Kentucky will be strongly favored in all their remaining games

March 7, 2015 - by Aaron Barzilai

Kentucky’s attempt to be the first undefeated national champion since the 1975-76 Indiana team has been closely watched since the start of the 2015 NCAA Basketball season.

Many sites, including ours, have estimated the odds that they would be able to pull off the accomplishment throughout the season.

Entering Saturday’s game hosting Florida, we currently give them a 23% chance to run the table and win all their regular season and postseason games.

How do we arrive at that estimate?  In addition to making predictions for individual games such as Florida at Kentucky to close out Kentucky’s regular season, we also forecast conference tournaments and the NCAA tournament.

As a result, we have calculated Kentucky’s survival odds in the SEC Tournament as well as odds of advancement for each team in the NCAA tournament.

Pulling this information together, Kentucky has a:

  • a 95% chance to finish the regular season undefeated
  • 79% chance to win the conference tournament
  • 30% chance to win the NCAA championship

Additionally, their odds to win the NCAA tournament are about 3 times higher than than the next tier of competitors: Arizona (12%), Duke (11%), and Wisconsin (10%).

Projecting Each of Kentucky’s Remaining Games

In a recent conversation we had with Gary Parrish of CBS Sports, he pointed out that Kentucky should be favored in all of their remaining games and strong favorites at that. Using our models, we can calculate their odds of winning each of their remaining games assuming they play in the championship game on April 6th in Indianapolis.

The chart below shows:

  • Kentucky is currently at least a 70% favorite in all of their remaining games this season (though if they face a chalky title game opponent like Arizona, their projected win odds could be “only” in the low 60%’s.)
  • Kentucky’s odds to win each game prior to the Final Four are currently over 75%
  • With the weakness in the SEC, their chances to win the SEC Final are about the same as their chance to win in the Round of 32 in the NCAA Tournament against an 8 or 9 seed

 

Kentucky's odds to win each remaining game