Predicting the NCAA Tournament Round of 16

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The first weekend of the tournament has come and gone. We’ve seen a top seed fall, a play-in team make it through the weekend, and a handful of insane buzzer-beating shots. Now, with 15 games left in the college basketball season, we will get down to who has enough left in the tank to win a championship. What makes this tournament so compelling is that it’s a pretty flat landscape at the top. Between teams like Arizona, Duke, Michigan, Houston, Illinois, Connecticut, St. John’s, among others, it really wouldn’t be all that surprising if any of these teams were the one cutting down the nets. With the competition stiffer than maybe it’s ever been, let’s move into next weekend, where we will crown the winner of each region in the rounds of 16 and 8.

Predicting the Winner of The Tournament’s East Region

If anyone wants to complain about this tournament “being too chalky”, look no further than the East Region. A majority of this region held serve over the first weekend. The only two “upsets” in this corner of the bracket were 9 TCU beating 8 Ohio State, and 5 St. John’s defeating 4 Kansas. Both of those games were coin flips that featured spreads below two points at close, and were decided by two points. But that’s all right because that tees up some extremely interesting matchups for the round of 16.

Duke is still the favorite to win the region at 51% and the third favorite to win a championship, with a 21% chance in our prediction markets. They had a scare in the first round of the tournament, as 16 Siena College maintained a lead on them until late in the second half, but ultimately Duke avoided the upset bid. Then they took care of business against 9 TCU to reach the round of 16, winning the game 81-58. If they can’t survive their next close call, there are plenty of championship-caliber teams in this region ready to swoop in. Their first matchup of the weekend will be against the back-to-back Big East champion St. John’s, who won it at the buzzer against Kansas to stay alive on Sunday. Head Coach Rick Pitino has won a championship before (technically two, but we won’t get into that), and if they survive that matchup, then they’ll face the winner of 3 Michigan St and 2 Connecticut, who each have a championship-winning Head Coach of their own. 

The second favorite to win a championship out of this region, based on our markets, is Connecticut, with a 4% chance of doing so, since they are favored over Michigan State in their Round of 16 game. Our markets give them a 20% to make it to the Last Four as well. Connecticut hasn’t had too many close calls to start the tournament, making quick work of 15 Furman and 7 UCLA, but neither team has a rating in the stratosphere to Duke, the number one overall seed in the field this year. However, if you believe an upset can happen this weekend, they’ve won two championships in the last three seasons under Head Coach Dan Hurley.

Predicting the Winner of The Tournament’s West Region

The West Region featured the biggest upset of the first round, when 12 High Point upset 5 Wisconsin on Thursday afternoon. Thanks to their top-three-scoring offense and a rainstorm of three-pointers, High Point became the lowest seed to win a game in the first round. Their reward was facing the second-ranked scoring offense in 4 Arkansas, who came out on top in a high-scoring 94-88 win.

The West Region also has the only double-digit seed that survived the first weekend of the tournament in 11 Texas. Texas had to win three games to make it to the Round of 16, as they faced NC State in a play-in game earlier in the week. That allowed them to make the general field and get matched up with 6 BYU and projected Pro Basketball top-pick AJ Dybantsa in the first round. Texas held on to beat BYU 79-71 despite 35 points from Dybantsa. Next round, they successfully pulled the upset on 3 Gonzaga, who was without their best player, Braden Huff, after suffering a knee injury in January.

As entertaining as these upsets were, the top two seeds still remain in this region. 1 Arizona and 2 Purdue have covered both games they’ve played so far, and have the best odds to win this region. Arizona has a 58% chance to reach the round of four in our prediction markets, and Purdue has a 32% chance. Arizona is the favorite to win the championship as well, with a 22% chance, most likely because the West Region has seen some of its better teams fall in the double-digit seed upsets. 

Predicting the Winner of The Tournament’s South Region

Despite a couple of double-digit seeds winning in the West Region, the upset of the tournament so far resides in the South Region. On Sunday night, the reigning champions, 1 Florida, fell to 9 Iowa. Iowa had built a 12-point lead on Florida in the second half, but after a few elite runs, Iowa found themselves in a close game with under a minute left. Trailing by two with the final seconds ticking off the clock, they net a dagger three-pointer to knock off the team that cut the nets down just a season ago. Now, the South Region’s pre-tournament favorite is eliminated, and we will not have a back-to-back champion this season. 

With Florida out of the way, the new favorite to win this region is 2 Houston, with a 46% chance based on our prediction markets. Houston has suffocated teams with their elite defense thus far in the tournament. They are the only team left in the field to hold both of their first-round opponents under 60 points. They are narrowly favored over their competition in the round of 16, 3 Illinois, who has a 31% chance to win the region. Illinois is coming off two 20+ point blowout victories where they scored 76 points on 11 VCU and 105 on 14 Penn. Houston vs. Illinois will be a heavyweight matchup between the two best teams remaining in this region. Houston has the second-ranked scoring defense in the nation, while Illinois has the 17th-best scoring offense.

The winner of this matchup will be the overwhelming favorite to come out of the region because on the other side of the bracket is 4 Nebraska vs 9 Iowa. Nebraska won its first two tournament games in program history this weekend, and Iowa has survived the first weekend of the tournament for the first time since 1999. Neither Nebraska nor Iowa has a greater than 18% chance of making it out of this region. 

Predicting the Winner of The Tournament’s Midwest Region

The team with the lowest odds in our prediction markets to make the round of four is Michigan, at 61%. They are also the second favorite to win the championship at 22%. Michigan has poured it on their opponents in the first two rounds of the tournament, beating 16 Howard 101-80 and 9 Saint Louis 95-72. Michigan was the top-ranked team in the AP poll for a stretch of this regular season, and Dusty May gave this team real championship aspirations in just his second year as their Head Coach. Under May, they have a 60-13 record, a regular-season championship, and a conference tournament championship. May was also the coach who took Florida Atlantic to the round of 4 in 2023. Now he’s hoping to replicate this success with Michigan. 

But next up, Michigan has to face 4 Alabama, who has scored exactly 90 points in each tournament game they’ve played so far. They blew out 5 Texas Tech to end the evening Sunday, and have the number one scoring offense in the league this season. Our markets give Alabama just a 20% chance to win this matchup, but if they do, they will have an inside track to win this region.

On the other side of the bracket, we have a compelling matchup between 2 Iowa State and 6 Tennessee. Iowa State was in the conversation for a one seed late in the season, but fell short to the likes of Florida and Arizona. They matched up with 15 Tennessee State in the first round, and despite winning 108-74, they lost their star forward, Joshua Jefferson, to an ankle injury. After trying to find a rhythm without Jefferson in the lineup in their next game against 7 Kentucky, they fell into a deep hole early on. They trailed 20-9 in what was one of their worst offensive halves of the season, but finally found their footing and won convincingly 82-63. Now, they’ll face Tennessee, who pulled the upset over 3 Virginia in the last round. Tennessee has plenty to play for in their own right, as the team has never made the round of four in program history. Our prediction markets give them a 12% chance to break that trend this year. They’ll need to get by the heavy-hitting cast of 1 Michigan, 2 Iowa State, and 4 Alabama to do so.  

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