The Bradley Braves advancing to the sweet 16 is a good story but the eventual champions will be the team that has at least one or two top NBA draft picks on the team. This has been the conventional thinking in picking NCAA champs for the last 20 years or so.
Jake Curtis of the San Francisco Chronicle takes the NBA picks theory and runs with it. He ranks the remaining 16 teams based on the likelihood of which spot in the draft their star players will be taken.
One way to predict which team will win the national championship is to total the number of likely first-round picks each of the 16 remaining teams has. In our rating system, three points are awarded for each player expected to be a top-five pick, two for a likely first-rounder, and one for a player who has a chance to go in the first round.
His system has UConn beating Duke in the finals. Three teams (Villanova, Memphis, Texas) are tied in 3rd place. If he’s correct, then in the games this weekend, take Connecticut over Washingon, Villanova over BC, Florida over Georgetown, Duke over LSU, Texas over West Virginia and Memphis over Bradley. George Mason vs Wichita State and Gonzaga vs UCLA are tossups.
Related Links:
[SFGate.com] : Projecting pros, NCAA champs
