First, I needed some data. I went online and grabbed whatever recent game results, stats, and anything else I could find for both teams. Think of it like making a stew - you just throw in whatever ingredients you have on hand.
Then I sta.tahtrted to build something of a model. It wasn't anything fancy, basically just weighing different factors. Like, how well has each team been scoring? How's their defense? Have they been playing better at home or away? I played with all of that.
Here's the really important part: I didn't just want to come up with a random guess. I wanted to simulate the game many times, like replaying it in my computer's "brain". So I set it up to run a bunch of these simulations, each time tweaking the variables a little bit based on the data.
After letting it run for a bit, it will give me an expected result, which team I am expecting to win and how.
- Ran a whole bunch of simulations.
- Looked at the results.
The Big Reveal (maybe)
After all that digital dice-rolling, my little model spat out a prediction: It looks like Louisiana Tech is the more likely winner. The model gave it something like a 69.2% chance of winning, based on all those simulations. That doesn't mean it's a lock, of course! It just means, based on the info I fed it, Louisiana Tech should have the edge.
I did it! It was a fun little project. I learned a bit about how these predictions are made, and it makes watching the actual game a little more interesting, at least for me. Just remember, I'm no fortune teller, it is just a game!
