Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Basketball science
Jeff Gilbert
Gilbert is the sports editor for The Roanoke Times
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It must have been Mr. Banks in my eighth-grade physical science class who enlightened me on matters of the scientific method.
1. Name the problem or question.
Simple enough. Choose the winners in 63 NCAA tournament games.
2. Form an educated guess (hypothesis) of the cause of the problem and make predictions based upon the hypothesis.
No guessing here. Somebody at work makes copies of the NCAA tournament bracket and leaves one on my desk. I know who did it because I have to fill in the blanks and return it to him with a $5 bill before noon on Thursday.
I can predict my first reaction to seeing the bracket will be that I am not going to make my yearly donation to someone else's trip-to-the-beach fund.
I can also predict that later I will tell myself that this is the year I will finally win the pool. So I will find a pen and make my selections and beat the deadline.
3. Test your hypothesis by doing an experiment or study (with proper controls).
This is easy. I will fill out two brackets, picking a few different results in the first two rounds, thereby keeping my emotions under proper control as the tournament progresses.
The Final Fours will have a couple of differences, and the final game will reflect different results. One thing I have proven to myself is that it's more fun to have two entries. When the bracket-busting games ruin one sheet, I still have another that keeps me interested.
Don't let anybody tell you that you must have a single sheet of integrity. Tell them you are conducting a scientific experiment for NASA.
4. Check and interpret your results.
As each final horn is sounded, I circle the winners in red and draw a line through the losers in red.
The more circles you have, the more rocket-scientist like you are. You're no Einstein, but at least you feel smarter.
5. Report your results to the scientific community.
On April 3, the final report is posted, and it doesn't matter what the scientific community thinks.
It only matters if you collect.
