{"id":41438,"date":"2026-03-17T09:06:03","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T13:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=41438"},"modified":"2026-03-17T09:06:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T13:06:03","slug":"furman-mathematicians-calculate-probability-of-paladin-uconn-upset-on-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/furman-mathematicians-calculate-probability-of-paladin-uconn-upset-on-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"Furman mathematicians calculate probability of Paladin-UCONN upset on Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every March, hope and probability collide in the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. This year, Furman University enters the bracket as a No. 15 seed \u2013 exactly the kind of team fans hope might become a Cinderella. The math, however, tells a more cautious story.<\/p>\n

\"a

Liz Bouzarth, Kevin Hutson and John Harris ’91, Department of Mathematics<\/p><\/div>\n

For Furman math professors Kevin Hutson and Liz Bouzarth and John Harris \u201991, the drama of March is rooted in probabilities. Each year the trio analyzes tournament matchups using a data-driven model that estimates the likelihood of upsets across the bracket. When they ran the numbers for this year\u2019s tournament, Hutson says the Paladins face long \u2013 but not hopeless \u2013 odds.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurman has about a 7% chance of an upset,\u201d Hutson says. \u201cThat\u2019s sort of the bad news. The good news is if you look at all the 15 seeds this year, that\u2019s the best chance any of them has.\u201d<\/p>\n

That number comes from a model built and refined over more than a decade, often with help from Furman students<\/a>. Hutson, Bouzarth and Harris pull game-by-game statistics from ESPN and season metrics from analytics databases, then run the data through a variety of techniques \u2013 regression models, clustering analysis, decision trees and historical matchup comparisons. Each model contributes to what Hutson calls an \u201censemble model,\u201d blending multiple analytical perspectives into a single upset probability.<\/p>\n

The work doesn\u2019t stay inside the classroom. Each year their analysis is shared with sports journalists, including writers at The Athletic<\/a>, who use the probabilities to identify the tournament\u2019s most likely upsets and the storylines hidden in the numbers.<\/p>\n

Still, Bouzarth emphasizes that the model doesn\u2019t predict winners\u2014it measures likelihood.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe type of information we provide is the probability of an upset,\u201d she says. \u201cAnybody can do with that information what they want.\u201d<\/p>\n

That uncertainty is exactly what makes March Madness so compelling. Even the best models miss surprises. When the team ranks the 10 most likely upsets each year, Hutson says, \u201cwe usually hit about five or six out of that 10,\u201d while a few unexpected results slip through.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s where Cinderella stories live.<\/p>\n

A 7% probability might sound small. But in a tournament defined by chaos, it\u2019s also enough to imagine the possibility that Furman could beat the numbers, bust a few brackets and turn a sliver of probability into one of March\u2019s most memorable moments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every year Furman professors run the numbers to determine the likelihood of upsets in the NCAA Men\u2019s Basketball Tournament and hope that the Paladins pull one off in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":41428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,101,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-data-analytics","category-mathematics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41438"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41441,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41438\/revisions\/41441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}