A college basketball team just won the NCAA Tournament, meaning that it is required for said team to be compared to the worst squad in the NBA. This year’s version of “Would (BEST COLLEGE TEAM) beat (WORST NBA TEAM)” is extra fun, because both teams are based out of the same city.
The college team is the Villanova Wildcats. The professional team is the Philadelphia 76ers. It would surely be a…uh…basketball game, one that science says the Sixers would win pretty frequently and easily.
According to PredictionMachine.com, Philly’s pro team would beat Philly’s college team 82.4 percent of the time in the most “optimal scenario” for Villanova with the average score being 89.4 to 70.7. Here’s how PredictionMachine got to this conclusion:
To do so we simulated the 2016 Villanova National Champions against the 76ers. In our simulations we play the game in the Pavilion and assume that 100 percent of the fans in attendance are cheering for Nova. The matchup is also played under current college rules against the Sixers average roster from this year.
It’s important to remember that these are only simulations of hypothetical scenarios. If the two teams actually got on the court and played each other, it’s plausible that the Sixers – which beat another NBA team on Tuesday night, so it’s not like they’re going through a stretch of futility that makes this debate, you know, worthwhile – would run Villanova off the floor and win by more than ~19 points. It’s also plausible, although admittedly much more surprising, that the Wildcats would take down the 76ers, because it’s basketball and just about anything is possible in one game.
But the most likely outcome is that the professional team would wreck the college team. Please, let’s put this debate to bed, not just for this year but for the rest of time.
(via The 700 Level)
