This year, in lieu of a full basketball prediction contest, we ran a simple one: what will Carleton's average margin of victory be in their OUA East games?
Predictions ranged from 12 (huh?) to 47 (that's more like it), and when the games were completed, Carleton ended up winning all 14 of them, by an average margin of 42.2 points.
One person guessed 43 points: Ralph Dewar, whose son plays for the University of Alberta, and who says he keeps "loose track" of what is happening in Ontario. He certainly pays enough attention to recognize this is one of Carleton's better teams, and that strength, combined with their weaker competition this year, was enough push them above the 40-point mark. Last year, the Ravens won by "merely" 36 points on average.
(Peter James's fleeting success continues to elude him, with his prediction of 27.3. He must have misread this as "average margin of victory in first three quarters.")
As it happens, someone else predicted 41.4 points (technically farther away from the right answer than 43 is, due to rounding in the 42.2 number) and if Carleton had scored one fewer point in any game (or allowed one more point), then the title would have been taken away from Mr. Dewar and given to ... let's see here ... oh, me.
Congratulations to the winner, and thanks to all who entered, even those of you who guessed a number lower than 20.
My theory, proven wrong, was that uOttawa would play the Ravens close twice and bring down the average margin. As it turns out, even if that did happen, I'd still have been off by double digits. . . .
ReplyDeleteAny chance of a list of the predictions?
ReplyDeleteSure thing:
ReplyDelete12
14
15
16
21
23
23
24
26
26
27
27.3
28
29
32
34
35
35
35
35.857142
38
41
41
41.4
43
45
47
It boggles the mind that anyone would pick an average margin of under 20.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I didn't include the names (well, that and the privacy thing, too)... although the lowest prediction from someone who left a name was 26.
Delete