Latest March Madness projections lean toward a hated program cutting down the nets

College basketball fans are less than 24 hours away from the start of the first round of the Men's NCAA Tournament.

Fans have been treated to a good appetizer with the First Four games in Dayton, Ohio. St. Francis vs. Alabama State has already delivered our first last-second win of the tournament season.

However, it doesn't feel like the tournament truly begins until the tip-off of the first round matchups. So, if you haven't filled out a bracket, you better get to it.

Speaking of brackets, The Athletic has put together a simulation that allows fans to see who has the best chance of cutting down the nets in the end.

According to the projections, the Duke Blue Devils have the best chance at winning it all, with the projections putting them at 23% to be the national champions.

The method to The Athletic's madness is:

Louisville Cardinals guard Terrence Edwards Jr. shoots from the free throw line during practice before the first round of the 2025 NCAA men's basketball tournament. / Matt Stone/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

"We create an offensive and defensive projection for every college basketball team using various box score metrics. These projections estimate how many points a team would score and allow in a game against an average opponent on a neutral court. We then assign a probability of how likely a team is to win a given game by adjusting for opponent, location and team health. Taking into account the bracket, we use the projections to simulate the tournament 200,000 times.

After those 200,000 simulations, we calculate how often a team is to make each round of the tournament and win the championship. For example, if a team has a 10 percent chance of making the Final Four, that means that they've made the Final Four in 10 percent of the simulations run."

Here's to hoping those projections are terribly wrong.

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