check it out now

uh

no doubt now

Tuesday February 19 2019

the reading the book podcast is Gil Alexander

This is the one we've all been waiting for. March Madness covered every which way.

We'll get to it, ATS, and for you folks who just want to fill out a bracket, we'll do it straight up as well,

with Greg Peterson and Adam Stanko. That's coming up.

But first, as we always do, we started out with the Giant Killers segment.

This time Seth Walder from ESPN Analytics is on the job. That's how we do it.

March Madness covered with props as well on today's beating the book podcast. Enjoy.

Seth Walter, ESPN Analytics writer, does such a great job. Now, Seth, the real reason that we're

here with you today and the reason we wanted you on, and thank you so much for coming on, is that you took over the giant killers

mantle over at ESPN.com. We had Peter Keating on for so many years talking about it. I know his

colleague Jordan Brenner had done it for a while. You're on top of it as well. And we are here,

selection Sunday now.

We know where the brackets happen. We know what was selected and what brackets yesterday.

So let's give the giant killer criteria first, if you would, and then delve into who are the

best candidates. Absolutely. So we look at any team that is five seat lines below their opponent, that's a potential giant killer.

That's what we're looking at. Essentially, we're looking for upset teams.

And so the idea of the column has always been a quantitative first look at which teams are most likely to pull off that upset.

So when we redesigned this model a year ago,

...