract wins on paper. It's difficult to reconcile that achievements were a benefit of those vacated wins.  Just to make a point on that, with all of the references to Michigan's Final Four appearances, when do you think you'll next hear Joe Paterno referred to as the winningest college football coach?

Vacating wins is obviously something the NCAA is serious about as evidenced by its actions.  Schools obviously don't want to vacate wins as evidenced by their appeals to the punishment.  Why then does the NCAA not enforce logical reporting and treatment of vacated games by its partners (CBS) and members (UofM)?

For further reading on vacated wins I recommend:

• The Theory and Practice of Vacating Games from the NCAA's own blog
• What does vacating wins really mean? from ESPN

 

Final Breakdown: Big Ten Scenarios and Tournament Seeding

With one day of games remaining among the B1G contenders, the possibilities are starting to dwindle.  On Monday and Wednesday, I had looked at the eight most likely scenarios and the resulting conference tournament seedings.  Now with four games remaining between the front-runners, I give you the four scenarios based on the Illinois-Ohio State game and the Indiana-Michigan game assuming that Michigan State and Wisconsin hold serve against Northwestern and Penn State respectively.  Within each scenario, I show what will happen if Michigan State OR Wisconsin lose their respective game.  In the unlikely event that BOTH teams lose their games, the seedings would certainly shuffle but Wisconsin would remain outside of the top four seeds.

Sunday's Games:

12:00 UW @ PSU
12:30 UI @ OSU
4:00 IU @ UM
6:00 NU @ MSU

Scenarios:

A) Ohio State, Michigan win

1. IU
2. OSU
3. UM
4. MSU
5. UW

If MSU loses in this scenario: no seeding change but MSU loses share of conference title
If Wisconsin loses in this scenario: no change

B) Ohio State, Indiana win

1. IU
2. OSU
3. MSU
4. UW
5. UM

If MSU loses in this scenario: no change 
If Wisconsin loses in this scenario: UM gets 4-seed, UW gets 5-seed

C) Illinois, Indiana win

1. IU
2. MSU
3. UW
4. OSU
5. UM

If MSU loses in this scenario: OSU gets 3-seed, UW gets 4-seed 
If Wisconsin loses in this scenario: OSU gets 3-seed, UM gets 4-seed, UW gets 5-seed

D) Illinois, Michigan win

1. IU
2. UM
3. MSU
4. UW
5. OSU

If MSU loses in this scenario: OSU gets 4-seed, UW gets 5seed, MSU loses share of conference title
If Wisconsin loses in this scenario: OSU gets 4-seed, UW gets 5-seed

Note: Green Bolding denotes a share of the conference championship

Further Breakdown: Big Ten Scenarios and Tournament Seeding

With Ohio State's win over Indiana last night the picture for the B1G title and tournament seeding got a lot more interesting with several teams' hopes likely coming down to Sunday's match-up between Indiana and Michigan.  On Monday, I looked at scenarios based on outcomes of three games.  One of those games was the IU-OSU game so now I am looking a little deeper since I can make some stronger assumptions.  The remaining games involving teams with title (and Thursday tourney bye) hopes are:

March 6: UM @ Purdue
March 7: UW @ MSU
March 10: UW @ PSU, UI @ OSU, IU @ UM, NU @ MSU

For the scenarios, I am only considering the yellow-bolded games.  I am now including the Illinois-Ohio State game.  As I said on Monday, the other games are "handle your business" games.  Sure, anything can happen but it just opens up too many (unlikely) possibilities. So here are the eight most likely scenarios and the resulting Big Ten tournament seedings. Teams that take a piece of the conference title are green-bolded.

Scenarios:

A) Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana win

1. IU
2. UW
3. OSU
4. MSU
5. UM

B) Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan win

1. UW
2. IU
3. UM
4. OSU
5. MSU

C) Wisconsin, Ohio State, Michigan win

1. UW
2. UM
3. OSU
4. IU
5. MSU

D) Wisconsin, Ohio State, Indiana win

1. IU
2. UW
3. OSU
4. MSU
5. UM

E) Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan win

1. IU
2. OSU
3. UM
4. MSU
5. UW

F) Michigan State, Ohio State, Indiana win

1. IU
2. OSU
3. MSU
4. UW
5. UM

G) Michigan State, Illinois, Indiana win

1. IU
2. MSU
3. UW
4. OSU
5. UM

H) Michigan State, Illinois, Michigan win

1. IU
2. UM
3. MSU
4. UW
5. OSU

 Bullet Points:

• Again, the Indiana-Michigan match-up will answer most questions.  An Indiana win secures them the outright title and relegates Michigan to a Thursday tournament game.  An Indiana loss opens the door to a three or four-way tie for the crown.
• I have commented on the imbalance of the schedule before.  Of the five contenders, Wisconsin benefits by playing Indiana and Michigan only once.  To their credit, they won both contests which gives them a huge advantage in tie-breaking procedures.
• For Michigan State and Michigan fans, scenarios A, D & H likely set up a tournament rematch between those teams.

Big Ten Scenarios and Tournament Seeding

The B1G hoops season has one week to go with five teams in the mix for a piece of the title and one of the top four seeds in the conference tournament.  Indiana has locked up at least a share and can win the conference outright with either a win at home against Ohio State or at Michigan.  The other four, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Wisconsin are also battling for a Thursday bye in the conference tournament as they jockey for a more favorable NCAA seeding.

In the next week, these five teams play seven games amongst themselves. Seven games means there are 128 potential possible endings (2^7) to the regular season.  The games to be played are:

March 5: OSU @ IU
March 6: UM @ Purdue
March 7: UW @ MSU
March 10: UW @ PSU, UI @ OSU, IU @ UM, NU @ MSU

128 possibilities is far too much to look at but luckily each outcome is not equally likely.  Four of the above games are "handle your business" games (they are the un-bolded games); if those teams handle their business, the league finish will get decided by three games with eight (2^3) more or less equally likely scenarios.  I know it's the B1G and handling your business is not always just that.  Should any one of the teams lose games they are expected to win they would likely drop to fifth place and lose a bye in the conference tourney.  If multiple teams fail to handle their business, well it becomes a shit-storm and you can throw this whole thing out the window.

Bullet Points:

• Today, Indiana has a better than 75% chance of winning the conference outright.  Tuesday's game against OSU will decide a lot and is arguably the least in doubt of the big three (yellow bolded) games.
• If all teams handle their business, Michigan will need to beat Indiana to avoid the 5-seed regardless of anything else. They really get stung by tie-breakers having lost their only game against Wisconsin.
• If Indiana beats OSU on Tuesday, the title is decided leaving the other teams scrapping for a tournament bye with four scenarios.  In two of those scenarios, Michigan falls to the 5-seed. In another scenario, OSU gets the 5-seed.  In the final scenario where MSU loses to Wisconsin, MSU and OSU would go deep into tie-breakers for fourth place relying on the finish of Minnesota and/or Illinois.
• If OSU and Michigan both beat Indiana, it likely creates a four-way tie and the MSU-UW game becomes very important with the winner sharing the B1G title and the loser falling to the 5-seed.  Wisconsin would also get the #1 seed with a win over MSU.

Disclaimer: This all relies on my proper interpretation of the B1G tie-break procedures which I got here.  Go State.

Information Markets on Romney Running Mate Pick: Meh

With Mitt Romney's announcement of Paul Ryan as his running mate for the upcoming election, the information market has answered with an emphatic "whatever".  As of Thursday, Romney's predicted chance to win the upcoming election had gone as low as 38.0%, its lowest since May 22nd.  After Romney's announcement this morning that Wisconsin State Rep Paul Ryan would be his running mate, his win percentage has increased to 39.6% (an increase of .8% on the day).  While it is doubtful the Romney campaign missed out on a home run, it at least avoided a Palin-esque disaster.

Edit: Since I posted this, Romney's .8% gain had swung into the negative for the day.

Link to Intrade for stat geeks:
Closing Prices chart - Mitt Romney to be elected President in 2012

JB = JT

Confession.  I just watched the (new? idk) Justy Biebs video.  There was a link. It said he got pummeled by a "bad-boy actor".  Either way I win. Either 1) I see Bieber get what he's got coming. Or 2) I see an out-of-work actor look stupid. Or 3) I see an out-of-work-actor redeem himself (if only in a Biebs video)  Video here:



I've been on the record for a while as saying that I don't get the whole Bieber thing. Where did he come from? Why do people like him? Etc. After watching this, I get it, kinda. He's pulling up Justin Timberlake's slack. Now I'm not saying he's lost it but JT hasn't done much in awhile aside from chase a movie role here and there. Timberlake is a talent. He can act. But don't think that his real talent isn't on the song and dance side. So back to Biebs though. Has pop music become entirely derivative?  I didn't do so great in calculus so I apologize if I am re-RE-stating the obvious. My original question though, who the frick is Justin Bieber? If you're looking for a JT fill-in, is the best you can do? Or is this just as good as you have to do?

If you read it on the internet, it must be true

Dusting off the old blog again.  This time, I got called out for calling out the verisimilitude of an article on breitbart.com regarding the declining unemployment rate and newly elected republican governors.  The article is here. It's a two minute read, I encourage you to check it out before continuing.  The "calling out" is here:

I'll begin by restating that I don't doubt any of the unemployment statistics given.  I searched unsuccessfully for the numbers because I wanted to see ALL of the unemployment stats but I have no reason to believe the ones presented aren't correct.  I do however have numerous problems with the presentation, analysis and conclusion.   

1. Flawed- The article argues that the 17 states are reducing unemployment 50% faster than the rest of the country.  The U.S average decline is .9%.  Add up the total percentage declines and divide by 17 and you get 1.35%, 50% better than the country.  If you can't see how this math is wrong, I'll offer up a baseball analogy: Say your first-baseman has been slumping all season; he is batting .200 (20%).  At some point mid-season, you bring in a pinch hitter who in his first and only at-bat gets a hit.  What is the collective batting average of your first-basemen?  By the article's math, your first-basemen are collectively batting .600 ([.200+1.000]/2).  Obviously wrong.  When I look at the list of states, I see three states that are squarely in the top half of the country by size (Pennsylvania, Florida & Ohio with possible inclusion of Michigan and Georgia).  So what we have is a collection of states dominated by the little guys.  Maine anyone?  And while those three big states did have big declines, they were already outliers with high unemployment that were reverting to the mean.
2. Lazy- If you click the link in the article to the examiner.com you'll see that this is merely a summing up of another article with most of the same problems that I am pointing out here.  The breitbart piece does manage to omit the performance of the new democratic governors.
3. Incomplete- What would make this story stronger?  Maybe the whole story.  Whatever that is.  How about looking at all the states?  States with incumbent republicans and democrats or where new leaders have taken over for the incumbent party.  How about just a glance at the numbers from the other side?  Unemployment fell in all states with new-party governors except one.  I would also point out, from the numbers provided, that 29% of the new republicans have seen unemployment drops below the national rate while democrats are a bit worse at 38%.  Clearly electing a republican over a democrat is not the sure shot to reducing unemployment... if the governor or their policies are indeed what is driving down unemployment.  Which leads me to my last point...
4. Correlation does not prove causation-  It's the cardinal rule when using statistics.  Just because X frequently appears with Y, does not mean X causes Y.  But read the last line of the story: "This is yet another example of how the so-called “blue state” model is not working." What ever that model is.  What exactly is the red-state model that IS working?  I think the issues here are a bit more complicated than an imagined cookie-cutter model of governance.  

The story certainly provides a neat and intriguing headline and a seemingly concise take-away, just as long as you don't think about it too much.