Welcome back, college sports fans, to episode 610, also known as the games of March 12th. We had one women’s team win their conference and punch their NCAA ticket. Congratulations Idaho of the Big Sky Conference. The men had three tickets punched: Idaho (Big Sky Conference), Lehigh (Patriot League), and McNeese (Southland Conference). Congratulations to all of them.
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We keep meaning to write this, but G is getting old and we forget. We use the word “tourney” to describe conference championships. We use the word “tournament” to describe the post-conference title championships (women-NCAA, NIT, WBIT, and men-NCAA, NIT, College Basketball Crown, CBI). The only reason for this is clarity of which type of tournament we are discussing. The words have identical meanings IRL. Tourney is less formal, and while we would never belittle the conference championships, we use that less formal term for them and the more formal tournament for the national titles. Hope that makes sense.
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Today we have 68 games between the women and men, but only one Final – the women’s Southland title. We almost named this post “or Quarterfinal Day” as there are 42 games at that stage. Let’s check them all out.
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Yesterday, the GCR was just 12-6 (.667) predicting the women’s games giving us a total of 79-22 (.782). 18 of the 24 games today have predictions. As a reminder, if the GCR metrics “Score” and “RPIF” agree on a winner, that team will be listed in the Prediction column below. If one of the metrics favors team A while the other metric favors Team B, we list “NO PRED”. So far, reviewing those games, there is no likelihood of one of the metrics being more accurate than the other, when they disagree. While we would prefer to have a prediction for every game, the nearly 50/50 ratio for those “disagreement” games lets us know we are using NO PRED correctly. Here are all the women’s games today.
| CONF | Round | Game (All Times Eastern) | Tipoff | Prediction |
| American | QF | North Texas (18-13/162) / Tulsa (19-11/184) | 1:00 | NO PRED |
| American | QF | UTSA (15-15/210) / South Florida (20-11/85) | 3:30 | South Florida |
| Big West | QF | Fullerton (18-13/164) / Hawaii (20-10/83) | 3:00 | Hawaii |
| Big West | QF | UC Riverside (11-20/253) / UC Davis (22-9/73) | 5:30 | UC Davis |
| C-USA | QF | Liberty (17-12/126) / Sam Houston (18-11/99) | 12:30 | NO PRED |
| C-USA | QF | Missouri St (19-12/143) / Mid Tenn (16-14/185) | 3:00 | Missouri St |
| Coastal | R2 | NC A&T (12-17/213) / William & Mary (16-13/175) | 12:00 | W&M |
| Coastal | R2 | Wilmington (7-23/325) / Monmouth (19-10/101) | 2:30 | Monmouth |
| Coastal | R2 | Hofstra (8-21/305) / Towson (17-13/157) | 6:00 | Towson |
| Coastal | R2 | Hampton (10-20/269) / Elon (15-15/194) | 8:30 | Elon |
| MEAC | QF | NC Central (9-19/297) / Coppin St (9-22/308) | 12:00 | NO PRED |
| MEAC | QF | Morgan St (5-25/347) / Norfolk St (16-13/181) | 2:00 | Norfolk St |
| Missouri Valley | R1 | Indiana St (9-21/315) / S Illinois (10-19/293) | 4:30 | NO PRED |
| Missouri Valley | R1 | Evansville (7-24/335) / IL Chicago (14-17/239) | 7:00 | IL Chicago |
| Missouri Valley | R1 | Valparaiso (0-31/363) / Drake (11-19/264) | 9:30 | Drake |
| Northeast | SF | Long Island (20-10/201) / Mercyhurst (13-15/242) | 7:00 | NO PRED |
| Northeast | SF | Le Moyne (12-20/295) / Fair Dickins (28-4/92) | 7:00 | Fair Dickins |
| Patriot | SF | Army (24-6/70) / Holy Cross (21-9/104) | 6:00 | NO PRED |
| Patriot | SF | Lehigh (16-13/174) / Navy (22-7/82) | 7:00 | Navy |
| SWAC | QF | Jackson St (12-18/282) / Southern (16-13/189) | 11:00am | Southern |
| SWAC | QF | Grambling (13-18/251) / Alabama St (15-14/191) | 5:30 | Alabama St |
| Southland | FINAL | Steph F Austin (24-9/91) / McNeese (28-4/29) | 5:00 | McNeese |
| WAC | QF | Tarleton (13-16/211) / Utah Valley (16-13/163) | 3:00 | Utah Valley |
| WAC | QF | Arlington (11-20/263) / S Utah (19-11/115) | 5:30 | S Utah |
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The men have the lion’s share of games today as well. Yesterday, the GCR was 21-12 (.636) picking the winner bringing the total to 74-39 (.655). The men have produced a lower correct rate every day of the post-season. We are not exactly sure why that is. Even a few years ago, we would have said that the men have more parity than the women, but that has changed a bit. Surely, those teams at the very top in both leagues are substantially better than the next tier, but the next tier is growing larger for the women every year. The other thing to remember is that statistics is not a short-term or reactive type thing. We have a few days of data – certainly not enough to react to by changing formulae or approach. Just an interesting, we hope, observation. Here are the men’s games today.
| CONF | Round | Game (All Times Eastern) | Tipoff | Prediction |
| A10 | R2 | Geo Wash (17-14/164) / Fordham (17-14/211) | 11:30am | Geo Wash |
| A10 | R2 | St Bonaventure (16-16/200) / George Mason (23-8/56) | 2:00 | George Mason |
| A10 | R2 | Rhode Island (16-15/190) / Duquesne (17-14/181) | 5:00 | NO PRED |
| A10 | R2 | Loyola Chicago (9-23/334) / Davidson (19-12/129) | 7:30 | Davidson |
| ACC | QF | NC St (20-12/51) / Virginia (27-4/9) | 12:00 | Virginia |
| ACC | QF | Louisville (23-9/28) / Miami FL (24-7/33) | 2:30 | Louisville |
| ACC | QF | Florida St (18-14/85) / Duke (29-2/2) | 7:00 | Duke |
| ACC | QF | Clemson (23-9/39) / North Carolina (24-7/10) | 9:30 | North Carolina |
| American | R2 | Tulane (18-14/155) / Charlotte (15-16/224) | 7:00 | Tulane |
| American | R2 | FAU (18-14/179) / North Texas (18-13/175) | 9:30 | NO PRED |
| Big Ten | R3 | Iowa (21-11/55) / Ohio St (20-11/46) | 12:00 | Ohio St |
| Big Ten | R3 | Washington (16-16/148) / Wisconsin (22-9/32) | 2:30 | Wisconsin |
| Big Ten | R3 | Northwestern (15-18/173) / Purdue (23-8/21) | 6:30 | Purdue |
| Big Ten | R3 | Rutgers (13-19/227) / UCLA (21-10/42) | 9:00 | UCLA |
| Big 12 | QF | Iowa St (26-6/18) / Texas Tech (22-9/19) | 12:30 | NO PRED |
| Big 12 | QF | UCF (21-10/37) / Arizona (29-2/3) | 3:00 | Arizona |
| Big 12 | QF | BYU (23-10/26) / Houston (26-5/8) | 7:00 | Houston |
| Big 12 | QF | TCU (22-10/44) / Kansas (22-9/20) | 9:30 | Kansas |
| Big East | QF | Providence (15-17/185) / St Johns (25-6/16) | 12:00 | St Johns |
| Big East | QF | Creighton (15-16/143) / Seton Hall (20-11/63) | 2:30 | Seton Hall |
| Big East | QF | Xavier (15-17/172) / UCONN (27-4/4) | 7:00 | UCONN |
| Big East | QF | Georgetown (15-17/168) / Villanova (24-7/23) | 9:30 | Villanova |
| Big West | QF | UC San Diego (23-10/80) / Northridge (19-13/127) | 9:00 | UC San Diego |
| Big West | QF | UC Davis (19-13/132) / Fullerton (17-15/176) | 11:30 | UC Davis |
| C-USA | QF | Mid Tenn (17-14/140) / LA Tech (18-13/182) | 6:30 | Mid Tenn |
| C-USA | QF | Kennesaw St (18-13/153) / W Kentucky (18-13/115) | 9:00 | W Kentucky |
| MAC | QF | UMASS (16-15/169) / Miami OH (31-0/25) | 11:00am | Miami OH |
| MAC | QF | Bowling Green (18-13/150) / Toledo (17-14/116) | 1:30 | Toledo |
| MAC | QF | Buffalo (17-14/167) / Akron (26-5/38) | 4:00 | Akron |
| MAC | QF | Ohio (15-16/193) / Kent St (23-8/53) | 6:30 | Kent St |
| MEAC | QF | SC St (9-21/341) / Norfolk St (15-16/277) | 6:00 | Norfolk St |
| MEAC | QF | MD Eastern (9-22/344) / NC Central (12-17/304) | 8:00 | NC Central |
| Mtn West | QF | UNLV (17-15/135) / Utah St (25-6/22) | 3:00 | Utah St |
| Mtn West | QF | Nevada (21-11/61) / Grand Canyon (20-11/78) | 5:30 | Nevada |
| Mtn West | QF | Colorado St (21-11/81) / San Diego St (20-10/49) | 9:00 | San Diego St |
| Mtn West | QF | San Jose St (9-23/324) / New Mexico (22-9/50) | 11:30 | New Mexico |
| SEC | R2 | Kentucky (20-12/41) / Missouri (20-11/62) | 12:30 | Kentucky |
| SEC | R2 | Auburn (17-15/76) / Tennessee (21-10/36) | 3:00 | Tennessee |
| SEC | R2 | Mississippi (13-19/219) / Georgia (22-9/34) | 7:00 | Georgia |
| SEC | R2 | Oklahoma (18-14/109) / Texas A&M (21-10/57) | 9:30 | Texas A&M |
| SWAC | QF | Alabama A&M (17-14/232) / TX Southern (12-17/286) | 2:00 | Alabama A&M |
| SWAC | QF | Ark Pine Bluff (13-18/282) / Southern (15-16/263) | 8:30 | NO PRED |
| WAC | QF | S Utah (10-21/309) / Arlington (17-13/128) | 9:00 | Arlington |
| WAC | QF | Abilene Chr (14-18/229) / Utah Tech (18-14/144) | 11:30 | Utah Tech |
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That’s it for today. Tune in tomorrow for the beginning of the final weekend before the post-season tournaments. Selection Sunday is March 15th. Thank you for reading and sharing with others, JoJo and G.
