- The 2023 men's NCAA Tournament is here, and fans are working hard to perfect their brackets.
- The betonline.ag team used Twitter trends to determine which team is being picked to win it all in each state.
March Madness is upon us.
So is bracket-building season.
Since the committee revealed its 68-team field on Sunday, college basketball fans around the country have been hard at work perfecting their brackets in hopes of becoming the first person ever to correctly guess every pick. And with the men's NCAA Tournament set to tip off with the First Four Tuesday night, betonline.ag took a look at which team fans across the United States expect to win it all.
Using geotagged Twitter data to track hashtags and phrases that indicate the user's expected winner, the company was able to determine which team each state is picking to cut down the nets in Houston. And after analyzing more than 250,000 tweets, they got a good idea of what the map looks like heading into the Big Dance.
Unsurprisingly, No. 1 seeds earned the most love from fans. Nine states have more fans picking the Kansas Jayhawks — the kings of the West and the reigning NCAA champions — than any other team in the field.
Eight states, meanwhile, are standing strong with the controversy-laden Alabama Crimson Tide. And seven states scattered from Massachusetts to Utah are home to fans who think the Purdue Boilermakers have the best shot of hoisting the trophy come April.
It appears fans lost confidence in the fourth No. 1 seed — the Houston Cougars — thanks to star Marcus Sasser's injury and the squad's loss to the Memphis Tigers in the AAC Tournament final. Only two states, New Mexico and Louisiana, believe in the Cougars; their home state is throwing its weight behind the Texas Longhorns instead.
Ten other teams — the UConn Huskies, Gonzaga Bulldogs, Virginia Cavaliers, Duke Blue Devils, Marquette Golden Eagles, UCLA Bruins, Xavier Musketeers, Kentucky Wildcats, Tennessee Volunteers, and Arizona Wildcats — received majority support among fans in at least one state. As a six-seed, Kentucky is the lowest-ranked team to earn a spot on the list.
Check out the full map below: