BYU Basketball: Updated Odds of a Deep NCAA Tournament Run

The numbers behind a BYU Sweet 16 run and beyond.

BYU men's basketball improved to 20-5 with a 65-51 victory over Saint Mary's on Senior Night. BYU was 2-0 against Saint Mary's this season - their first regular season sweep over the Gaels since 2014. BYU has been projected as high as a #7 seed and as low as a #9 seed in the upcoming NCAA tournament. Following the victory over Saint Mary's, what are BYU's chances to make a deep NCAA tournament run?

Until we can see the NCAA Tournament matchups on Selection Sunday, we'll have to rely on predictive models to answer that question. Team Rankings, a site that specializes in college basketball predictive probabilities, and ESPN BPI have calculated BYU's odds of advancing through each round of the NCAA tournament. Below are their predictions for BYU.

NCAA Tournament Chances

Round	Team Rankings	ESPN BPI
Make Tournament	99.9%	-
Make Round of 32	58.7%	59.8%
Make Sweet 16	24.1%	25.0%
Make Elite Eight	9.1%	9.6%
Make Final Four	3.3%	3.3%
Make NCAA Championship	1.1%	1.1%
Win NCAA Championship	0.3%	0.3%

If BYU is going to have a chance to advance to the Sweet 16, a #7 seed or better is essential in this author's opinion. The #1 seeds have really separated themselves this college basketball season; knocking off a #1 seed in the second round as an #8 or #9 seed would be a very tall task for this BYU basketball team. Knocking off a #2 seed would certainly be a challenge as well, but BYU's odds of a Sweet Sixteen run increase substantially if they move into the #7 seed. Team Rankings says a #6 seed is most likely for BYU, ESPN BPI projects BYU will be between a #6 and a #7 seed with a projected seed of 6.8.

Seed Probabilities (According to Team Rankings)

#3 seed or better: 5.2%

#4 seed: 9.8%

#5 seed: 16.3%

#6 seed: 20.1%

#7 seed: 18.7%

#8 seed: 13.9%

#9 seed: 8.6%

#10 seed: 4.6%

#11 seed: 2.1%

#12 seed or worse: 0.7%

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