Microsoft catches March Madness -- Bing is ultimate NCAA basketball bracketology tool
While I did graduate from the world-renowned Stony Brook University, it took me longer than usual. Sadly, I was what you would call a "higher education adult learner", meaning I was older than most of the students and only went part-time because I had to work a job. This wasn't a bad thing from a learning perspective, but I did not get to participate in the full college experience. In other words, I was working while the younger students were participating in clubs and watching sporting events. Truth be told, I am a huge basketball fan, and I regret not going to any games while attending.
Luckily, my alma mater is only one win away from going to the big tournament for the first time ever. Yes, if the Stony Brook Seawolves defeat Albany on Sunday, we get to experience the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. Even if they don't make it, I can still enjoy watching the games, but more importantly I can enjoy building my brackets. If you aren't familiar, this means picking the teams that will win and advance in the tournament. For some, picking winners (and gambling) is more fun than the actual sport! This year, Microsoft has partnered with the NCAA to make Bing the official bracket data partner. Will the search-engine pick winners?
"As part of this partnership, NCAA has pulled 10 years of raw historical data about teams, tournaments, win loss ratio, home vs. away stats, etc. and provided it to Microsoft's Walter Sun, principal applied science manager, to analyze and review. After culling through the information, running through Bing's algorithms and leveraging machine learning, Walter and his team have been able to identify key patterns over the years that contribute to a team's success", says The Bing Team.
Keith Martin, NCAA managing director of marketing and broadcast alliances explains, "we're pleased to add Bing and its parent company Microsoft to our NCAA Corporate Partner Program as the official bracket data partner of the NCAA. Bing's search services will allow fans to have some fun as they access data for their bracket selections. This new technology provides information that allows our fans to be more analytical after Selection Sunday".
Believe it or not, 62 percent of people create their brackets using only their guts. This upcoming Sunday, Bing's analysis will be available for those looking to build their brackets. In other words, you can use data, science and math to pick winners, rather than picking at random.
The Microsoft search-engine will even have an official NCAA bracket building tool that will hopefully lead to successful selections. Unfortunately, the tool is not a secret; if you use it, so too might the people you are competing against. With that said, you may not want to tell your friends or co-workers!
Will you use Bing to build your brackets? Tell me in the comments.
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