Startup Services from Chris Smurthwaite.

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What Would Have Happened This March Madness

Chris

AMOS is really good at calculating startups’ chances of making it big — exiting via IPO or acquisition with meaningful ROI for investors.

Every Spring (like the rest of America), AMOS takes a brief break from all things startup deep learning and AI and simply enjoys the majesty of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament aka March Madness.

Since the Tournament got cancelled this year (cue 90s R&B song, “Un-break My Heart”) and America now has to cope with #ZeroShiningMoments and #MarchSadness (sorry, we’re still somewhere between denial and anger phase), AMOS dealt with the situation the only way we knew how — we built a simulation to see what would have happened if the tournament had played out.

Behold, your 2020 Final Four: Kansas, San Diego State, Florida State and Dayton.

Tournament Summary: The Kansas Jayhawks put FBI investigations and chair-throwing aside and channel all their energy into dominating the field of 68. Bill Self cuts down the nets in Atlanta thanks to hot streaks from their big man and dynamic combo guard.

  • Obi Toppin of Dayton carries the Flyers into the national title game, but falls just short of mid-major mayhem.

  • Florida State, ACC Champs, rolls over Baylor to earn a berth in the Final Four.

  • San Diego State shakes off its loss to Utah State and makes a run at the Final Four thanks to Malachai Flynn balling out of his mind and earning Most Outstanding Player for the West Region.

  • Speaking of Utah State, Sam Merrill makes a magnificent run to the Sweet 16 before Coach Cal’s UK Wildcats send Cinderella home from the Dance.

  • Duke overlooks a pesky West Virginia — aka Press Virginia — much like they did against South Carolina in 2017 and exits the Dance in the Second Round. WVU makes a deep run to the Elite Eight.

  • Arizona chokes in the first round (again) to Markus Howard — an Arizona native — of Marquette University.

So, there you have it, basketball fans. To ensure that your early stage venture portfolio doesn’t turn into its own #MarchSadness, consult with AMOS and Know Your Odds.

Notes:

  1. This is for fun.

  2. Bracketology levered from NBC Sports; retrieved March 12 when the tournament cancellation was announced.

  3. We’re not anti-Joey Brackets at ESPN aka Joe Lunardi.

  4. We’ve spent years building the AMOS model for Venture Capital Investment Intelligence, and we built this basketball tournament simulation over the course of a day or two (read: we are VERY confident in AMOS scores for startups and its accuracy is time-tested and validated; for college basketball, not as much).

  5. This is for fun.

  6. The winners of the “First Four” are built into the simulation.

  7. Read #4 — AMOS pulls from a database of 100K startups; this college basketball simulation pulls from a much, much, much, much, much smaller database that was built on March 13.

  8. Read #1 and #5 again.