While the rest of the [crew][1] sets off for Chicago this weekend, I’ll be sticking it out in my timezone. That gives me an opportunity to collect their predictions, hopes, and (in Koolaid’s case) dreams for the [Uproar on the Lakeshore][2] weekend. While we already know [what Tank thinks][3], I wanted to get a quick perspective from the rest of our derby aficionados.
So I picked the esteemed brains of Chexx, Caesar, Tank, and Koolaid then mixed in the guesses of me, myself, and a mysterious friend who shall remain nameless. That’s 6 unique predictions, some from the “pros” and some- in true derby fashion- stemming from randomness. From these sources I’ve collected win/loss and score predictions for all 12 games of the tournament. But I’m not going to bore you with straight up win/loss predictions- you can get those anywhere. Instead we’re gonna play a numbers game and make pretty visuals!
3 of 6 RDIT contributors choose Gotham to win it all. 1 in 6 is completely nuts. Let’s see how we got here…
How do the Teams Stack Up?
Average points scored and point differential by team
This spider web shows the predicted average number of points a team will score in all the games they’ll play (gray line) and the average point differential they’ll experience over the course of the weekend (red). Of course in this tournament the more a team wins, the more they play- the more they play, the more scores they can average in (and the worse my math gets). So when we’re making predictions on how many times a team will win, the range gets pretty scattered. The best way I can think to compare everyone evenly is to be mean.
Two teams stand out pretty extremely in this graph. It’s obvious RDIT thinks Oly is a scoring powerhouse with the highest predicted PPG and highest average point spread. Nashville is on the receiving end of that situation, though, as they’re picked to not only score the lowest all weekend but lose by the most- but that happens in one game against Oly, what RDIT predicts will be their only match.
Total speculated wins by team (in our predictions).
In all the possible outcomes, who will win the most games over the course of the weekend? Of course the most any team can win is 5- and 1st seed teams only 4. But let’s not be bound by these facts and reality- 6 endorsements for a win possible for each game.
Oly is endorsed to win 19 times, but that’s of a possible 30 endorsements they’d need to be undefeated champs in the tournament (63.3%). Gotham rings in at 15 wins of the 24 possible endorsements for them (62.5%). Rocky Mountain is only endorsed for 12 wins of their 24 (50%).
Unfortunately the Mad Rollin’ Dolls, Nashville, and Windy city didn’t get a single win from our staff.
For those of you paying attention- Kansas City picks up 5 nods of 24 possible (20.8%). They also end up in someone’s 1st place bracket. Those are pretty slim odds, but apparently not out of the realm of possibilities.
What to Expect from the Games
You know how much fun I’ve had watching the Big 5 this year. Are we going to see more of the same or can we expect an exciting weekend? Here’s our predictions:
Fortunately it looks like we’re expecting fewer blow-outs in this tournament than we saw in others. Better yet we’re expecting a high rate of close games and upsets!
Upsets are mostly lower seedings defeating higher, but sometimes it’s completely subjective- based on the outcomes “everybody” is expecting. For example- 1 in 6 of our crew picked Texas over Bay Area. And not to beat a dead horse but one even picks Kansas City over Oly (the big match up standing between KCRW and the championship).
Enough Already – Our Picks for Wins & Placement
By now I’m sure you’ve figured out my grasp of your concepts of “math” and “statistics” are more than a little skewed, but the thing is I love charts (even if I can’t make a sensible one). Now- with more colors and bars than really necessary- I present to you our combined staff picks for winners of each game:
I could write it all out and even make some pretty decent odds from this graph- it would looks like this:
Game 1: BAD over Texas (5:1)
…but you’re all smart enough to know how to do that without me. Of course it gets more complicated toward the end- but that’s why I made easy-peasy pie charts for the top 4 slots (the final round of the tournament:
Philly is a solid contender for 4th place… but that’s as far as they’ll get in our opinion.
Due to Rocky and Gotham contending in the same bracket, one will likely be battling for 3rd place. Seems half of RDIT thinks that 3rd place contender is Rocky.
Oly gets an almost automatic in to the Championship round, but apparently we think they wont be able to retain their reign for another year.
Survey says… Gotham. But only a 50% chance! Apparently Championship title is still anybody’s game.
In Conclusion…
Through this I hope we’ve learned there are very few guaranteed outcomes in this tournament, numbers just make everything more complicated, and math is hard. Numbers get me excited, though, and I can’t wait to see how our staff predictions pan out.
I’ll be posting updates as the weekend progresses and our predictions pan out or destroy our brackets. Maybe I’ll even come up with a prize for the RDIT writer who produced the most accurate results. Probably not, though- they all get to party in Chicago and that’s reward enough.