College basketball does not play nicely with statistics.
According to Nate Silver, founder of fivethirtyeight.com, there is a one in 1,610,543,269 chance of predicting a perfect March Madness bracket, and the odds of correctly predicting the entire tournament field are even lower.
Still, there are reasonable outcomes to expect, which is why Wisconsin now finding itself in the tournament picture is so surprising. But looking carefully at the numbers, it actually isn’t all that astonishing.
Outside of Wisconsin’s big three, Nigel Hayes, Bronson Koenig and Zak Showalter, who provide steady production, the duo of Ethan Happ and junior Vitto Brown have saved the Badgers’ 17-year NCAA Tournament streak.