[BostonCard]

Watching Miss vs. Arizona last night, Roxy Bernstein said the winner of first game in Super Regionals has an 81% chance of going to Omaha.

Statistically that is not quite as impressive as it may appear.

Imagine, two teams so even matched that each team has a 50% chance to win the game against their opponent.   These two similar teams then play a best of three series.  In that scenario, the team that wins the first game has a 75% chance to win the series.   

Then I am sure in most cases the better team/better seed/home team is the winner of game one most of the time.   So when you add in the possibility that in many cases the winner of the first game is simply better or playing at home moving from 75% to 81% is not that amazing.

FWIW - During the WCWS they went on and on about similar percentages on reaching the championship series for the teams that go 2-0 to get to the semifinals.  And then introduced similar percentages when FSU won game #1.    The 80% team ultimately lost in all three of those 80/20 chances.

That sounds about right, though.  It suggests that the winner of the first game has a 55% chance of winning the second (or, if necessary) the third game.  Of course, that 55% is the weighted average of the "better" team winning the first game, which will happen somewhat more than 55% of the time, and the "weaker" team winning the first game, which will happen somewhat less than 45% of the time.

BC

[BostonCard]

Watching Miss vs. Arizona last night, Roxy Bernstein said the winner of first game in Super Regionals has an 81% chance of going to Omaha.

Statistically that is not quite as impressive as it may appear.

Imagine, two teams so even matched that each team has a 50% chance to win the game against their opponent.   These two similar teams then play a best of three series.  In that scenario, the team that wins the first game has a 75% chance to win the series.   

Then I am sure in most cases the better team/better seed/home team is the winner of game one most of the time.   So when you add in the possibility that in many cases the winner of the first game is simply better or playing at home moving from 75% to 81% is not that amazing.

FWIW - During the WCWS they went on and on about similar percentages on reaching the championship series for the teams that go 2-0 to get to the semifinals.  And then introduced similar percentages when FSU won game #1.    The 80% team ultimately lost in all three of those 80/20 chances.

That sounds about right, though.  It suggests that the winner of the first game has a 55% chance of winning the second (or, if necessary) the third game.  Of course, that 55% is the weighted average of the "better" team winning the first game, which will happen somewhat more than 55% of the time, and the "weaker" team winning the first game, which will happen somewhat less than 45% of the time.

BC