If you were evaluating two teams about to match up against each other in the playoffs, and you could only use one of the following pieces of data to decide which was more likely to win, which would you choose?
(a) The teams' records this season
(b) The teams' records last season
Only one of these answers is right. And it's not the one Jay Mariotti picked earlier today on "Around the Horn." Never one to let a perfectly good point slip past him without coming up with some outrageous way to try and disagree with it, when a fellow panelist who was talking about the College World Series said he was rooting for Fresno State because they're a good underdog story, Jay countered with:
But Georgia had a losing record in 2007, so they're even more of an underdog!
That's why most people thought the Red Sox would beat the Rockies in MLB's World Series last fall- not because the Sox had much better depth both in the rotation and off the bench, but because the Rockies were terrible in 2006. And that's why most people figured the Patriots would easily beat the Giants in last February's Super Bowl- not because New England was 18-0 at the time, but because the Giants were 8-8 in 2006. Why were the Lakers mild favorites over the Celtics in the recently concluded NBA Finals? You guessed it. Boston wasn't so hot in 2006-07.
Jay Mariotti: fucking stupid.
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