To the editor:

I am a math teacher at Lawrence High School. Recently the students in the advanced placement statistics class at LHS came across an interesting revelation regarding Kansas Jayhawk basketball. I thought I would share it with you, if for nothing more than a good laugh.

Over the course of March Madness, as a side-project, the students compiled a database of wins and losses for every matchup of seeded teams in the NCAA tournament since the bracket expanded to 64 teams in 1985. This is the first database I have seen like it – though I’m sure the information is out there somewhere.

With this file the students could look at any matchup (a 1-seed vs. an 8-seed for instance) and give the overall winning percentage for the higher seed for all games since 1985 (a 1-seed has defeated an 8-seed 35 out of the 44 times they have met, or 79.5 percent of the games played).

Using these data, the students calculated the probability that the Jayhawks would win the national championship. The number is a familiar one to Kansas fans, especially those who remember the last championship brought home by KU basketball.

The probability of Kansas winning the national championship this year was 0.1988 or about 19.88 percent.

Bill Self talked about a year of destiny for his team, paralleling their trip through Nebraska and Detroit to the 1988 season; perhaps it really was written in the stars’ – or the stats!

Pete Haack,

Lawrence