Four national writers simulated the NCAA Tournament. It was a mixed bag for KU.
This is going to be a topic of debate for years, if not decades: Who would have won the 2020 NCAA Tournament?
It’s perfect fodder for discussion because nary a game was played because of the coronavirus pandemic, leaving fans to fill in the brackets all the way to what would have been a national championship game in Atlanta.
ESPN had KU as a No. 1 seed with the best chance of winning. The Jayhawks opened with a win against Siena then fell to Marquette in the second round. Seth Walder wrote about every simulated game, and this is from the loss: “And just like that: Udoka Azubuike, Devon Dotson and the rest of the Jayhawks are done.”
Walder explained that ESPN used Joe Lundardi’s final bracket prediction and it’s Basketball Power Index to simulate the games.
“In practice, here’s roughly how that (simulation) works,” Walder wrote. “Let’s take that Baylor-Winthrop matchup we mentioned earlier. BPI has determined that given the relative strength of the two teams and the location of the game (Omaha), Baylor has a 93% chance to win. So it effectively rolls a 100-sided die, and 93 of the sides show a Baylor win, and the other seven have a Winthrop win. The winner advances, and we go through the same process for every game.
“And we made a pact, too. We decided to use simulation No. 2020 and use it no matter what. If it’s the one simulation where Vermont wins it all, we’re doing it. No takebacks. Because sometimes the wildly improbable does happen.” You can read about all the games here.
CBS Sports’ simulation showed the Jayhawks, again as the No. 1 seed, easily defeating Robert Morris and Florida in the opening weekend. In the Sweet 16, KU holds off Kentucky, before being upset by Duke.
David Cobb wrote about each game, and had this comment about the Jayhawks loss: “The Blue Devils pull off the upset of the Jayhawks, the tournament favorite. “
The simulation was done by CBS SportsLine simulations. You can read about all the games here, including Wichita State’s loss in a play-in game.
NBC Sports published a simulation done by Rob Dauster, and KU cruised past Robert Morris, Saint Mary’s and Louisville into the Elite Eight. That set up a meeting with Illinois, where Bill Self coached many years ago. The Jayhawks’ four-point victory meant a Final Four appearance.
In the Elite Eight, KU pushed past Michigan, setting up a meeting with another Big Ten school: Michigan State.
“In what was billed as one of the most anticipated National Title games in recent memory, Devon Dotson ended up outplaying Cassius Winston — 21 points and five assists to 13 points and three assists — as the Jayhawks finished off a dream season,” Dauster wrote of Kansas’ victory in the national-championship game.
Dauster said he used most recent bracket projection from NBC’s Dave Ommen used NCAA Game Sim for his simulation. You can read more here.
The Washington Post also had a simulation, and KU’s final game was also against a Big Ten team. This, however, was in the Sweet 16 as the Jayhawks lost to Ohio State.
“The Jayhawks’ defense was stout (second-best in the country) but they allowed way too many shots from behind the arc (41 percent of all field goals, 288th out of 353 teams),” Neil Greenberg wrote. “Once they ran into a team like Ohio State that could make them pay, it caught up to them.”
The Post’s simulation factored in luck.
“To make it simple, we’re going to start with an estimated number of possessions for each team using the definition outlined by Nylon Calculus, including any additional possessions to be had via offensive rebounds and turnovers,” Greenberg wrote. “Then, estimated scores are derived by multiplying those respective possessions by the team’s adjusted offensive rating found at Ken Pomeroy’s site. Once we know the projected scoring margin, we can infer an implied win percentage. For instance, teams that are favored by two points would have an expected win probability of 57 percent. That rises to 77 percent if the predicted scoring margin is seven points. Finally, these win rates are then used to decide which team would win in a head-to-head matchup with luck factoring into the equation just like it does during March Madness. To simulate luck in this tournament, we are going to compare each team’s expected win rate in a head-to-head matchup to the expected win rate if we based its chances on seed matchup alone. Any team that had a win rate higher than expected for a seed pairing was given a chance at the upset victory. That individual game was then simulated 5,000 times, with the result from the 2,020th game used for this bracket.”
You can read more here, including Wichita State winning a play-in game but not being in the next round of projections.
This story was originally published March 18, 2020 at 12:02 PM.
