NCAA MBB Tournament 2025

[Wags]

November Madness?

https://www.cbssports.com/college-baske ... ent-event/

[EvanJ]

Good thread on the step-by-step reverse engineering detailing how the final tournament bracket was put together:

https://x.com/Bauertology/status/1901502792331907344

Thank you. I did not know that the Selection Committee let the public know all of that.

At halftime, one of the guys in the studio said that John Calipari's teams were 35-0 when leading by at least 6 at halftime in the NCAA Tournament. 10 seed Arkansas led 3 seed Texas Tech by 7. Another guy in the studio brought up saying that being a jinx, and the could who said it said he was just giving a statistic. Arkansas went up 13 with 4:43 left, blew it, and lost in overtime. My dad's bracket tied mine because he picked Texas Tech, which I think would be unusual in the New York area because the game could have been won by St. John's.

I heard that it is unfair that 1 seed Houston has to play 4 seed Purdue in Indianapolis. It may be unfair, but it is good for me because I picked 2 seed Tennessee to win the region.

2023 had so many upsets that my 480 was in ESPN's 72.1 percentile. The same score now would be in the 31.2st percentile with only 42 percent of points worth of games played, and every remaining game could be won by the best team that could have won it going into the tournament. Nobody knows what percent of all points are earned in each round. My 42 percent of points worth of games played means that if a bracket got all 63 games (ESPN excluded the First Four) correct, the bracket would have 42 percent of its points so far.

[Wags]

If St. John's would have beaten Arkansas and then Texas Tech, the Elite 8 would have been 1 vs. 2 in every region and would have been the top eight in the latest AP poll.

Can't recall a year that was remotely close to something like that before.

[dutchPride86]

With Tennesse's win over Kentucky and Arizona's loss yesterday, Dubar is last CAA player standing in the tourney (and he actually had 5 pts in 13 min tonight). Pretty wild that Hofstra has had a player in the elite 8 two years in a row

[Wags]

Good thread on the step-by-step reverse engineering detailing how the final tournament bracket was put together:

https://x.com/Bauertology/status/1901502792331907344

Thank you. I did not know that the Selection Committee let the public know all of that.

That wasn't the committee revealing that, it was that guy on Twitter showing how the committee ranked the teams, 1-68, and then following the committee's rules to place teams, seed line by seed line.

[EvanJ]

I know, but in order for the guy to do that, he has to know what the committee does.

I got a scare for the second consecutive weekend, but my champion Florida came back to beat Texas Tech. If Duke beats Alabama (in progress), Tennessee beats Houston, Florida and Duke win Semifinals, and Florida wins, I will win ESPN's Fans of Hofstra group with 118 brackets. I have Auburn defeating Michigan State, but I do not need that game to win the group if the other five games go right. I am in ESPN's 94.6th percentile.

[Wags]

After this year's Final Four, only five players will have ever played for multiple teams in a Final Four.

Three of those five will be in this Final Four (Alijjah Martin, L.J. Cryer, and Mason Gillis).

So, more in this Final Four alone than in the history of the sport prior. Says something about the portal/NIL landscape.

Martin is the first to ever play for multiple Final Four teams from the same state after playing for Florida Atlantic two years ago and Florida this year.

[Wags]

The two teams playing for a national championship on Monday night led for a combined total of 15:28 and trailed for a combined total of 59:32 in the Final Four.

Florida led for 11:45, Auburn for 24:37.
Houston led for 3:43, Duke for 34:55.

[Wags]

The same team that had nine points 11:06 into the game, scored nine points over the final :33 to win. Sports.

[Jojogunne]

That was a crushing loss for Duke.

[Wags]

Duke is the only team to lose an NCAA Tournament game with:

* A higher FG%
* More FT attempts
* More assists
* Fewer turnovers
* More steals (since steals became an official stat in 1986)

Teams who had done that since 1986 were 335-0 in the tourney.

[Wags]

That was a crushing loss for Duke.

Gotta play to the end. Houston did, Duke didn't.

[Wags]

Over the last 25 seasons, there have been 7,859 instances of a Division I team trailing by 5+ points at halftime at least 5 times in a single season.

In only one of those 7,859 instances has a team come back to win every single one of those games.

That one team is this year's Houston Cougars (5-0).

[dutchPride86]

Anyone else catch what Sampson said here? So are we Sasquatch State?

https://x.com/CBSSports/status/19094152 ... CEhAQ&s=19

[Wags]

The two teams playing for a national championship on Monday night led for a combined total of 15:28 and trailed for a combined total of 59:32 in the Final Four.

Florida led for 11:45, Auburn for 24:37.
Houston led for 3:43, Duke for 34:55.

Houston led Duke for 3:43, trailed for 34:55, and won.
Houston led Florida for 30:44, trailed for 1:04, and lost.

The three winners in San Antonio led for 16:32.
The three losers in San Antonio led for 90:16.

Florida led for a total of 12:49 over two games in San Antonio but won the championship.

[EvanJ]

Duke is the only team to lose an NCAA Tournament game with:

* A higher FG%
* More FT attempts
* More assists
* Fewer turnovers
* More steals (since steals became an official stat in 1986)

Teams who had done that since 1986 were 335-0 in the tourney.

Thank you. That is the type of thing I like to find.

Congratulations to Florida for becoming the first school to have at least three Football championships and at least three Men's Basketball Championships.

Since Syracuse won the tournament in 2003, I wonder if Walter Clayton Jr. is the first champion who transferred from a New York school. New York has a lot of people, but only won two of 86 tournaments, and the other one was City College of New York in 1950 when the top conferences did not have the television and online revenue they have now.

I was in ESPN's 95.1st percentile. I do not know how many ESPN groups I ever entered, but I won a group with 30 brackets. I got third and got a little money from my dad's pool that I invited people here to participate. I gamble $10 per year on my bracket, and never any other time. It is my twelfth consecutive tournament in the top half, with an average percentile of 76.3. It is my sixth consecutive tournament in the top 40 percent with an average percentile of 81.6, and 92.4th or better in three of the six. Picking the best possible seed in every game and the better 1 seeds according to the selection committee in the Final Four would have made a bracket be 68.8th percentile. Last year doing that would have been 92.3rd percentile.

ESPN's Celebrity Brackets group, which includes their employees, did a very good job. Of 53 brackets, 27 (50.9 percent) picked Florida. 21.3 percent of all brackets picked Florida. If you do 53 independent trials with a probability of 0.213 every time, the probability of at least 27 successes is so low that a website called it 0. Congratulation to ESPN's Jay Bilas for getting the last seven and fourteen of the last fifteen games correct. He was in the 99.7th percentile.

[Wags]

Duke is the only team to lose an NCAA Tournament game with:

* A higher FG%
* More FT attempts
* More assists
* Fewer turnovers
* More steals (since steals became an official stat in 1986)

Teams who had done that since 1986 were 335-0 in the tourney.

Thank you. That is the type of thing I like to find.

Congratulations to Florida for becoming the first school to have at least three Football championships and at least three Men's Basketball Championships.

Since Syracuse won the tournament in 2003, I wonder if Walter Clayton Jr. is the first champion who transferred from a New York school. New York has a lot of people, but only won two of 86 tournaments, and the other one was City College of New York in 1950 when the top conferences did not have the television and online revenue they have now.

I was in ESPN's 95.1st percentile. I do not know how many ESPN groups I ever entered, but I won a group with 30 brackets. I got third and got a little money from my dad's pool that I invited people here to participate. I gamble $10 per year on my bracket, and never any other time. It is my twelfth consecutive tournament in the top half, with an average percentile of 76.3. It is my sixth consecutive tournament in the top 40 percent with an average percentile of 81.6, and 92.4th or better in three of the six. Picking the best possible seed in every game and the better 1 seeds according to the selection committee in the Final Four would have made a bracket be 68.8th percentile. Last year doing that would have been 92.3rd percentile.

ESPN's Celebrity Brackets group, which includes their employees, did a very good job. Of 53 brackets, 27 (50.9 percent) picked Florida. 21.3 percent of all brackets picked Florida. If you do 53 independent trials with a probability of 0.213 every time, the probability of at least 27 successes is so low that a website called it 0. Congratulation to ESPN's Jay Bilas for getting the last seven and fourteen of the last fifteen games correct. He was in the 99.7th percentile.

Congrats on your winnings, Evan!

[EvanJ]

Your welcome. I hope the tournament never expands in a way that makes it too big for a bracket to fit on one page. The CAA would not have been close to an at-large bid this season even if the tournament had 96 teams.