The Madness is Down to Four Teams

The men's Final Four tips off in Houston this weekend after the past two weeks gave us one of the least chalky run-ups to March Madness' semifinal round

The stage is set for the Final Four in Houston. And my pick, the Houston Cougars, won’t be cutting down the nets in their hometown this weekend.

But most likely your bracket has been busted at this point too in what has proven to be one of the more unique combination of teams representing the Final Four

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. The madness of the 2023 men’s tournament leaves us with San Diego State vs. FAU and UConn vs. Miami in Saturday’s games to determine who will play for the National Championship on Monday.

The bona fide favorite now is UConn, the only school of the quartet who has been to this stage of the tournament before. Not only has the program been to the Final Four, it won national titles in 1999, 2004, 2011 and 2014, which puts the Huskies in elite company. Sports-Reference.com’s Simple Rating System (SRS) has this version as the fifth-best team in school history.

UConn hasn’t just made it to the 2023 Final Four again, but bulldozed its way through the first four rounds. It became the 10th team in men’s tournament history to win each game by at least 15 points; three of its four wins were even decided by more than 20 points. The Huskies’ plus-90 point differential is tied for the fourth-most of any Final Four team since 2000.

So they’re expectedly the betting favorites to win the championship on Monday

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FanDuel odds give the Huskies a 72 percent implied probability of advancing from the semis and 56 percent chance to win the National Championship, as of Friday night. The Huskies most likely opponent will be San Diego State with a 60 percent chance to meet them in the Final.

1. FiveThirtyEight’s model implied a 1-in-412,740 chance of these four teams playing in Houston.

2. The code to recreate the above plots can be found on my Github.