Simulated March Madness: Maryland Vs. Baylor For National Championship
(CBS Local/CBS Baltimore)- Heading into another week without sports due to the coronavirus pandemic, we as sports fans are making do with what is available to us.
Over the weekend, CBS aired classic NCAA Tournament games including several recent championship matchups. ESPN brought back "The Ocho" on Sunday featuring a wide array of the weirdest sports from around the globe. And now, on this Monday after what would have been the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament, we have a national championship matchup thanks to the folks at Axios Sports.
The team at Axios ran through the opening rounds and the Sweet 16/Elite 8 last week with a bracket based off of the final bracketology projections of Joe Lunardi. They ended up with a Final Four of Duke, Maryland, Baylor and Seton Hall. After the simulation ran the Final Four, the Terps and the Bears were left standing.
For the Terps, it was a tight three point victory over the Blue Devils. Anthony Cowan had 24 points and eight rebounds to lead the program back to its first championship game since Gary Williams' squad won it all in 2002.
On the other side of the bracket, a slightly lower scoring affair saw Scott Drew's Bears hold off Kevin Willard's Pirates 71-64. Jared Butler led the way for the Bears with 16 points and seven rebounds in the contest.
For the national championship, we are left with a fascinating battle featuring two teams in the Top 25 of both offensive and defensive efficiency according to KenPom ratings. Both teams play at a slower pace meaning that we would, if this scenario played out in the real world, likely be in for a lower-scoring title game, in the mold of last year's Virginia vs. Texas Tech final.
With that said, if this matchup were to have come to fruition, which team would you have had? Maryland or Baylor?