CHICAGO: For the first time since its creation in 1939, the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament will not be played on the court.
Over the next few weeks, leading sports tech firm Stats Perform will leverage its AI capabilities and deep data to simulate all the action, including the upsets and Cinderella stories.
Stats Perform’s research group has developed an AI model powered by advanced data and NET rankings to calculate each team’s offensive and defensive ratings from the 2019-20 season. The model not only illustrates which teams would have likely made the NCAA Tournament, but creates a probability margin for each matchup and simulates a matchup only once, creating the possibility for exciting upsets. Using advanced AI models powered by current and historical data, Stats Perform is able to generate a more accurate prediction and compelling narrative of the tournament that could have been.
“Like all sports fans, we will badly miss the excitement of the NCAA Tournament, especially the thrills of those early-round upsets,” Stats Perform senior director of content and broadcast services Peter Hirdt said. “As a company with unrivaled deep data sets and advanced AI, we are in a unique position to create a realistic simulation of how the tournament could have played out. While it can’t match the excitement and thrills of the real thing, this model helps fill our craving over these next few weeks.”
Stats Perform’s model already predicted the First Four games with NC State taking down Stanford (73-66), Robert Morris besting Norfolk State (68-47), Oklahoma defeating Arizona State (70-48) and Northern Kentucky beating Prairie View A&M (74-56).
