Friday, October 31, 2003

11:45 AM  
Very few games make the cut this weekend, Only 3 NCAA and 1 NFL
Nevada -6
Kansas +10
Washington St. +12
Dallas Cowboys -4

Thursday, October 30, 2003

3:40 PM  
I've been working at a fast and furious pace this week. Things I have been working on:

Stroke pathology & Cognition and Alzheiemer's disease in the Religious Orders Study

Blood pressure & Cognition and Alzheimer's disease in the Religious Orders Study

Race & change in disability in the Chicago Health and Aging Project

Cholesterol and G protein subtypes & cognitive impairment at time of death

Another that I am about to start that could have interesting results is
left/right handedness and change in cognitive function in the Chicago Health and Aging Project.

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

11:03 AM  
I wasn't wrong about the NFL line last week, they were off and it allowed my NFL picks to go 6-2 this past weekend, finally getting the pro picks above .500. I went 4-4 in college games for the 3rd straight week.
Results-- NCAA: 27-21, NFL: 13-12-2, Combined: 40-33-2

In about an hour I am going to a seminar by Scott Zeger. Zeger is one of the authors of a heavily referenced book on longitudinal data analysis. Something that we do all the time in my work.


Friday, October 24, 2003

12:42 PM  
The stock market is continuing the rather large slide I predicted last week. The good news is that I believe it is at least half way or more to where it will end up. I am hoping that today will be the last large drop and next week will see things begin to stabilize.

9:50 AM  
There is something very weird about the NFL lines this week. Do they know some things that the computers can't pick up? Five of these games come up as the biggest plays of the year.
Denver +1.5
Tennessee -3.5
Minnesota -5.5
Carolina +2
St. Louis +1.5
Kansas City -6.5
New England -5.5
Miami -3

Thursday, October 23, 2003

11:47 AM  
I don't have a lot of confidence in these picks but here they are.
Ball St. +12.5
Baylor +33
central Michigan +7
Clemson -13.5
TCU -5.5
Iowa -10.5
UCLA -3
Washington St. -8

Wednesday, October 22, 2003

6:18 PM  
My prediction for a downturn in the stock market last week has turned out to be very accurate so far. I predicted about 3 weeks of decreased growth and since then we have seen 1 week of that so far.

3:08 PM  
I've been staying busy lately.
Last week I had my second consecutive 4-4 week.
Totals- NCAA: 23-17, NFL, 7-10-2, Combined: 30-27-2.

The NFL seems especially hard to figure out this season. I thought last week's picks were going to do really well but teams expected to cover lost outright. The computers had a hard time even picking the winners.

Friday, October 17, 2003

12:20 PM  
I was going to post this yesterday but I forgot to.
I am predicting that the stock market is going to go into a 2 to 3 week slowdown beginning yesterday, today or Monday. It actually has already begun but today is going to be the first day it is noticable. I don't know how much it will drop but I am expecting something like a drop of 3% over the next three weeks before things will turn upwards again.

12:06 PM  
"Waiting for the Cubs to win the World Series is like leaving the porch light on for Jimmy Hoffa."--Bob Costas

10:47 AM  
The NFL picks of the week look pretty good.
Carolina -1.5
Cleveland -5.5
Kansas City -3.5

Thursday, October 16, 2003

11:20 AM  
You may be able to tell from my lack of mentioning them but I was never on the Cubs bandwagon. Bandwagons never have enough gas to make it to the promised land. The city of Chicago was in a frenzy over the cubs the last few weeks. Even people that knew nothing about baseball were sucked into it due to the mob mentality. The Cubs may very well win soon but this was never going to be their year.

There are as many as 10 games to choose from this week. I am going to list 8 of them.
Houston -5
Clemson +5.5
Oregon St. -10.5
Navy -3.5
Boise St. -23.5
Georgia -24
Akron -5
Ohio +16.5

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

1:23 PM  
I had a .500 weekend.
Year to date totals - NCAA 19-13, NFL: 6-8-2, Combined 25-21-2

Friday, October 10, 2003

4:56 PM  
I have updated the correlations pages. These show which ratings are most correlated with other ratings.

12:59 PM  
Here's a couple of good stories about quarterback play that Bill Parcells gave yesterday in a press conference.

10:17 AM  
I have added both a college game and a pro game to the list of picks below. A couple of notes about the college games, two of them would now no longer be considered picks by the system, they are the Oklahoma and Purdue picks. But since I have already posted them I will leave them in there. Things still lean in the direction of those teams just not as strongly as before.
Last night it looked like South Carolina was going to cover easily but a push by Kentucky in the 4th quarter allowed them come back to within 6. It always seems that I miss the early games and then get all the late games correct.

Thursday, October 09, 2003

11:18 AM  
"My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition." --Indira Gandhi

10:46 AM  
There are a lot of good college games this weekend. Florida St./Miami is the most important game with both teams coming in undefeated. I'll give the edge to the home team, Florida St. LSU/Florida should be interesting but LSU looks to be the team to beat in the SEC this year. Tennessee/Georgia is another big SEC game taking place this weekend. That one is too tough to call, I would say Georgia but since the game is at Tennessee I don't know. An interesting game for me will be Baylor at Texas A&M. I want to see how bad A&M really is this year. Another big game this weekend is Texas/Oklahoma. This is a rivalry I remember well. Growing up in the Dallas area I know all about this game and how it is annually played at the Texas state fair.

Here are my suggested games this week. There is a lot ot choose from.
Connecticut +16
Oklahoma -6
Purdue -11.5
South Carolina -7.5
Baylor +20.5
Navy +5.5
Ohio St. -2.5
Fresno St. +4

Kansas City +1.5
Miami -3
Atlanta +11
Denver -6.5

Tuesday, October 07, 2003

1:53 PM  
I stayed up late watching the end of the Bucs/Colts Monday Night Football game. A huge comeback by the Colts. I must also say it has to have been the worst officiated game that I have ever seen.

I am adding several systems to the predictions this week in both NCAA and NFL.
At this point in the season this is likely going to make the estimate of the average a little shakey and the standard deviation a little large. It's always a judgment call about when to start including systems that are based completely on the current season because it takes a while for them to become zoned in. But my purpose here is just to collect and monitor the predictions, not to use them to make picks against the line. If you want to do that you can always do it on your own and use any subset you wish.

Monday, October 06, 2003

4:16 PM  
I have some big vacation news. I have signed up to raft the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon next May. I can't wait. I'll have more details over the next 6 months. I barely got the trip I wanted, there were only 2 spots still available.

My picks went .500 this week, the worst week of the season to date;
NCAA: 15-9, NFL: 4-6-2, Total: 19-15-2

Friday, October 03, 2003

2:13 PM  
My host changed the domain name and didn't tell me so I had trouble connecting the last couple of days.

Thursday, October 02, 2003

3:07 PM  
Picks for this week:
Fresno St. +6 over Colorado St.
Northern Illinois -21.5 over Ohio
Purdue -14 over Illinois
Miami Ohio -16 over Akron

Carolina -6.5 over New Orleans
Seattle +2.5 over Green Bay
Washington +5.5 over Philadelphia

Wednesday, October 01, 2003

4:41 PM  
Here is a link to a study by another statistician here at Rush.