Grant Wahl doesn't think UNC will win the NCAA's.

And, well, I can't really argue with that[*]. The eight teams he does list could win it. So could UNC, for that matter. What caught my attention was this:

Three thoughts popped into my head:

1. That seems impressive.
   
2. I wonder if I could have done that?
   
3. I wonder if a monkey could have done that?

Well, not completely at random. There are 341 D1 teams; to pick the champion in seven times out of eight given 64 chances is what, 1 in 255,652,912,063? Wahl could mop the floor with your garden variety theoretical monkery. Of course, when picking a potential national champion, you don't really consider all 341 teams. (Well, maybe you do but if so, I have some bad news about the New Jersey Institute of Technology's chances come March.) We'll have to make the challenge a little fairer on the monkey.

Now the easiest thing to do would be just pick the Top 8 teams the week Wahl writes his column. It would indeed be "lame and boring," but as more than one of my ex-girlfriends will be more than happy to tell you, that fits me to a T. So I'm more than happy to take that little algorithm. How would I have done this decade?

Year      Team        Rank
2000   Michigan St.    11
2001   Duke             8
2002   Maryland         3
2003   Syracuse        --
2004   Connecticut      4
2005   North Carolina   3
2006   Florida          2
2007   Florida          2

But again, Wahl isn't just picking the Top 8. He typically picks 5 of the Top 8: 43 out of 72, between 4 and 6 each year. It's also worth noting he's failed to pick one of the Top 3 teams exactly three times:

Year      Team        Rank   Finish
2003   Connecticut      3   Sweet 16
2004   St. Joseph's     3   Elite 8 
2008   North Carolina   1           

So let's let our monkey cheat a bit. He'll pick the top three teams, another two from the top eight, and three more from 9th to 20th. That'll give us a reasonable approximation of our SI columnist, at least. Our monkey's got a 21% chance of being as smart as Grant Wahl. Wahl's in the top quintile of monkeys, which has got to be at least a couple of quintiles better than Gregg Easterbrook, for instance.

I might as well take it one step further - how would our intelligently designed monkey have done since 1949? (You know, to pick a year at random and all.) We'll use the closest poll to the tenth of January, since that's typically when Wahl's column is written. The results?

Grant Wahl             --  (87.5%)
Me (Lame and Boring)   45  (76.2%)
Our Monkey             38  (64.4%)