The 2015 Men’s Basketball National Champion — Determined by the Internet

With the 2015 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament about to begin, everyone has an opinion on who’ll be cutting down the net as national champs. And while we have to wait until April 6 to find out who wins it all, two big digital players crunched some data and think they know who will win.

First up: Google. The search giant filled out its bracket by looking at a whole host of information, like searches, views, comments, like on YouTube, and news items from the 2014-15 men’s basketball season. Analysts then used those results to determine winners and come up with its national champion. Their conclusion shouldn’t be surprising:



click on the image to see the full version of the infographic


In the world of social media, our friends at Facebook shared their own stab at filling out a bracket using info gathered from their users. Here’s how the social network’s data team did it, according to Alex Walker, the Comms and PR Manager of Facebook Sports: “The Facebook data team looked at a month's worth of mentions (2/15 – 3/14) related to all 68 schools in this year's March Madness tournament, advancing the most-talked-about team into the winner’s column round after round.” The results? Not much different from Google’s:



click on the image to see a larger version


So, what’s the takeaway? Kentucky is a huge favorite to win it all this season. But this is March Madness and anything can — and will — happen!


Photos: Google, Facebook