Here are the opening Red-White-Blue Ratings picks for the First Four Round of the NCAA Tournament. These four games will be played in Dayton on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.
Check back Tuesday afternoon for our bracket picking process based on our PiRate Criteria posted Monday afternoon.
| Higher Seed | Lower Seed | Red | White | Blue |
| Vanderbilt | Wichita St. | -1 | -1 | -2 |
| Florida Gulf Coast | Fairleigh Dickinson | 6 | 6 | 8 |
| Michigan | Tulsa | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Southern | Holy Cross | 2 | 5 | 4 |
The Pi-Rate Ratings 
Hey,
Could you explain Red-White-Blue ratings or point me to the explanation? I’ve searched around and can’t find it.
Comment by m0ralhazard — March 15, 2016 @ 9:01 am
The short version–the Red Rating used a weighted algorithm incorporating the Four Factors. We determine how much each team would score and give up against a generic average team. Each of the Four Factors carries a special weighting based on how important it is–eFG% is the most important, and FT* is the least. If Team A is +9 against the generic average team, and Team B is -5 against the generic average team, then Team A is a 14-point pick before home court advantage and road disadvantage are factored.
The White Rating is more like our football ratings, using wins and losses with scoring margin playing some part, with strength of schedule playing a major role. If you see two horses in a stakes that look equal, but one horse has been running in stakes races, while the other is coming up from allowance races, the stakes horse is better.
The Blue Rating incorporates a little of both Red & White with a totally different algorithm that tends to produce a wider standard deviation of pointspreads.
Comment by piratings — March 15, 2016 @ 2:07 pm