- Series
- School of Mathematics Colloquium
- Time
- Thursday, February 26, 2026 - 11:00am for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
- Location
- Skiles 005
- Speaker
- Tim Chartier – Davidson College – tichartier@davidson.edu – https://www.davidson.edu/people/tim-chartier
- Organizer
- Matt Baker
Each year, millions complete brackets to predict the outcomes of the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments—an activity centered on a fundamental question in sports analytics: Who is number one? Ranking algorithms provide mathematical frameworks for addressing this question and are widely used in postseason selection and predictive modeling.
This talk examines two influential rating systems—the Colley Method and the Massey Method—both of which compute team rankings by solving systems of linear equations based on game outcomes. We discuss extensions that incorporate factors such as late-season momentum and home-field advantage, and we evaluate their impact on predictive performance.
Applications across sports, including basketball and soccer, will be presented, with particular attention to NCAA tournament bracket construction. Research-driven implementations of these methods have produced brackets that outperformed over 90% of millions of ESPN submissions. The talk concludes with open questions and broader applications of ranking methodology.
Bio:
Bio: Dr. Tim Chartier is the Joseph R. Morton Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Davidson College, where he specializes in data analytics. He has consulted with ESPN, The New York Times, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, and teams in the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NASCAR. He founded and grew a sports analytics group to nearly 100 student researchers annually. The group, now student-run, provides analytics for Davidson College athletic teams.
His scholarship and leadership have been recognized nationally through service in the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and with multiple honors, including an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the MAA Southeastern Section Distinguished Teaching Award, and the MAA’s Euler Book Prize. He has also collaborated with educational initiatives at Google and Pixar and served as the 2022–23 Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National Museum of Mathematics.