With eleven games to play in the NCAA basketball tournament, we (me and @statsbylopez) find our team in second place in the March Madness Machine learning contest, a mere 0.00365 behind the leader Grimp Whelkin.  So, we’re 0.00365 away from $15K.

What’s really impressive though, is that both of our entries are doing so well.  Our best entry is currently at 0.47589 and good for second place, but our other entry is at 0.48081, which would STILL BE GOOD FOR SECOND PLACE.  (Maybe we’re on to something here?)  This is good news as we have TWO realistic ways to win this $15K.  One of our models is big on Virginia and the other is big on Michigan State.  It’s possible that our other submission actually moves ahead of our other submission and becomes our scoring submission.

I’m not sure I can handle finishing second for $15K.  I’d rather have finished 100th just so I don’t have to worry so much about this (that’s not true of course.  I’m gonna brag about this forever.)

I do hope Kaggle will release winning scenarios for the top 10 prior to the Final Four so that we can at least use that info to hedge our bets.  Though I’d guess they aren’t going to do this.

Cheers.