March Madness officially began yesterday, and in less than five days prior to the big tip off, ESPN and CBS Sports alone accounted for over 20 million NCAA Men’s College Basketball brackets filled.
After our team was inspired by the annual piece by Inside Higher Ed on March Madness for Academics, we decided to take our own look at who would take the championship in this year’s tourney if the victors were determined based on alumni engagement.
Our algorithm for assessing alumni engagement uses a variety of data points including alumni-specific data from US News and World Reports, and publicly measurable alumni activity on LinkedIn. We look forward to refining this algorithm in the future, and welcome your ideas!
Here is the our ranking of the top sixteen teams in this year’s “EverTrue Alumni Madness”:
1. Davidson College
2. Notre Dame University
3. Harvard University
4. Duke University
5. Lehigh University
6. St. Bonaventure University
7. Georgetown University
8. Xavier University
9. University of Alabama
10. Vanderbilt University
11. University of Virginia
12. Belmont University
13. Gonzaga University
14. Loyola University Maryland
15. Creighton University
16. Syracuse University
Congrats to Davidson on a true alumni Cinderella story in our bracket, and to all those schools that made this year’s tourney!