Gonzaga virtually defeated
LAHAINA, Maui – This may not sit well with those Gonzaga University men’s basketball fans who paid the big bucks to fly to this Eden-like island to watch their beloved Bulldogs compete in the 2005 EA Sports Maui Invitational.
But it should be noted that the tournament, which is hosted by Chaminade University and boasts one of the strongest eight-team fields assembled, has already been played.
By a computer, at least.
“And it’s not good news for the Zags,” said Sean O’Brien, producer of the “NCAA March Madness 06” video game recently released by EA Sports.
According to O’Brien, all three rounds of this year’s tournament, which starts on Monday at the Lahaina Civic Center, were simulated on an EA Sports computer with team profiles contained in the game. And Gonzaga lost to Maryland, its first-round opponent, 76-66.
“It surprised me, too,” O’Brien said.
It should have, considering “NCAA March Madness 06,” which does its own preseason rankings of all 327 NCAA Division I teams, plus Chaminade, has the Zags ranked No. 4 – the highest of any team in a loaded Maui field that includes past national champions Maryland, Connecticut, Arizona, Michigan State, Kansas and Arkansas.
In other first-round games played by the computer, No. 8 Michigan State drilled Chaminade 75-60, No. 6 Arizona edged Kansas 78-75 and No. 5 UConn routed Arkansas 81-65.
“The biggest surprise is the Zags losing,” said O’Brien, who does much of the research that goes into profiling the hundreds of college teams featured in the game.
Several Bulldogs players said they have played EA Sports’ latest version of March Madness, but it’s hard to find any that agree with the computer’s outcome of their first-round Maui matchup against Maryland.
“The good thing is, that’s not real,” said senior center J.P. Batista.
“I wouldn’t think that would happen,” added freshman guard Jeremy Pargo. “I’m not planning on that happening, either. And I’m sure no one else on this team is planning on that happening either.
“We can’t let that go on, not at all.”
Bulldogs head student manager Chris “Bubba” Filios, a roommate of Batista, dared EA Sports to let him – rather than their computer – play out the tournament.
“There’s a 99.9 percent chance the Zags are going to win if I’m running the controls,” he said. “Where the computer might have J.P. shooting lots of 3’s, or something, I’d have him on the low blocks just dunkin’ on everybody.”
According to O’Brien, the folks at EA Sports simulated the games in the Dynasty Mode of “NCAA March Madness 06.”
“We didn’t have humans playing the game,” he explained. “In Dynasty Mode, there’s a bunch of different logics underneath the hood that the computer goes through to determine who wins, who loses and what happened during the game.”
In the case of GU vs. Maryland, the computer produced this recap:
“The Terps clamp down on defense to pull away over the last eight minutes.”
“But to be honest with you, it’s really rolling the dice,” O’Brien said. “The computer looks at the roster and looks at different situations – when a team played its last game, for example. There’s a number of different factors the computer considers, and on this particular roll of the dice, Maryland beats Gonzaga by 76-66.
“If we did it again, the results would probably be different.”
Gonzaga’s players, and their head student manager, would hope so.
Still, Filios, remains a big fan of “NCAA March Madness 06.”
“It’s cool,” he said, “because my roommate (Batista) and all my buddies are on there. I can even put Colin (Floyd) in the starting lineup if I want.”
O’Brien said his company, because of NCAA regulations, is unable to use photo images of players’ faces in their March Madness games. But on the GU roster there is a 6-foot-9, 270-pound center who wears No. 13.
“And it’s not hard to figure out that’s J.P.,” said Filios.