It’s Crowded At The Top Of The NCAA Tournament

FiveThirtyEight’s March Madness predictions are up and ready for your perusal. But while we’re really excited about the tournament, we have to say this is not a year in which we’re going to be able to help you all that much, at least in the Elite Eight and beyond.

That’s because there’s as much parity in the tournament as there’s ever been — not necessarily from the very top of the field to the very bottom, but certainly among a group of No. 1 and No. 2 seeds that aren’t all that easy to distinguish from one another. Meanwhile, the blue bloods have to navigate a minefield of underseeded teams such as Wichita State and SMU, with some having more perilous paths than others.

The one team that potentially stood out from the pack — defending national champion and No. 1 overall seed Villanova — has been undermined by a difficult draw. While the Wildcats are still the nominal favorite to win the tournament, they have only a 15 percent chance of doing so, which is tied for the lowest probability for a frontrunner in our seven years of making tournament predictions.

Our methodology for making these projections is