Tournament Challenge: Early title picks, Final Four favorites – ESPN (blog)
With a few hours in the books since the NCAA tournament field was revealed, here’s some info about the early brackets entered in ESPN’s Tournament Challenge game:
Total brackets: 1.16 million brackets had been entered as of 10:30 p.m. ET.
Top title picks:
-
Kansas (1-seed): 22.1 percent
-
Michigan State (2-seed): 19.5 percent
-
North Carolina (1-seed): 17.3 percent
-
Oklahoma (2-seed): 6.3 percent
-
Kentucky (4-seed): 5.4 percent
Notably missing from the top five: 1-seed Virginia (4.2 percent); 1-seed Oregon (3.4 percent).
Final Four trends among 1-seeds
Percentage of brackets picking each No. 1 seed for the Final Four:
-
Midwest — Virginia: 22.8 percent (2-seed Michigan State has more support, at 58 percent of brackets)
-
East — North Carolina: 50.0 percent (next best: 4-seed Kentucky, 17.6 percent)
-
South — Kansas: 63.2 percent (next best: 2-seed Villanova, 11.3 percent)
-
West — Oregon: 21.9 percent (2-seed Oklahoma has more support, at 41.0 percent of brackets)
Upset picks
With the 12-over-5 seeds such a popular upset pick, here are the number of brackets picking each of the 12 seeds in the round of 64:
-
Midwest — Arkansas-Little Rock (over Purdue): 10.4 percent
-
East — Chattanooga (over Indiana): 10.5 percent
-
South — South Dakota State (over Maryland): 11.7 percent
-
West — Yale (over Baylor): 16.7 percent
