(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Disasters are terrible, of course, but one silver lining is the selflessness demonstrated by many people including health-care workers risking their lives, volunteers stepping up to support essential services and millions of people giving generously to help those in need. The headlines may be full of partisan sniping, but more people are likely to be helping out than pointing fingers.
One example is the Bloomberg March Madness Brackets for a Cause annual challenge, in which Wall Street and business leaders contribute $10,000 each to charities chosen by the winner of an NCAA basketball bracket contest. This year, with no brackets to contest, participants are increasing their donations to $25,000 each for to-be-determined coronavirus relief.
For my modest part, I offer this quant replacement for the tournament for the enjoyment of self-isolating basketball fans. I’m not talking about a prediction of which team would most likely have won the 2020 March Madness tournament had it been played; I’m asking which team put together the regular season record most deserving of being crowned champion. It turns out to be a mild upset.
Fortunately, we have a pretty good idea of what the NCAA brackets would have been. There were a few games left to play, and some minor uncertainty about seedings when the committee announced its final pairings on Selection Sunday this weekend, but the broad picture was pretty clear.
To be champion, a team would have to beat six of the 68 tournament teams. Many teams are capable of doing this, of course, but only 10 actually accomplished it during the regular season. We don’t give championships for being a good team; we award them for actually winning games.
The top-rated team in most listings is Kansas, which beat nine likely tournament teams. But the No. 2 team, Gonzaga, beat only four. Gonzaga certainly would have been a popular pick to win the tournament, but it did not beat enough good teams to be considered for the championship. The No. 3 and No. 4 teams, Dayton and Florida State, beat only three tournament teams each.
The other schools with wins over six or more likely tournament teams are Baylor (8), Creighton (9), Kentucky (6), Michigan State (10), Villanova (7), Maryland (8), Oregon (9), Seton Hall (6) and Wisconsin (8).
The most impressive regular season certainly belongs to Kansas. It was 12-3 versus tournament teams (but those 12 victories were over only nine different teams) and 16-0 versus everyone else. But there’s one thing its season lacked: It won only two games versus the likely No. 1 to No. 4 seeds expected to make up the Sweet 16. You need to win three games against Sweet 16 teams to be champion.
Of the 10 teams with six or more victories versus tournament teams, two (Maryland and Oregon) had only one versus a Sweet 16 team, six had two wins, and only two — Michigan State and Villanova — had the necessary three. Both were likely No. 3 seeds in the tournament and are ranked about ninth and 11th respectively in the country.
Michigan State’s Sweet 16 victories were over Wisconsin, Seton Hall and Maryland; one No. 4 and two No. 3 seeds — not exactly a plausible path to the championship. Villanova beat Seton Hall, Creighton and Kansas -- a No. 3, No. 2 and No. 1 seed -- which sounds like a championship run if those were its last three games.
So it’s Villanova. Many schools could have won the tournament, but only one can point to six of its regular-season victories that would have given it the most plausible path for a championship run in 2020.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Niemi at dniemi1@bloomberg.net
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Aaron Brown is a former managing director and head of financial market research at AQR Capital Management. He is the author of "The Poker Face of Wall Street." He may have a stake in the areas he writes about.
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