SCHWARTZ CROSSROADS

NCAA Social Media Tip Off! Who Would Win?

The Big Dance is about to begin and corporate networks are about to slow to a crawl as employees feverishly work to finish their tournament brackets and then stream the games on Thursday and Friday.

I love the Tourney, but since my beloved Orangemen aren't in this year, I decided to take a slightly different approach - what if The Big Dance was a social media tournament? What if the schools had to compete based on their social media prowess, not their hoop skills?

At 3:00 a.m. last night, I decided to make that thought a reality. I evaluated the field of 64 and had the teams face off solely on social media skills and came up with a power ranking for each school. I kept the NCAA seeds and let them face off.

How was the ranking determined? It was determined by (# of facebook users in the School network/number of students at school according to Wikipedia). Note: Yes that includes alumni, but they count as fans in the stands cheering on the team. And if the students didn't join their schools network..they didn't show up for the game. I recorded it all in a handly notebook and used the Microsoft calculator app to do the math.

The Final Four: Stanford vs. Duke and Notre Dame v. Davidson

The Final: Davidson v. Stanford

The results? No surprise to loyal Valleywag readers - Stanford takes it all with a 2.5 ranking, beating Davidson with a 2.05

Other interesting observations:

UCLA (1.39) was the only #1 seed to make it to the Elite Eight
Two 5 seeds made the Elite 8 - Michigan State (1.41) and Notre Dame (2.01)
Once again a 15-seed was dangerous (I still remember the Richmond Spiders) - American University (1.51) beat Butler (1.37) and University of Oklahoma (1.18) to go to the Elite Eight
Toughest Draw: Cornell. They had a 2.17 ranking, but they were up against Stanford in the first round. If Cornell was in the East or the Midwest, they would have made it to the finals. Next year, they deserve more respect.
Closest game: Kansas State v. Wisconsin in the 2nd round (1.328 v 1.320)
The schools with the lest social media power? Indiana (0.61), Boise State (0.463), Portland State (0.432) Cal State Fullerton (0.414), and Mississippi Valley State (0.14)

Finally, for my beloved Syracuse fans, if they had made it into the tourney, they would have done what they usually did, make it to the Sweet 16 with a Power Ranking of 1.47 and then bowed out...

Click to view the bracket