Handicapping 2010 NCAA Week 11

We can use TopoRank to reverse-engineer the expected point differential between two teams. Let's see how it does for this week's Top 25 matchups. The predicted winner is bolded.

Visitor	Home	Prediction	Spread	Actual
1. Oregon	California	12.2	19-20.5	2
Georgia	2. Auburn	14.2	7.5-8.5	18
San Diego St	3. TCU	25.9	27-28	5
4. Boise St	Idaho	20.9	33.5-34.5	38
LA-Monroe	5. LSU	32.3	31-34	skip
6. Stanford	Arizona St	12.9	4.5-6.5	4
Indiana	7. Wisconsin	16.4	21.5-22.5	63
Kansas	8. Nebraska	24.7	34-34.5	17
Penn St	9. Ohio St	13.9	17.5-20.5	24
10. Oklahoma St	Texas	8.0	4-6.5	17
19. Mississippi St	12. Alabama	12.2	13-14	27
13. Iowa	Northwestern	11.5	9.5-12	skip
14. Utah	Notre Dame	6.4	5-6	-25
UTEP	15. Arkansas	30.1	28.5-30	31
Texas Tech	16. Oklahoma	13.9	16-16.5	38
24. Kansas St	17. Missouri	7.2	13-13.5	10
USC	18. Arizona	5.1	4-5.5	skip
20. Virgina Tech	North Carolina	3.7	3-5.5	skip
21. Nevada	Fresno St	7.4	8-9.5	1
23. South Carolina	22. Florida	3.7	6-7	-22
25. Texas A&M	Baylor	5.5	3-3.5	12

I'm also tracking approximate spreads for these games and seeing how TopoRank would do. In each case, if TopoRank predicts a bigger win than the spread, I'd bet for the spread (and vice versa). This is slightly complicated by the fact that spreads vary by institution, so if TopoRank's prediction falls within a range of published spreads, the game will be ommitted ('skip').

This week, TopoRank made the right call 10 out of 17 times for a success rate of 58.8%. Assuming someone, somewhere, would pay 21:11 for a correct pick, the rate of return would be 12.3% ...