ESPN Analytics has made its own revelation after the NCAA Tournament bracket was revealed on Sunday night.
And that revelation is that it believes Duke has the best chance to be the team cutting down the nets in Indianapolis on April 6. This isn’t a huge shock, since the Blue Devils were the top-ranked team in the AP Poll down the stretch of the regular season, and they followed up their ACC regular-season title by taking the ACC Tournament crown, too, on Saturday night.
On Selection Sunday, Duke was rewarded with the top overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. This all doesn’t guarantee anything for Duke, which hasn’t won the national title since 2015, a long time for one of college basketball’s blue blood programs. But the Blue Devils carry a 32-2 record into the Big Dance, and ESPN Analytics is giving Duke a 23% shot to go the distance and win it all in Indy.
The team with the second-best chance to win it all, according to those ESPN Analytics, is Michigan, which also earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament on Sunday. The Wolverines are being given a 16% shot to win the title, followed by Arizona, another No. 1 seed, which is being given a 14% chance to capture the national championship.
Houston is the lone non-No. 1 seed among ESPN Analytics’ top 5 teams in the mix to win it all, with the Cougars getting a 9% shot to go 1 victory deeper than they did last season, when Houston lost to Florida in the national title game.
Speaking of those Gators, the defending national champions who earned the final No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament on Sunday are being given a 7% chance to repeat.
With Duke getting the best chance to win the whole thing by ESPN Analytics, here is what the Kalshi market currently thinks of the top teams in the mix to win the NCAA Tournament:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
