This Ranking System Predicted The 2026 March Madness Champions
The best March Madness model wasn’t the most accurate. Here’s why WAB outperformed every ranking system in bracket success.
Michigan celebrates after defeating UConn in the NCAA college basketball tournament national championship game at the Final Four, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr) Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Last night the No. 1 seeded Michigan Wolverines prevailed over the No. 2 seeded UConn Huskies in the NCAA men’s college basketball national championship game.
It marked the end of another exciting March Madness tournament and the end of a 26-year national title drought for the Big Ten conference. Michigan's Yaxel Lendeborg (23) drives around UConn's Jayden Ross during the first half of the NCAA college basketball tournament national championship game at the Final Four, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy) Copyright 2026 The Associated Press.
All rights reserved. Before the tournament began, I reverse engineered how the committee utilized different ranking systems, including Wins Against Bubble (WAB), NET, Torvik T-Rank, BPI, SOR, and KenPom, to structure this year’s bracket. That analysis showed that WAB was the most predictive of how the committee chose to seed teams on Selection Sunday.
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