Comment on Open Thread: March 2010

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:33:45 GMT

Is this supposed to be obvious to people unfamiliar with college basketball in general and that tournament in particular?

Yes

The odds (if I understand the correctly) imply break even probabilities that add up to about 0.94, which implies that a bookmaker offering those odds would on average lose money, but that's close enough to not be remarkably stupid for a journalist.

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If the tournament is single elimination knockout, and the figures in brackets are win-loss record against roughly comparable opponents the odds for the sleepers and long-shots seem insanely good. South Florida in particular.

This is also true. But the mistake I was thinking of was the first one.

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