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          Men's College Basketball Blog

          Tournament Challenge: Brackets had far less faith in Michigan making it to final

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          Oz The Mentalist predicts Villanova blows out Michigan (3:22)

          Oz Pearlman reveals the NCAA Tournament prediction that he made on March 12th, stunning the crew on Get Up! (3:22)

          • ESPN
          Apr 2, 2018, 11:27 PM

          Here are some Tournament Challenge takeaways ahead of Monday night’s title game between No. 1 seed Villanova and No. 3 seed Michigan:

          • Only No. 1 overall seed (Virginia, 18.5 percent) was picked to win the championship in more brackets than Villanova (16.3 percent).

          • In order, Virginia, Villanova, Duke, Michigan State, Kansas, North Carolina and Arizona are the seven schools that were picked to win it all in more brackets than Michigan (3.8 percent).

          • More entries picked Michigan to win the championship than the higher-seeded No. 1 Xavier, No. 2 Purdue and No. 2 Cincinnati.

          • Since 2007, No. 1 seeds have won 10 of 12 meetings vs. No. 3 seeds. That includes No. 1 Villanova beating No. 3 Texas Tech in the Elite Eight this season.

          • 2.4 percent of entries (409,682 out of 17,304,320) predicted that Villanova and Michigan would face each other in the title game. Of those brackets, 61.5 percent picked Villanova to beat Michigan and win the championship.

          • Overall, 31.7 percent of entries correctly predicted that Villanova would make it to the championship game. 16.3 percent picked them to win it all.

          • Overall, 8.1 percent of entries made the right call and put Michigan into the title game. 3.8 percent have them winning the championship.