The website teamrankings.com, which has the motto “Get Smart About Sports,” gives the Florida Gators the best chance to win the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship.
As of Wednesday, the site says Florida has a 20.8 percent chance of winning the national championship. That’s higher than any other team in the country with Indiana at 15.8 percent as the team with the second highest chance of winning it all.
The site is updated daily and claims to run simulations for the entire basketball season “several times daily.”
In addition, it says the Gators have a 100 percent chance of earning an NCAA tournament bid and a 62 percent chance of earning an automatic bid, which would mean the Gators would have won the SEC tournament.
Florida has a 99 percent chance of earning a top-4 seed and a 64 percent chance of landing a No. 1 seed. It has an 82 percent chance of reaching the Sweet 16 and a 46 percent chance of reaching the Final Four in Atlanta.
In every category, those percentages are higher than Duke, Kansas, Arizona, Syracuse, Indiana, Louisville and every other team in the nation.
In other words, the site believes Florida is the best team in the country, or at least the team most suited to make a longer run than the rest in the Big Dance.
Perhaps it’s because defense wins championships. The Gators are third nationally in scoring defense (51.7 points allowed per game) and fifth nationally in defensive field goal percentage (36.1). They’re also second nationally in scoring margin (22.1) and ninth in field goal percentage (49.1).
The site also has, among other features, individual game predictions and point spreads. For instance, it has Florida favored to win by 15.5 points at Georgia, which tips off at 8 p.m. on Wednesday.
Florida, which is No. 8 in this week’s Associated Press Top 25, is 14-2 overall and 4-0 in SEC play.