Resetting After the Elite 8
For as much as the opening weekend didn’t provide us with fireworks, the Elite 8 definitely delivered. A.I. Sports’ favorites Gonzaga and Duke both fell short and Carsen Edwards went supernova.
Carsen Edwards' #Elite8 highlight tape is one for the ages. 👏#MarchMadness | @BoilerBall pic.twitter.com/Vz3v41c0PA
— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) March 31, 2019
We enter the Final Four with only one #1 seed remaining and a wide open race. Virginia is everyone’s favorite by process of elimination. Our model is not nearly as high on UVA, actually placing them as the least likely to win the title.. They barely squeaked by in an OT thriller against Purdue to get to this point (our model only gave them a 50.4% chance to win that game.)
Bracket Performance
Then the madness happened. Michigan laid an absolute egg. Their likelihood of missing 18 straight 3s was 0.04%, so it is fair to say we did not see that coming. You probably don’t need us to tell you that the likelihood to win a game comes down significantly under such a scenario. C.J. Baird, with only 23 mins of action this entire season, accounted for the only successful three pointer of the night…just let that sink in. Texas Tech then turned around and beat the the Zags to keep on dancing. They had an incredibly difficult road and continued to come together as a team and win but the model predicts they will finally meet the grim reaper in Michigan State.
Monte Carlo Simulation
The simulation loved Gonzaga and Duke with good reason. But March is for Madness and it’s incredible that neither of them made the Final Four. After those two juggernauts, it felt like a wide open race. Houston fell right where the simulation thought they would. Overall, the simulation was very high on them but the concern was always the match up with Kentucky where they inevitably fell short.
So we whittled ourselves down to four. Ironically of these teams, Virginia was the most likely to advance to Final Four to then fall short. They had a favorable quadrant but the simulation has real concerns given their pace of play. They barely escaped Purdue but to be fair nobody was stopping Edwards. The simulation expects a Michigan State-Auburn title game with Michigan State as the last one standing.
If the final three games are anything like last round, we will be in for a real treat!
