Computer Predicts NCAA Tournament Winner, Brackets For All Of March Madness
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- As the Bay Area braces itself to see how far Stanford will go in the NCAA Tournament, a computer programmed by CBS Local Sports has already predicted the Cardinal's fate, and that of all 64 teams, showing Louisville going all the way to beat Florida in the final championship game that occurs in real life Sunday, April 6th.
It's an epic question reminiscent of Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov: Is a computer model better than a human? In both cases, they deal with a model of 64, but one is chess squares while the other is teams with deep archives of stats and numbers to parse.
The "Bracket Predictor" has run over 100,000 simulations on the full tournament, generating detailed stats in the tables here. Additionally, the system is updated after each game, to further fine tune the predictions.
For Stanford fans, if the algorithm is right, unfortunately, the team loses to the second-ranked University of Kansas Jayhawks on Sunday's South Regional. The Jayhawks will look good, but eventually lose to Florida in the penultimate round, again, if microchips and software are to be trusted.
Check back in on this bracket frozen here, and see how accurate the computer modeling turns out to be in April.