Eric Chemi of CNBC has an article out today titled The barely undefeated, about-to-lose Kentucky Wildcats.
In his article, Chemi says the 15-0 Wildcats are “completely over-hyped” and adds that we should “look out for a loss” soon.
To support his comments, Chemi spoke to a math wiz who gave Kentucky a 13% chance of finishing the season undefeated.
Here is an excerpt:
The data comes from Ed Feng, founder of the Power Rank, a sports data information service. Feng holds a Ph.D. and is a math whiz. He admits that Kentucky in any given game should be the winner.
The only problem is that the accumulated effect of those probabilities suggests they will lose at least once along the way. Even if they had a 90 percent chance of winning each game, the numbers would suggests they should lose one time out of every 10.
Over the course of the season, Kentucky only has a 13 percent chance of winning every game. (The UCLA Bruins has the longest winning streak in college hoops, with 88 consecutive wins from 1971 to 1974.)
“I think Kentucky is off to a hot start this season,” said Feng. “It’s the opposite of last season, when they started preseason No. 1, but struggled during the regular season.” Feng points out that “they only really played well in the tournament,” and his analysis of the numbers shows that this year, “the real Kentucky is somewhere between last year’s and this year’s team.”
