Here’s Who Will Win the Final Four
Well, 94x50’s Predictions anyways
The madness of March has come and gone. April is here, “One Shining Moment” will play, and the NCAA will crown a champion once more. It is a bittersweet moment: relieving the glories of the past season and dreading an off-season without the appeal of college hoops.
But, this weekend will also play host, hopefully, to three memorable games and memorable story lines. Throughout the tournament I have used predictive statistics to forecast the winners of all 60 games thus far. My model has been good, but not great: 30–28–2 (51.7%) against the spread. Yet, the “straight-up” model has done better at simply predicting the winner.
According to the composite rankings used in the model for each team, Gonzaga and North Carolina are two of the best four teams to make the Final Four in the past three seasons, while Oregon and South Carolina are two of the four worst ranked teams. One of the major limitations of the model is that it fails to correct for recent performance. While South Carolina was the 28th best team entering the tournament, their play thus far in the tournament has them playing much better than their pre-tournament numbers show.
Nonetheless, North Carolina and Gonzaga remain heavy favorites. Both teams are stocked with talent that can provide the great defenses of Oregon and South Carolina some trouble. However, as we have seen time and time again in the NCAA Tournament, on any given night we shouldn’t be too surprised to see a talented, well-coached, favorite be beaten. Saturday will be the last day of the 2017 college basketball season with multiple games in one night, so relish it while you can.
As believed, both Gonzaga and North Carolina are strong favorites here. However, the Gamecocks are heavy underdogs — this is where I wish the model corrected for the strength at which South Carolina is playing because 12 points seems like a lot. But, maybe the model is thinking without a recency bias that plagues us all.
Yes, it is nice to know who we predict to win on Saturday. Yet, what we all want to know is who is going to win on Monday and take Villanova’s place as the reigning champions. Predicting each team’s win probability against all the other opponents, we are easily able to predict each team’s chances to make it to the national title game, as well as their chances to be cutting down the nets Monday night.
Both UNC and Gonzaga are neck and neck to win it all. UNC is slightly favored by probability standards in a head-to-head (56.3%), while Gonzaga has the edge by 3 in the MOV model. But, we all should learn that a 20% chance to make the title game is not something to be overlooked. So, let’s not count out the Ducks or Gamecocks. No matter how the Final Four in Phoenix turns out, it is sure to be filled with glorious basketball and unexpected excitement. Enjoy.
