NCAA March Madness for Men’s Basketball – Optimizing for Tournament Selection

How does the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament Selection Committee pick the teams that get to participate in the tournament each year? And more importantly, is there a mathematical formula out there that we can discover that approximates its choices?

Full StoryApril 10, 2012

Inside the Contracts: 2012 Division I NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament Incentives

Head coaches of teams invited to the Women’s NCCA Tournament stand to gain significant bonuses when their teams make, advance through, or win the tournament. We dove inside the contracts of the Women’s Sweet 16 qualifiers to take a closer…

Full StoryApril 1, 2012

Division I College Athletic Fiscal Efficiencies and Returns: In-Depth Look at NCAA Basketball Expenditures

Part Two of a four-part, fiscal efficiencies series: (Part One: Football Expenditures) (Part Three: Fiscal Trends and Measures) (Part Four: Revenue, Expenditure, and ROI) Building on the previously released study on the FBS football expenditures, this article considers the impact of financial decisions…

Full StoryMarch 20, 2012

Pod System in Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament — What Is the Impact on Performance?

Since the implementation of the pod system in 2002 gave the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament Selection Committee a greater opportunity to keep teams closer to home for first- and second-round tournament games we analyzed the committee’s assignments over the…

Full StoryFebruary 28, 2012

NCAA Men’s College Basketball and Football Coach Attendance Bonuses – Contract Structures between Coach and School

We reviewed nearly 400 contracts in men’s basketball and football for the 2010-2011 season, 77 of which included various attendance incentives. Among this sample, these incentives were categorized three different ways: 1. Based solely on season tickets 2. Other (based…

Full StoryFebruary 7, 2012

Men’s Basketball Summer Camps – Contract Structures between Coach and School

Because camps represent an income stream for coaches, a recruiting pipeline for schools (e.g., Butler) and a branding opportunity for programs, we reviewed nearly 100 men’s basketball head coach contracts from the 2009-2010 season. Below we provide sample language from…

Full StoryNovember 8, 2011

The Role of Alma Mater in Coach Selection and Performance – Men’s Basketball

To consider this question, we analyzed the final results of 629 coaching stints of coaches active in the last ten years – a stint being defined as one coach’s time as the head coach at a single school – with…

Full StorySeptember 13, 2011

Men’s Basketball Coaches’ Family Trees

When an assistant coach becomes a head coach, does he win more if he comes from a successful program? To consider this question, we analyzed the complete staffs of coaches who have reached the Final Four in the last decade…

Full StoryAugust 15, 2011

Winter Sports – Select Star Coaches

Kelly Graves’ Gonzaga squad have recorded all six of the school’s tournament wins in each of the past three years, and became the lowest seeded team ever to reach the Elite Eight with three of those victories this past tournament.…

Full StoryApril 3, 2011

Driving NCAA College Basketball Success: On the Court and in the Box Office