The women’s NCAA Tournament starts Friday, and there’s one big question: Can South Carolina go undefeated and repeat as national champions? I used my college basketball betting model to project the 2023 NCAA Tournament. I ran 1 million simulations to see how often teams would advance to each stage of the NCAA Tournament and to help identify potential Cinderella teams.
In my simulations, South Carolina wins the championship a whopping 61.4 percent of the time, and the Gamecocks advance to the Final Four in 79 percent. That’s a ridiculous result for a team sport with a decent amount of variance and a tournament with 68 teams. South Carolina didn’t play a cupcake schedule to finish the season undefeated. It beat Stanford (76-71), UCLA (73-64), Tennessee twice and LSU (88-64). The Gamecocks are just that dominant.
South Carolina is so dominant it’d be a 10-point favorite over No. 2 Stanford. That’s the same difference between Stanford and No. 18 Iowa State.
Stanford (38.5 percent) UConn (39) and Indiana (35.7) are the other favorites to join South Carolina in Dallas at the Final Four. LSU, a No. 3 seed in the Greenville 2 Region, is the fifth favorite team to advance to the Final Four and could be a team to keep an eye on as the tournament progresses. UConn is the No. 2…
