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Model Card

Classic points-scored versus points-allowed baseline. Good sanity check for how much simple season scoring rates already explain wins.

Early in a season this model's ratings are blended with each team's preseason prior by games played: a team with n games keeps 4/(n+4) of its prior, so the order settles as games come in. In the pro leagues, whose prior is the team's Elo carried over from last season, it keeps 3/(n+3) in the NBA and WNBA, 6/(n+6) in G League and Euroleague and 3/(n+3) in Eurocup.

Validation here is out of sample: each week of a season is predicted by models refit on the season's earlier games, and every model is scored on the same games. No comparable held-out evaluation is available for the selected league and season. Current scope: Ranked Games. Only games where at least one team had an AP Poll rank on game day. All models are re-evaluated on that same subset, and AP Poll joins the comparison set here.

258 published model outputs for NCAAMD2 2026-2027.

Held-out game predictions

No comparable held-out evaluation is available for the selected league and season.

League × Season Summary

Pythagorean in every evaluated league-season; rank among the models on the same games.

Output Coverage

Stored site-output rows for this model.