Monday, March 26, 2012
Most compact Final Four ever?
Here is some frivolous complexity for you. Is this the most compact Final Four ever? In the following sense: for each Final Four, find the maximum of the 4C2=6 distances between the four schools, and call that the diameter of the Final Four. I conjecture that this year's Final Four has the minimum diameter in its history. I will investigate and report back.
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7 comments:
If only OU had made it instead of KU...
How about the Magic-Bird final four?
Wow! Good guess! D(1979) = 668.1, the distance from Chicago (DePaul) to Philadelphia (Penn), according to Wolfram|Alpha.
D(2012) = 659.7, the distance from Lawrence KS to Columbus OH.
Still looking.
Oops. D(1992) = 505.5, the distance from Durham, NC, to Ann Arbor, MI. (Duke, Michigan, Indiana, Cincinnati).
Another: D(2005) = 580.4, the distance from Chapel Hill, NC, to Champaign, IL. (North Carolina, Illinois, Michigan State, Louisville)
Interesting to note the consolidation of basketball power in the midwest/southeast. The early years were easy to check, since geographic balance seemed to be important back then, not to mention all the UCLA years.
Here's another question. When was the last time there was a Final Four with four programs with as much success historically as this year? 1993?
"If only OU had made it instead of KU..." Indeed, that's what prompted the initial thought! If OU had made the Final Four, then D(2012)=211.2 (Louisville to Athens), the most compact by far. Maybe next year.
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