Month: April 2021

2021 Tournament Final

Congratulations to the Baylor University Bears (28-2) for their first NCAA men’s basketball championship, earned in their 13th tournament appearance.  The Gonzaga University Bulldogs (31-1) fell just short in a bid to complete an undefeated season while trying to win their first national title.  They lost their 2nd tournament final game (2017 loss to North Carolina).  The 1976 Indiana Hoosiers remain the last team to complete an undefeated season with a tourney championship.

Baylor’s championship is the 4th for the Big 12 Conference — the first for a member school other than Kansas.

For the second-straight tournament a first-time champion has won the tournament.  The last occurrence of consecutive first-time victors was 2002 (Maryland) and 2003 (Syracuse).

Scrutinous Score achieved the highest bracket score (104) compared to the other major team rating metrics — beating KenPom, Sagarin, Torvik, NCAA NET, SRS, Net Rating, and chalk.  The bracket scores for each of the team rating metrics is presented on the Bracket Master Picks Page for every tournament season since 1998.  The (i) button to the left of the ‘Scoring System’ option will display these bracket scores.

Number 1 Seeds have won the last four tournaments.  Number 1s last won four consecutive from 2007 to 2010.  A five-straight-year streak by Number 1s occurred from 1992 to 1996.  Number 1 Seeds have won 25 of the 42 (60%) tourneys that assigned official seed numbers (all tournaments after 1978).