NATE SILVER: Florida Is No Longer A Favorite To Win The NCAA Tournament

When the tournament began Florida was effectively a co-favorite with Louisville.

They had a 14.5% chance yesterday, with a 42% chance of making the Final Four. Today they have an 11% chance, with a 35% chance of making the Final four.

In a blog post on FiveThirtyEight, Silver says that a poor performance against Albany, a tough Round of 32 match-up against Pittsburgh, and a potential date with Kansas or Syracuse in the regional final are the reasons why the Gators' odds are tumbling.

Here were the favorites yesterday:

Here they are today:

One of the lessons here: Silver's model - and annual advanced stats algorithms in general - is working off of a small sample size.

Thirty games isn't all that many. The fact that one subpar game against Albany can shift Florida's title odds shows you how volatile these numbers can be.

Ken Pomeroy, the most respected college basketball stat head around, called this problem "college basketball's epistemological blind spot." There's simply not enough data to get a full portrait of how good these teams are.