A dark horse Final Four candidate is a 6+ seed that could reach the Final Four. Historically, we average seeing a 6+ seed in the Final Four about every other year. In the last 10 years, though, we’ve only had one Final Four without a 6+ seed and one Final Four with two. Still, I’d… Read more: 2024 Dark Horse Final Four Contenders – Model Results
A Cinderella is a double-digit seed that wins at least 2 games, reaching the Sweet 16. We average seeing 2.2 Cinderellas every year, and we’ve only had two tournaments without one (1995 and 2007). The Models Observations
Bracket busters are 6+ seeds that reach the Elite 8, thus wreaking bracket chaos. The historical average number of Bracket Busters in a tournament is 1.6. In the last 10 tournaments, we’ve averaged 2. The Models Observations
An early bust is a 1-3 seed that loses in the first weekend of the tournament – failing to advance to the Sweet 16. Historically, we average seeing four Early Busts every year. Four top-3 seeds have at least a 40% chance of being eliminated this weekend. ESPN seems a little gun shy on identifying… Read more: 2024 NCAA Tournament Early Busts – Model Results
A First Round upset is when a double-digit seed wins their First Round game. I wonder why the ESPN model isn’t on board with the only upset the other models give a greater than 50% chance of happening… The Models Observations
Houston’s an even more heavy model favorite than last year, but this year they’re coming from the best basketball conference in the land. Maybe the have what it takes to win 6 in a row this time?? The Models Observations
According to the models, 1-Purdue is a decent favorite, but 2-Tennessee has an almost 1-in-4 chance to win the 2024 NCAA Tournament Midwest Region. The Models Observations
1-Houston is a huuuuuuge favorite to win the 2024 NCAA Tournament West Region. Now that they’re coming from a “real” conference, they might finally have the chops to go all the way. The Models Observations
The 2024 NCAA Tournament West Region is the most wide open. All four models agree – the 1-seed (North Carolina) isn’t even the favorite to win the region! The Models Observations
The 2024 NCAA Tournament East Region favorite is Connecticut. Surprise, surprise! All four models are in the same ballpark with Connecticut, too. The Models Observations
Turns out it’s easier to eliminate teams from Final Four eligibility than it is to identify the teams that will reach the Final Four. So let’s start eliminating. The Seed First, a 12+ seed has never reached the Final Four, so let’s assume that trend continues. We, therefore, start off with 46 (including all 6… Read more: 2024 NCAA Tournament Final Four Contenders
To win your pool, picking the Champ is key, so this is the most important post of the week. I’ve identified traits common to the past 20 NCAA Tournament champions that all together comprise Champ DNA. The criteria has evolved a bit since 2018, but not drastically. Here’s a quick, but very important, look at… Read more: The 2024 NCAA Tournament Champ Will Be One of These Four Teams
Oh sweet Mary Louise, it is the week of Selection Sunday! I’m so excited I could cry. Yesterday I was sitting here in my wife’s basement reading every team’s sports board; side note, I don’t have a life but those guys are wacko. And why am I doing this? Because it’s March and I friggin’… Read more: Do Play-in Game Winners Have an Edge in the NCAA Tournament?
I’ve found the best way to identify NCAA Tournament Final Four contenders is by process of elimination. One of the best criteria we can use to eliminate pretenders is a team’s record away from home. Teams that reach the Final Four have at least a 0.500 record (road + neutral site) entering the NCAA Tournament.… Read more: Final Four Teams are Road Warriors
I need to update the Championship DNA page. I’ve updated – nay, upgraded – the conference criteria. It’s no surprise that the NCAA champs come from the best conferences, but it’s not just the Power 6. In every tournament, for the past 20, the NCAA Tournament champion has come from a conference whose rating is… Read more: The 2024 NCAA Champion Will be from One of These Conferences
Yes, Virginia, the 2023 NCAA Tournament was Bonkers We all felt it, and now I’ve quantified it. Yes, the 2023 NCAA Tournament was super crazy. Felt like max chaos, right? Adam shared interesting highlights of how crazy it was in the post mortem article. Now let’s let math back up what we all felt last… Read more: Just How Crazy Was the 2023 NCAA Tournament?
Before the game last weekend against BYU (a high volume 3pt shooting team), Kansas coach Bill Self stated, “If they hit 13 three’s and we hit 3, they will win. It’s a 30 point advantage.” That turned out to be prophetic because those were the exact numbers that each team put up and the Cougs… Read more: Live by the Three, Die by the Three — Part 2 — the Deuce
The Setup I know we usually focus on the NCAA, but stick with me for a second. Did you know that Steph Curry has the record for taking and making the most 3’s in a career? He currently has 3640 made 3’s, which is nearly 700 more than second place Ray Allen, or James Harden… Read more: Do 3-Point Shooting Teams Win in the Tournament?
2023 Post-Mortem You know, it’s the middle of January of the next year so I guess it’s about time that we did a port-mortem of the 2023 NCAA Tournament. Lay off, I had a lot of Tostitos and dip last year. Bottom line, it was a mess. I believe the statistical term for 2023 and… Read more: 2023 NCAA Tournament Post-Mortem
As the major conference tournaments get rolling this week, remember the Quarterfinal Rule – any team that fails to advance past their conference tournament quarterfinal WILL NOT win the national championship. The are no exceptions to the Quarterfinal Rule. I’ll update this post as top teams are eliminated before their conference semifinals. 2023 Teams Eliminated… Read more: Remember the Quarterfinal Rule
IT’S HEEEEEEEEERE!!! It’s March and the tournaments have started playing! We held our team meeting at Buffalo Wild Wings eating saucy chicken and watching 35 big screen TVs with various games going on. This is the greatest time of the year! While chatting, we saw an interesting tweet put out by a fellow CBB aficionado,… Read more: Is Oral Roberts a Cinderella?
I went to a game last night just for fun. The teams are irrelevant for the purpose of this conversation; suffice to say that both were middling, neither has a shot at the NCAA tournament and none of it has implications of national merit. But man, it’s almost March and it’s college basketball, it was… Read more: The Eye Test Vs. Data Analytics
It is often easier to eliminate Final Four candidates than to identify them. For instance, if you look back through the history of all Final Four participants for the last 35 years or so, there doesn’t seem to be a common thread in the data that can be pointed to as a sure fire indicator… Read more: Mad Max in the Final Four
The 2023 NCAA Tournament champion will most likely be one of these 12 teams, according historic trends of past champions’ AP poll ranks 7 weeks before the tournament.
I’ve gathered bracket probabilities from other websites to compare with my model’s results. Here are the numbers from those models as well as a composite (average of all the models) probability for every team reaching each round. Apologies to the other play-in teams, but I assumed Rutgers, Indiana, Texas A&M-CC, and Wright State win their… Read more: Computer Model Composite – 2022 NCAA Bracket Prediction Probabilities for Every Team
An early exit for a top seed is losing in the first weekend of the tournament, or in other words failing to reach the Sweet 16. Only 67% of 1-3 seeds reach the Sweet 16, so this happens often enough that you should at least consider it while making your picks. This year, we once… Read more: Most Likely Busts – Top-Seeded Early Exits – 2022
A dark horse Final Four team is a 5+ seed that reaches the Final Four. Even though 83% of all Final Four teams have been seeded 1-4, 10 of the last 11 tournaments have had at least 1 5+ seed in the Final Four. The following teams have the best chances among this year’s “longshots.”
Bracket Buster definition: a 6+ seeded team that reaches the Elite 8. Most bracket fillers conservatively stick to the highest seeds when picking their Elite 8 teams, and rightly so – about 81% of all Elite 8 teams were 1-5 seeds. So when a 6+ seed reaches the Elite 8, most people’s brackets are busted.… Read more: Most Likely Bracket Busters – 2022
Let’s call a Cinderella team a double-digit seed that reaches the Sweet 16. This means they would pull off at least one but probably two upsets in the first weekend and have glory and praise heaped upon them for the next week before they play in the Sweet 16. Almost every year, we see at… Read more: Most Likely Cinderellas – 2022
It sure is fun to correctly pick the inevitable First Round upsets. This year, both 10-Loyola-Chicago and 10-Miami are favorites to win their First Round games. 10-seeds have some very strong model results, translating to a 95% chance that we’ll see multiple 10-seeds advancing to the Second Round. Chances are looking good for multiple 11-6… Read more: Most Likely First Round Upsets 2022
Win your bracket pool by using simulation results from BracketResearch.com’s computer model that amazingly predicts NCAA Tournament outcomes. No surprise – Gonzaga’s the favorite. Perhaps the biggest surprise is 5-Connecticut’s not insignificant 12% chance of winning the region. There is a 91% chance the winner will be one of seven teams…
Win your bracket pool by using simulation results from BracketResearch.com’s computer model that amazingly predicts NCAA Tournament outcomes. The East Region is home to the double digit seed with the highest Final Four probability. It’s only 4%, but 10-San Francisco has best chances of a Final Four run of any double-digit seed in the bracket.
Win your bracket pool by using simulation results from BracketResearch.com’s computer model that amazingly predicts NCAA Tournament outcomes. The Midwest Region is the most top heavy in the bracket – there is a 63% chance the winner is one of the top 2 seeds. We also find the weakest 3 and 4 seeds here –… Read more: Top Final Four Contenders in the Midwest Region
To win your bracket pool, you’ve gotta pick the right champ (in standard scoring formats). The final game is worth as much as the first 32 games combined. This year’s model has been trained and the simulation of the tournament completed. According to the simulation results, these are the teams with the best chances to… Read more: Top 2022 NCAA Tournament Championship Contenders
Win your bracket pool by using simulation results from BracketResearch.com’s computer model that amazingly predicts NCAA Tournament outcomes. The South Region is the most competitive this year. By that, I mean there is only a 42% chance one of the top 2 seeds will win the region – the lowest chance of any region. There… Read more: Top Final Four Contenders From the “Wide Open” South Region
Correctly picking the champ is the most important part of winning any bracket competition. Hitting on a Final Four pick or two is also key to having a top scoring NCAA Tournament bracket. Identifying teams that don’t measure up in some way to past Final Four teams can help. Here’s a thread where I list… Read more: Think Twice Before Considering These Teams for a Final Four Run
We already know teams from mid-major conferences don’t win the NCAA Tournament. More than that, though, we can set a minimum conference strength for a team to have a shot at winning it all.
With 2 weeks and some change until Selection Sunday, Providence has built an excellent resume. Projected as a 4-seed in the Bracket Matrix, Providence is: 22-3 overall 8-2 road/neutral record First place in a strong (potentially 7 tournament bids) Big East 5-2 Q1 record 12-3 Q1/Q2 record …and yet, receive little-to-no love from the computers.… Read more: 2022 Providence and other good-seed-bad-computer-rank teams from past tournaments
Winning Away From Home So your team is pretty good this year. Congrats. It’s still February and realistically there are 20 or so CBB squads out there that have a shot at making a run. Maybe even a deep run, a Cinderella run. So, what is the one thing that your team needs to be… Read more: Final Four Teams Win Away From Home
Last week’s AP Poll narrowed our list of contenders to 12 teams. 30 of the last 32 champs ranked in the top 12, seven weeks before the tournament started. At the end of the regular season, we’ll be able to narrow the list to the key handful of teams that are built like a champ.