I’ve tossed together a new statistic to help you prioritize your March Madness watching experience: FOWLES (Figures Observed, Weighted, and Leading to an Excitement Score). It’s a weighted average of six factors that I hope will allow for prioritization of which games to watch during the women’s NCAA tournament.

The six factors are:

50% closeness in team strength, using ELO ratings obtained from warrennolan.com

20% the average of the two teams’ pace of play

15% the average of scoring efficiency of the two teams on a per possession basis

5% the average of the two teams’ rate of taking three point shots, measured as percentage of field goals taken that are three pointers

5% the average of the two teams’ turnovers forced per game

5% the average of the two teams’ blocks per game

My reasoning for the weighting is that the most exciting thing this time of year is close games (duh), but that scoring helps, playing fast helps, and threes & turnovers are exciting but not necessary.

I hope this fairly silly tool at least gives you an idea of what games to prioritize watching on Friday & Saturday.

Here are the first round’s games in order of FOWLES. All games are on ESPN & ESPN.

