Tonight begins one of the biggest sporting events in America, the NCAA Tournament. A month-long journey filled with exceptional basketball and drama. The impact can be felt beyond just the die-hard sports fan. Your colleagues, friends and family who haven’t watched a second of college basketball may be in your pools and often winning them.
My sister has been in my friends and I’s March Madness pool for 11 years in a row now. All my friends are like me, sports enthusiasts. We live for this time of year. I wouldn’t be writing this entire article detailing my method for choosing a champion if I didn’t believe it was the greatest sporting event in the world. I have several spreadsheets dedicated to this. My sister, although she enjoys sports on occasion, especially baseball and fastpitch, has probably never watched a full college basketball game in her life. When she fills out her charts, she chooses team names she’s seen before, team names that are fun to say, and, of course, mascots. It is not uncommon for her to finish in the top half of our group each year.
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This is why we love this tournament. The nature of a 68-team single-elimination tournament creates natural chaos. This seems really random. We remember legendary underdog races like Saint Peter’s, Loyola Chicago, Florida Gulf Coast and many more. But one of my favorite betting handicappers once said, “Anyone can win five games; it is impossible to win six. »
What he means is that it’s completely common for teams to embark on a magical run to the national championship, but that’s where it ends. Even though the tournament makes it seem like it’s always up for grabs and that anyone can warm up and win it, that’s not the case. Sure, it’s sport after all, and anything can happen, but historically, it’s the elite teams that almost always win. In 2023, fifth-seeded San Diego State and 9th-seeded Florida Atlantic faced off in an all-time Final Four game that pitted two teams no one thought could make it. A year later, the 11th-seeded NC State Wolfpack embarked on an even wilder ride to the Final Four. But none of these teams won. It was the historically great UConn Huskies who won in 2023 and 2024.
When it comes to filling out a bracket and trying to land the national champion, your options are immediately limited from the start. Sure, you can try to outsmart your group by picking a lower seed who enters the tournament strong or blows the lights out, but you’re almost never going to win that way.
However, you can pretty much fill out the first three, four, or five rounds in any way you want. Go ahead, pick a 12-5 surprise, always take an 11-6 surprise. As long as your bracket champion is on the elite teams.
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So if we’re trying to choose among elite teams, we need to evaluate what exactly constitutes an elite team. I started using this historical analysis in 2023, making this the fourth time I’ve filled out a bracket with my own in-depth analysis. So far I’m 3 for 3 to put together a group that has the right champion, let’s go 4 for 4.
Every tournament champion since the 2001 Duke team has been top 57 offensively, top 44 defensively and top 25 overall. KenPom before the start of the tournament. These parameters would mean that the following teams in this tournament would have historical significance:
Even though that narrows our field from 68 to 21, that’s still a lot of teams.
One of the biggest outliers among the 23 champions since 2001 is the 2014 Connecticut Huskies. As a 7 seed, the Huskies, led by Shabazz Napier, had one of the wildest runs in tournament history. They first knocked off 10th-seeded Saint Joseph’s in overtime, then upset 2nd-seeded Villanova. They pulled off another upset in the Sweet 16, beating second-seeded Iowa State before reaching the Final Four with another upset against Tom Izzo’s Michigan State Spartans. The Huskies finished the job with a 10-point victory over Florida and a six-point victory over Kentucky in the national championship.
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The Huskies entered the game as the 57th ranked offense but 12th ranked defensively. They were 25th overall on KenPom. Before the Cinderella Huskies, the worst KenPom offensive team to win the tournament was the 2011 UConn Huskies, ranked 21st.
So if we were to eliminate this outlier team, our criteria for finding a champion would fall to a team with a top 21 offense, a top 44 defense, and a top 20 overall ranking.
Our new list:
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Iowa State (has the 21st ranked offense)
This is starting to look like a much more reasonable list of teams to choose from, up to 11 teams. Iowa State barely makes the cut, ranking 21st in offensive efficiency.
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Another outlier team we can look at is the 2003 Syracuse Orange. Although they had an outstanding freshman, Carmelo Anthony, the Orange entered the tournament as the 20th overall ranked team on KenPom. The 2003 Orange and 2014 Huskies were the two lowest-ranked teams on KenPom to win the tournament. This may lighten our list slightly, resulting in 21 of the last 23 national champions (91.3%) being top 21 offensively, top 44 defensively, and top 15 overall.
Using this next set of parameters, our third version of the list is:
These would be the nine teams I will choose from to fill out my selection. Duke, despite being in a region with historic powerhouses, is the only team in the East that matches 21 of 23 qualifiers for champions. Arizona and Purdue are part of the West region, while Michigan and Iowa State are also in the Midwest. The South is the most loaded of the qualified teams. Florida, Houston, Illinois and Vanderbilt all fit the bill.
From this point on, you can choose between these nine teams in different ways. One of the most popular trends reported each year around this time is the famous Week 6 AP Poll. All but one champion (Syracuse 2003) was ranked in the top 12 of the AP Poll during the sixth week of the season.
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This year’s top 12 in the Week 6 AP Poll:
12.Alabama
11. Louisville
10. BYU
9. Michigan State
8. Gonzaga
7. Houston
6. Purdue
5. UConn
4. Iowa State
3. Duke
2.Michigan
1.Arizona
Cross-referencing this with our list of nine teams that we got from KenPom Trends would eliminate the following:
Which would bring our list down to six teams:
Some other criteria I’ve included over the years when evaluating championship teams have been more data points from KenPom. I looked at where teams stand in KenPom’s initial rankings, as well as their offense, defense, and overall efficiency through the teams’ first 10, 20, and 30 games. The most telling of these data points is where teams stand in terms of overall efficiency after their 10th, 20th, and 30th games. Since 2012, all champions except the 2014 UConn team have been in the top 8 after their 10th game and in the top 10 after their 20th and 30th games. Based on our latest six-team list, Houston would just miss the cut, ranking 10th in overall efficiency after its 10th game.
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Every year, talking heads always bring up the same factors when determining the best teams in college basketball. You’ll hear the same buzzwords: physical, experienced, well-coached, etc. Let’s focus on this second word, “experienced”. Using KenPom player statistics, the primary contributor for 17 of the 23 national champions since 2002 has been either a junior or senior. The last freshman to be KenPom’s top contributor on a title team was freshman Jahlil Okafor of the 2015 Duke Blue Devils.
Top contributors from our list of five teams:
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Purdue – Braden Smith – Senior
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Iowa State – Joshua Jefferson – Senior
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Arizona – Koa Peat – Freshman
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Michigan – Yaxel Lendeborg – Senior
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Duke – Cameron Boozer – Freshman
Now, 17 out of 23 isn’t as strong a correlation as some of the other trends we’ve looked at before, but it’s certainly worth noting, especially since the last one to break the trend was over a decade ago. It’s also important to note that major contributors have included their tournament stats.
Overall, one of your national champions will almost certainly be
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Teams that fit the parameters to win, but are kind of an outlier:
Teams that would have historical meaning but would be crazy:
Teams that do almost complete historical meaning:
Teams that have all their historical meaning:
Good luck with your brackets and bets and enjoy the madness.
