The odds favor math team for choosing underdog winners

Math professors Kevin Hutson, John Harris and Liz Bouzarth have been analyzing NCAA basketball data for 10 years, helping national sports reporters Peter Keating and Jordan Brenner inform their readers about the most likely upsets. This year, with the additional excitement of the Paladins men’s basketball team making the NCAA tournament, local TV stations WSPA and WYFF came to campus to do a story about the mathematicians. WYFF ran different stories during their newscasts at 4, 5 and 6.

The story was picked up by NBC stations across the country, including KPRC in Houston; KARE in Minneapolis; KGW in Portland, Oregon; WAVY in Norfolk; WGRZ in Buffalo; WCNC in Charlotte; WMC in Memphis; KSNW in Wichita, Kansas; KTEN in Sherman, Texas; WAGT in Augusta, Georgia; WNDU in South Bend, Indiana; KWQC in Davenport, Iowa; KNWA in Fort Smith, Arkansas; WBBH in Fort Myers, Florida; KTAL in Shreveport, Louisiana; WBOY in Clarksburg, West Virginia; WBIR in Knoxville; WAND in Champaign, Illinois; WJFW in Wausau, Wisconsin; KSNT in Topeka, Kansas; WRCB in Chattanooga; KBJR in Duluth, Minnesota; WHIZ in Zanesville, Ohio; WVIR in Charlottesville, Virginia; WKTV in Utica, New York; and KCEN in Waco, Texas.