Crucial chaos

When they aren’t teaching in the classroom, or collaborating with students on summer research, or joining Furman students in Disney World for May Experience “Math and the Mouse,” you might find Furman math professors Liz Bouzarth and Kevin Hutson contributing to Peter Keating’s “The Numbers” column for ESPN, The Magazine. Keating says the professors “have come up with a way to measure which teams are scrambling the college hoops universe with unpredictable results–and priming for success in March.” Ranking teams with network analysis and coming up with teams’ “betweenness” is key to identifying the squads that play more chaotically, according to the professors. And where there is chaos, there are upsets and bracket busters.