Posts by Shane Ryan
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Is Virginia the Least-Respected Great Team in College Hoops History?
Tony Bennett’s team played in a relatively strong conference, and it dominated. Virginia finished 16-2 in the ACC, and when that wasn’t enough for conference writers to show any respect, it went out and won the conference tournament without breaking much of a sweat. This is not a fluke. Virginia is legitimately strong, and the lack of respect is puzzling.
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Inventing a Fun Sweet 16 Pool: The White Whale of Sports Gambling
Shane Ryan and Spike Friedman exchanged emails in an attempt to solve the greatest dilemma of our sports gambling lives.
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Evaluating (and Improving) the MoneyBrackets System
Let’s tamp down our emotions, put on our analytical hats, and see how things worked out.
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That Thing That Happens to North Carolina State? It Happened Again.
What happened over the final eight minutes is still difficult to believe.
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MoneyBrackets: Win Your Pool by Avoiding These 10 Mistakes
You want to win your bracket pool. I know this. I also know it’s not for the money, or even for “bragging rights.” You want to win for the same reason I want to win: It gives you the temporary feeling that you actually know something, that you are more insightful than the average person.
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Grantland Dictionary: College Basketball Edition
Just in time for March Madness, our helpful guide for all your college basketball watercooler debates and message-board wars.
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Margin Call: Analyzing College Basketball Teams Based on Their Win Projections
Analyzing the regular-season performance of college basketball teams has always been difficult. The vexing problem is how to determine whether a team performed below or above its abilities. It’s a question that seems to exist in a vacuum, because really, what standard could we hold a team to besides our preconceived notions from October, which […]
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The Year We Fell Asleep on Rick Pitino (and Lived to Regret It?)
There’s one team we’ve been ignoring, in a weird hybrid league called the American Athletic Conference, and that team has gradually been climbing the rankings and sneaking up on the rest of the favorites. That seems to happen every year, but what makes this situation unique is that the team is coached by a legend in his prime, and just happened to win the national title in 2013.
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The Invisible Crown: Syracuse and Virginia Meet for the ACC Regular-Season “Title”
Mike Krzyzewski has always emphasized the ACC tournament, and it’s why Duke has won 10 of the last 15 titles. But has Duke truly been the best team in the ACC 10 of the last 15 years? No way.
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Snow Remorse: Carolina Storms to Victory
I just watched Duke, which I believe to be among the best teams in the country, lose a game because of three classic mistakes: choking under pressure, choking under pressure, and choking LIKE STUPID $%#*^$ IDIOTS under pressure.
