2026-2027 MBB computer projections thread

[Sigmapolis]

With the brackets out --

https://www.playersera.com/mens

And a more rational format of two eight-team brackets with everybody guaranteed at least three games and a bonus "Million Dollar Game" between the two bracket winners, I spent a little time last night fiddling with Excel for the first time in months and seeing how helpful Claude could be.

"Marginally" toward the latter question, but what about the former?

All these projections use the current Torvik projections for 2027.

LEFT BRACKET (the one with Iowa St.)



Iowa St. has an comparatively easy draw in the first round. Tennessee and Maryland should be manageable. Avoiding St. John's and Louisville (regardless of Milan possibly ending up there) until later in the tournament certainly helps and gives Iowa St. the third-best odds to win its side of the bracket.

RIGHT BRACKET



An absolute gauntlet with Gonzaga, Michigan, and Alabama in there. Doesn't look like the three Big 12 teams in there (Baylor, TCU, and K-St.) are going to help the conference ratings very much.

MILLION DOLLAR GAME



Iowa St. comes in with a respectable 7.22% chance to win the bonus money with the preseason ratings. Michigan, Gonzaga, and Louisville (and possibly with Milan...) are going to be monsters, though, and are going to be the favorites to win the bonus game and hence the pile of NIL money.

Iowa State opponents by round --



~29% of bumping into Louisville

Iowa St. and K-St. meeting in the grand finals would be hilarious.

 

[NENick]

Interesting new top 25 in the Athletic today. ISU at 23, several spots behind Iowa, among others. Writer includes Mason Williams as a "key returner" and the 3 freshmen all as "unranked transfer."
Details.

 

[NWICY]

Interesting new top 25 in the Athletic today. ISU at 23, several spots behind Iowa, among others. Writer includes Mason Williams as a "key returner" and the 3 freshmen all as "unranked transfer."
Details.

I'd have my doubts about any poll that has ISU below Iowa. They had a good run in March but I think our recruiting has been better and well we've got TJ.

 

[cyclones500]

I don't have a way offhand to quantify this assertion.

But I would bet if you constructed some metric on which programs have most overperformed or underperformed their NCAA tournament seeds over the years, Iowa State would be near the top (and probably Iowa during the Fran years until the recent hot little run two months ago) with underperformance.

Going as far back as the Fred era...

We've seen two #2 seeds not make the Elite Eight.

We saw a #3 seed crash out in the first round.

We've had a bunch of lower seeds duck out in the first weekend.

The only counterexample is the Brockington team (#11 seed to Sweet Sixteen).

We've never had a really good team (#3 or better seed or so) make that deep run to the Final Four or a "meh" team make a deeper run outside of those two magical games in Milwaukee in 2022.

I wish we'd finally have that good-to-great team that overperforms in March finally because when we do look out! It was fun when the mediocre-to-bad 2022 team did it, but I wish we had more.

It would be cool if the under/over for ISU tournament performance was a little more balanced. The examples you mention represent it well, but we can go back even further.

Advanced at least one round beyond seed line expectation:
1986: 7 (reached Sweet 16)
1992: 10 (Round of 32)
1997: 6 (Sweet 16)
2005: 9 (Round of 32)
2013: 10 (Round of 32)
2022: 11 (Sweet 16) - 2 lines (mentioned in your roundup)

Defeated earlier than seed line (number of rounds below in parentheses)
1993: 8 (minus 1 ... R64)
2001: 2 (minus 3 ... R64)
2015: 3 (minus 2 ... R64)
2019: 6 (minus 1 ... R64)
2023: 6 (minus 1 ... R64)
2024: 2 (minus 1 ... Sweet 16)
2025: 3 (minus 1 .... R32)
2026: 2 (minus 1 ... Sweet 16)

Played to seed line:
1985: 13 (R64)
1988: 12 (R64)
1989: 10 (R64)
1995: 7 (R32)
1996: 5 (R32)
2000: 2 (Elite 8)
2012: 8 (R32)
2014: 3 (Sweet 16 .... lost to lower seed (7))
2016: 4 (Sweet 16)
2017: 5 (R32)

The 8v9 cases typically is a toss-up, and 7-10 is nearly that, but I count it either way.

I think I covered all the tournament appearances, if any omissions or errors, please advise.

 

[not-the-manager]

Interesting new top 25 in the Athletic today. ISU at 23, several spots behind Iowa, among others. Writer includes Mason Williams as a "key returner" and the 3 freshmen all as "unranked transfer."
Details.

I'd have my doubts about any poll that has ISU below Iowa. They had a good run in March but I think our recruiting has been better and well we've got TJ.

What a joke. Iowa had one NCAA tournament run. They lost their two best players, and now writers expect more out of them than Otzelberger’s five-year and proven system? Among other things, that tells me people are just looking at transfer rankings and not the fact that Otz arguably hasn’t whiffed on a transfer. They haven’t all bloomed into reliable scorers, but many of them were brought in as role players and played their parts. And most of them improved

 

[NorthCyd]

In just the TJ era you would expect at least 1 elite 8 about 80% of the time with the seeds we've had in the last 3 tournaments. Then again, 11 seeds make the sweet 16 about 20% of the time, and he accomplished that in year 1. Given the significant injuries ISU has had in two of the last 3 years It's been a lot of variables that are out of TJs hands. If he keeps us in a position where we are consistently getting 4 seeds or better it's only a matter of time before that magical run happens. Just making the second weekend 3 out of 5 years is incredibly impressive given where the program was when he took over.

 

[CyFanInChiLand]

Seems odd that Iowa is that high. I thought their portal additions were viewed as fairly meh? I also dont believe any of the HS kids were even top 100 players. Just dont get it.