The NCAA Men’s basketball tournament is almost upon us. Time to fill out your brackets and cheer for your favorite teams. I have filled out my bracket, but as an economist, I can’t do this as any normal person would. I have used some quantitiative measures in order to rank the teams. The teams are ranked according the to the JRI (Jason Ratings Index):
- JRI=(AMV) *log(200-SOS)
AMV is the ‘Average Margin of Victory’ for each team and SOS is the team’s Strength of Schedule ranking according to the RPI index. Any team with a strength of schedule below 199 (see George Washington) I predict to lose. Here are my top ten teams in the tournament with the JRI in parenthesis:
- Texas (35.1)
- UConn (34.7)
- Memphis (33.6)
- Duke (31.0)
- Florida (30.6)
- Kansas (30.1)
- Villanova (26.5)
- UNC (26.2)
- Illinois (26.0)
- Washington (25.8)
My predicted final four is Texas, UConn, Memphis, and Florida. I have picked Texas over UConn in the finals. My upset specials (which are predicted by the JRI) are that Nevada and Xavier will get to the sweet sixteen.
Despite these quantitative predictions, I would love it if Penn, Marquette, Wisconsin, or UW-Milwaukee made it to the final four. Go Quakers!