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FiveThirtyEight gives Kentucky a 41-percent chance of winning NCAA title

Christopher Hanewinckel / USA TODAY Sports

Analytics site FiveThirtyEight has the Kentucky Wildcats as the overwhelming favorite to win the NCAA tournament, giving them a 41-percent chance of prevailing.

The undefeated Wildcats have the best odds by far of winning the 68-team competition, with Villanova (11 percent), Wisconsin (10 percent) and Arizona (10 percent) next on the list. Duke has the lowest odds of any No. 1 seed of winning it all, coming in at six percent.

FiveThirtyEight's forecasting model takes a number of factors into consideration, including power rankings, the team's placement on the S-curve, player injuries, geography and others.

The site gave last year's champion, the seventh-seeded Connecticut Huskies, a less-than-one-percent chance of winning it all, while the runners-up, No. 8 Kentucky, had a two-percent chance of capturing the title.

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