North Carolina Wins 2009 NCAA Tournament 
by Andrew Kerr
March 24, 2009

The fever-pitch of excitement surrounding college basketball's annual NCAA tournament is known as "March Madness." For many fans the thrill is in cheering on their own favorite teams, but for some the excitement lies in predicting who those winners will be—regardless of one's affiliation with the schools playing. Predicting the winners is a game unto itself that allows the spectator to become a participant in the action.

Anyone can make a prediction; after all, a simple coin toss can aid you in forecasting winners and losers. But the more thinking you put into making a prediction the more likely your prediction is going to match reality.

Three Georgia Tech professors—Dr. Joel Sokol, Dr. Paul Kvam, and Dr. George Nemhauser—at the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering have put a lot of thinking into the making of such predictions. They have developed a computer system called LRMC (Logistic Regression Markov Chain) that predicts NCAA victories. Their program's predictions for the Final Four this year are the University of North Carolina vs. the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Memphis vs. the University of Louisville. North Carolina will then face Memphis, and on April 6 North Carolina will go on to win the whole thing.

So now you don't have to watch the rest of the tournament.

No. Really. Last year the computer correctly picked all the Final Four participants as well as the tournament winner. So now you can turn off your television and finally read that book you've been meaning to get to, acquire fluency in a foreign language, or master the ancient craft of ikebana.

If you still don't believe me, consider what is reported on the LRMC web page: "LRMC is right more often: When LRMC and other NCAA tournament ranking methods disagree, the team LRMC ranks higher wins significantly more often than the other method's team." Indeed, the ranking systems LRMC has beaten include official NCAA predictions and media ones (such as the Associated Press, ESPN, and USA Today).

But a counter-argument to my suggestion that you skip the tournament begins to emerge. You might want to tune in if only to see if LRMC does it again. Consider that the NCAA thinks Connecticut will advance to the Final Four, instead of LRMC's Memphis prediction. On Thursday, March 26 both teams play; if they each win they'll battle each other for a spot in the Final Four.

Is that a tingle of excitement? Hmm! I think a little March Madness might be infecting me after all!