Predictions Check

#2 Florida by 25 over Mississippi State

Florida won by 25.


Wisconsin by 1.5 over #3 Michigan

Wisconsin isn't ranked but should be.  This game is at Wisconsin.

Wisconsin won by 3 in OT.  Did the PM call the correct winner in this game?  Ultimately, yes.  But you could argue that with the game tied at the end of regulation, the prediction was off by -1.5 points, instead of +1.5 points.

#5 Kansas by 6 over Oklahoma.
 
Oklahoma by 6.   Maybe I got the sign on the prediction wrong :-).  I didn't see any of the game, but not a good loss. 

#6 Gonzaga by 23 over Loyola-Marymount

Gonzaga is over-ranked at #6, but LMU is not good.

Gonzaga by 19.

 #8 Miami (FL) by 3 over UNC

This is basically a coin-flip game.  The polls will be expecting Miami to win and will punish them if they lose, but this would actually be a very solid win for them.

Miami won by 26 thanks to an onslaught of threes.  There's no way in a predictor to account for something like Miami hitting 15 of 26 threes.  Coach Larranaga (a personal favorite) is setting all sorts of records at Miami this season, including becoming the only team in the ACC outside of North Carolina to start the conference season 10-0, but talk of a #1 ranking is premature.  After Saturday's games, the PM has Miami at #17. (Sorry, Jay Bilas!) The ACC is weaker than usual this year, and I'm dubious that Miami is in the same class as Florida/Indiana/Michigan.  That said, I'm looking forward to seeing if Coach L can make some noise in the Tournament.

#11 Louisville by 5 over #25 Notre Dame

With 50 seconds to go, Louisville was up 5 on Notre Dame, and I tuned in to confirm the PM's prediction.  Then Jarrod Grant hit three straight threes and an old-fashioned three-point play to send the game to OT.  Five OTs (!) later, Notre Dame won by 3. The Prediction Machine can handle games up to 7OT -- I figured one more than the Syracuse-UConn marathon would be sufficient -- but I was a little worried last night that I would have to extend the code.

The treatment of OT games -- and particularly whether they should be treated as "ties" -- is interesting and I'll probably do a post on that soon.