NCAA bracket predictions 2014: Applying an advanced formula to pick every game
A look at how the NCAA Tournament might play out using Nate Silver’s predictions from FiveThirtyEight.com.
Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY Sports
These are the words I’m writing to introduce my bracket, but you aren’t going to read this intro anyway because you just want to see the damn picks. So fine, here’s your precious bracket:
This was filled out using nothing but FiveThirtyEight’s bracket forecasting, which takes into account a wide range of factors. But for our purposes the factor you should be most concerned with is that Nate Silver is behind this, which means it’s probably very accurate.
Some interesting notes:
-- There are three -- THREE -- second round upsets, total: No. 9 Pitt over No. 8 Colorado; No. 11 Tenn/Iowa over No. 6 UMass; No. 9 Oklahoma State over No. 8 Gonzaga. Will there be more than three upsets between Thursday and Friday? Probably. Hopefully. But there are almost always less upsets than you’re inclined to try and predict in your bracket.
-- There are three teams with a significantly higher chance of winning it all than the rest of the field -- Louisville (15 percent); Florida (14 percent); Arizona (13 percent). The teams with the next highest chances are UVA, Michigan State, and Kansas, all at six percent. In other words, pick one of those first three schools to win it all, unless you just think numbers are stupid.
-- The East is the most difficult region to predict. UVA, Michigan State, and Villanova have nearly the same chances of making it to the Final Four (all between 21-24 percent). In the other three regions, the team predicted to make the Final Four has at least a 38 percent chance of doing so.
March Madness: Fill out your bracket Tournament predictions
-- There are two virtual toss-ups: No. 7 Texas vs. No. 10 Arizona State in the second round (Texas is 50.119 percent to win); and, much more importantly, the battle between No. 1 UVA and No. 4 Michigan State to reach the Elite Eight. The Spartans have a 38.979 percent chance of going that far vs. a 38.904 percent chance for the Cavaliers.
-- If Louisville does beat Florida in the final, as predicted here, it would become the first back-to-back national champion since the Gators did it in 2006 and 2007.
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