Computer system consistently makes most accurate NCAA picks

LRMC seems to have a particular knack for predicting good bubble teams and identifying the top teams. In addition to correctly picking the Final Four, LRMC also correctly identified several over-rated and under-rated teams as potential upsets. First-round losers Drake (5-seed, LRMC #30), Vanderbilt (4-seed, LRMC #38), and Connecticut (4-seed, LRMC #26), as well as second-round loser Georgetown (2-seed, LRMC #12), were all picked by LRMC as significantly over-rated teams.

On the other hand, teams like West Virginia (7-seed, LRMC #17), which defeated second-seeded Duke, and Kansas State (11-seed, LRMC #19), which defeated sixth-seeded USC, were correctly identified by LRMC as under-rated teams that could pull off one or more upsets.

But LRMC isn't perfect — it picked Clemson as under-rated (upset in the first round) and Davidson wasn’t identified as under-rated by any major ranking method, including LRMC.

LRMC differs from other computer rankings systems in two important ways. When determining the value of home court advantage, LRMC considers how much playing at home helps a team win rather than how many points playing on a home court is worth.

Georgia Tech researchers have also been able to show that very close games are often “toss-ups,” meaning the better team barely wins more than half the time. So, they determined that winning a close game shouldn’t be worth as much as winning easily, and losing a close game shouldn’t hurt a team’s ranking as much as losing badly. LRMC’s ranking methodology takes this into account.

Similar to other rankings systems, LRMC also uses the quality of each team’s results and the strength of each team’s schedule to rank teams.

So which team does LRMC favor for the top spot this year? It’s chosen Kansas, despite UNC, UCLA and Memphis being the top three ranked teams by most systems.