Rating Systems and March Madness Brackets, Part III

There's still time to join the RationalPastime.com ESPN Tournament Challenge group. Open to everyone, brackets lock at the beginning of Thursday's games.

To round out our look at the different rating methodologies and how they apply to brackets (Part I, Part II), we analyze three more systems: the Nolan Power Index, the ESPN National Bracket (as of Noon EDT Wednesday, subject to change), and the Vegas odds for winning the region and the Final Four.

The Nolan Power Index is a power rating system, but NPI isn't nearly as chalky as other power systems such as Moore, Sagarin or Pomeroy. Nolan is particularly aggressive with some upsets: they have UAB beating West Virginia (assuming UAB wins their play-in), Richmond topping Vanderbilt, Utah State over Kansas State, Belmont shocking Wisconsin, and Gonzaga advancing against St. John's. Beyond that, they actually have Richmond advancing to the Sweet Sixteen and Utah State advancing to the Elite Eight.

The other two brackets--Vegas and ESPN National--are almost pure chalk. This is unsurprising, but it's notable that most of the power systems agree with the crowd-sourced systems.

Upset Index (Seed Differential * [2 ^ Round / 2])
	Field 64	Field 32	Sweet 16	Elite 8	Overall
Vegas	6	0	0	0	6
ESPN National Bracket	5	0	4	0	9
Sonny Moore	8	0	4	0	12
FiveThirtyEight	14	0	4	0	18
Jeff Sagarin	14	0	8	0	22
Pomeroy	25	0	12	0	37
NCAA	9	16	4	24	53
ESPN Decision Tree	27	22	12	16	77
Lunardi RPI	25	8	40	8	81
Nolan Power Index	30	16	52	8	106
LRMC Bayesian	34	12	72	80	198
Mean	19	7	19	12	57

None of the final three systems offer a new perspective on the final four. Vegas and the ESPN community agree with most of the systems, and the NPI system predicts the same Final Four as NCAA Official RPI.

Final Four Picks	East	West	Southwest	Southeast
Vegas	OSU (1)	Duke (1)	Kansas (1)	Pitt (1)
ESPN National Bracket	OSU (1)	Duke (1)	Kansas (1)	Pitt (1)
Sonny Moore	OSU (1)	Duke (1)	Kansas (1)	Pitt (1)
FiveThirtyEight	OSU (1)	Duke (1)	Kansas (1)	Pitt (1)
Jeff Sagarin	OSU (1)	Duke (1)	Kansas (1)	Pitt (1)
Pomeroy	OSU (1)	Duke (1)	Kansas (1)	Pitt (1)
NCAA	OSU (1)	SDSU (2)	Kansas (1)	BYU (3)
ESPN Decision Tree	OSU (1)	Duke (1)	Kansas (1)	BYU (3)
Lunardi RPI	OSU (1)	Texas (4)	Kansas (1)	BYU (3)
Nolan Power Index	OSU (1)	SDSU (2)	Kansas (1)	BYU (3)
LRMC Bayesian	OSU (1)	Duke (1)	Kansas (1)	Belmont (13)

Check out the details on the upset picks for each system after the jump. Picks for other systems available in Parts I and II of this series.
 

Vegas: 6
Field 64	Field 32	Sweet 16	Elite 8
Villanova (9)	None	None	None
George Mason (8)
Tennessee (9)
Michigan (8)
Old Dominion (9)
Butler (8)
Michigan St (10)
UCLA (7)
ESPN National Bracket: 9
Field 64	Field 32	Sweet 16	Elite 8
Villanova (9)	None	Connecticut (3)
George Mason (8)		San Diego St (2)
Tennessee (9)
Michigan (8)
Illinois (9)
UNLV (8)
Michigan St (10)
UCLA (7)
Nolan Power Index: 106
Field 64	Field 32	Sweet 16	Elite 8
UAB (12)	Richmond (12)	Purdue (3)	San Diego St (2)
West Virginia (5)	Louisville (4)	Notre Dame (2)	Duke (1)
Tennessee (9)		Utah St (12)
Michigan (8)		Pittsburgh (1)
Richmond (12)		BYU (3)
Vanderbilt (5)		Florida (2)
Old Dominion (9)
Butler (8)
Utah St (12)
Kansas St (5)
Belmont (13)
Wisconsin (4)
Gonzaga (11)
St. John's (6)

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