Why Wake Forest Will Lose to Boston College Tonight

by T.H. on Jan 14, 2009 8:14 PM EST in Basketball Comment 0 comments

Yeah, the headline says the undefeated, second-ranked Demon Deacons are going to lose to the unranked, two game losing streak suffering Eagles. And it's all Carolina's fault.

I spent a good portion of 2006 bemused at the fact that playing UNC had an effect on ACC opponents' follow-up performance. Through the 2006-2007 conference season, the ACC was 4-12 in games directly following playing the Heels, and at one point that number stood at 2-11 before UNC's bizarre drop of two games near the end of the season. I was eagerly awaiting a similar performance in 2007-2008, but the numbers reverted to the mean, with UNC opponents going 9-7 in the subsequent game. This shows the folly of trying to determine a trend from such a small sample size. Or, you know, voting a national championship based on an even smaller one.

But with BC's stunning collapse against Harvard, my dream of a subtle indicator of Carolina's awesomeness is once again kindled. And doubled. Yep, this season UNC opponents will lose their next two games. Unless two opponents play one another. Then they are both annihilated like subatomic particles and anti-particles. You heard it here first. And probably only here. And you actually read it instead of heard it, but I presume you already realized that.

(Below the cut, the raw data of games.)