Another damned post on college basketball

TradeSports is wonderful. If I were composing my list of Top 10 favorite sites,it would probably make the list. Basically it's a futures market for events in sports, entertainment, politics, etc. Using collective intelligence, contracts go up in price when the liklihood of an event occurring goes up and vice-versa. So it's fun to see how events such as winning a game change in real-time. Today I'm going to look at some of the futures for the likelihood of winning the national championship in college basketball. This contract is now getting volume that makes the data relevant so I thought I'd talk about my opinions and where I stand on how the community thinks this year's title will go. So let's see some of the teams. Numbers listed are the price of the contract which transpires to a percentage chance of winning the national title.

Florida 17.0: The defending champ and current favorite. They haven't lost in quite a while. Seems like pretty fair odds.

North Carolina 14.1: I'd actually put them slightly ahead of Florida. I know they lost to NC State but I think their overall performance is slightly ahead of Florida. But those are pretty fair odds too.

Ohio State 10.5: Probably getting a lot of play due to everybody knowing Greg Oden. They're very good but I'm not sure I'd currently put them this high.

UCLA 8.7: I'd put the Bruins above Ohio State. Seeing as how they are probably the #1 overall seed if the season ended today, I'm surprised it's this low.

Kansas 6.8: No argument. They're good. They'll have a legitimate chance.

Wisconsin 6.5: Same. They might get a #1 seed so this may be another somewhat low value.

Duke 1.8: I'm torn. A Coach K led team at less than 2%? I still think they're one of the top 10 teams in the country. But they have been struggling a bit lately. We'll have to see how they play when they host UNC.

Texas A&M 3.6: I'm seriously considering buying this contract. This is obscenely low. What do the Aggies have to do to convince everybody? They beat Kansas in Lawrence! They're going to be a Final Four contender. I've been saying it since April. Ignore me at your bracket's risk.

Pittsburgh 3.1: Fair

Arizona 2.2: The way they've played as of late...starting to look too high.

Memphis 1.9: Could be slightly higher.

Georgetown: Same as Memphis. They're both good.

Marquette 1.6: Don't know much about them. But that seems unusually high. I could be wrong though.

Maryland 1.0: No. Too high.

Texas 1.6: Kevin Durant is the best player in the country. There I said it. But if Texas couldn't win the national title last year, how in the world are they going to do it this time. Many are comparing him to Danny Manning and Carmelo Anthony in possibly leading a team single-handedly to the title. But those years were fairly weak competition. They're not even the best team in the state. Durant will put on a show this March. But I fear he won't be around that long.

Indiana 1.0: I think it's too low. The Hoosiers are good.

Oregon 1.6: Hell no. It's a sucker's bet. The Ducks aren't that good and the Pac-10 is overrated. They'll probably end up with a fairly high seed and they'll be primed for a first round upset. You heard it here first.