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ESPN Daily

2020 NCAA Championships: If Only

ESPN Daily

ESPN

Sports

4.63.9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2020

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What if champions of men's and women's college basketball were somehow able to be crowned in 2020? The NCAA canceled both tournaments due to COVID-19. If you can't help but wonder what "might" have happened, we have you covered. FiveThirtyEight's Neil Paine shares results from the data-crunching site's highly precise tournament simulations. And ESPN's Myron Medcalf gets to dream about who should hold the title from the men's and women's brackets this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm really going to miss this team.

0:03.3

I think we could have won a national title.

0:05.9

They'd intervene, but they deserve to keep playing.

0:10.0

But they don't have a chance to live that last moment,

0:14.2

whether you're going to win or lose.

0:16.6

And that's for me the hard thing to swallow.

0:23.0

That was Kentucky head coach John Calapari, arguing that his squad would have won the

0:28.7

national championship, which was supposed to happen tonight.

0:32.4

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, we'll never know who actually would have won, but we can tell you who we think

0:39.2

should have come out on top.

0:41.4

On today's show, 538's Neil Payne reveals what happened when the site's simulated results

0:47.0

for both the men's and women's tournaments, and college basketball analyst Myron Medcath gives

0:52.5

his take.

0:53.6

Then we discuss which players could still make an impact at the next level, even if they didn't get to shine in March.

1:00.9

I'm Mina Kimes.

1:02.4

It's Monday, April 6th.

1:04.8

This is ESPN Daily. So in an alternate universe, women's college basketball just had its national championship and the men would be playing tonight.

1:26.1

I know both of you have thoughts on what would

1:28.3

have happened, but before we get into that, can you both introduce yourselves and tell us what you

1:33.1

would have been doing in any other year? Well, I'm Myron Metcalf. And in the other year, I'd be covering

1:38.5

the Final Four as a senior college basketball reporter with ESPN. I think this would have been my 13th

1:43.5

Final Four. And here I am

...

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