Assumptions:
- The quality of a basketball team, at the highest levels, depends more on the the ability of players to work together than their innate skill.
- The ability of players to work together is roughly proportional to the amount of time they spend practicing together.
- Competitive basketball is largely -- and in fact was purposely invented to be -- an indoor game.
- Players are more likely to spend more time playing an indoor game when the weather outside is worse.
- The perception of "bad" outdoor weather is roughly proportional to the temperature difference between summer and winter.
Therefore, if we took a list of all of the colleges in the NCAA college basketball bracket, established the August (start of the school year, usually warmest month of the year) and March (during March Madness and close to the coldest month of the year) average temperatures, we’d be able to fill in a bracket that would be as accurate (to a close approximation) as if we actually knew anything about college basketball. (As a tie-breaker, I’m using the school with the colder temperatures. If I need another tie-breaker, I’m picking arbitrarily.)
So that’s what I’ve done. Here is the raw data, and here is my bracket. (Yes, this is almost completely tongue-in-cheek.)
