West Virginia’s Chances of Winning the National Championship

Cover Photo: WVU Athletics

Morgantown, West Virginia – The West Virginia Mountaineers played well down the stretch and almost certainly locked up an NCAA Tournament bid. At 19-14 overall and 7-11 in the toughest conference in the nation, West Virginia appears on every NCAA Tournament bracket predictions by college basketball experts.

The Mountaineers are currently ranked 24th in the NET Rankings, which is the primary tool used by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee. With that, West Virginia will likely fall somewhere in the #7-#12 seed range when the brackets are released this evening at 6:00PM.

According to TeamRankings.com,West Virginia’s odds of advancing to the Elite 8, Final Four and National Championship are pretty remote. West Virginia has a 50.6% chance of winning their first round matchup and moving on to the Round of 32. If the Mountaineers win that opening round game, West Virginia’s odds of winning the 2nd round matchup and advancing to the Sweet 16 falls to 16.8%. The Mountaineers’ odds, according to Team Rankings, of winning a potential game in the Elite 8 is 8.8%. If West Virginia can manage to win in the Elite 8, their chances of winning in the Final Four falls to 3.3%. And ultimately, if West Virginia makes it to the national championship, they have a 0.4% chance of taking home the championship trophy.

With that said, the NCAA Tournament is called March Madness for a reason. Anything can happen and often, underdog teams like the Mountaineers make huge runs and defy the experts’ predictions.