Look across all parts of the internet and you can find a million ways to pick the winner for your NCAA Tournament bracket. Whether it’s the ferocity of the team mascot, a Tom Izzo-like gut instinct or a spiritual counselor chanting Coach K leadership aphorisms into the ether, somehow, someway, you can land on a winner. Here at The Athletic, we’re a little more by the numbers, so to speak. Thus, we’ve devised a simple formula that anyone can follow to see which of this year’s teams are capable of winning it all.
Our process is simple: We took the Top 20 teams in Bart Torvik’s rankings (which track teams’ offensive and defensive efficiency with an emphasis on recent performances) at the beginning of conference tournament week. Next we compared their numbers to all the NCAA tournament champions from the past 10 years (COVID season excluded, obviously). Any of this year’s best teams that don’t meet the lowest statistical threshold from a past champion got the axe.
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To keep the comparisons apples-to-apples, we used data for the title winners from before they began their march through the bracket in order to match the teams at the outset of this year’s tournament.
So without further ado, here are your Top 20 contenders:
- Duke
- Houston
- Auburn
- Florida
- Alabama
- Tennessee
- Texas Tech
- Iowa State
- Gonzaga
- BYU
- Arizona
- Michigan State
- Purdue
- Maryland
- Wisconsin
- Kentucky
- Missouri
- Illinois
- Kansas
- Louisville
Now, let’s see how they measure up to the recent title-winners to find the best bets to win it all. To claim the crown, these are the statistical bars teams need to clear.
(Statistics and Torvik rankings as of March 12)
First cutoff: Offensive Rating of 118.9 or better
Of the nine champions since 2015, the worst offensive team entering the tournament was the 2023 UConn Huskies. Now worst is a relative term — all of the top teams were still quite good — but no champion in the past 10 seasons has captured a title with an offense functioning at a lower efficiency than 118.9. This number alone acts as a cut off for quite a few teams. Some of them near the bottom of the Top 20 — Louisville and Kansas — aren’t surprising, but both Iowa State and Tennessee get the boot despite sitting in the Top 8 of the rankings.
Teams eliminated: Louisville, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan State, Iowa State, Tennessee
Second cutoff: Defensive Rating of 95.4 or better
For all of you seeing offense first and screaming “But defense wins championships!”, well, here you go. The 2018 Villanova Wildcats were able to capture the title despite a defense just a shade below suffocating. This mark eliminates far more wannabe contenders than the offense, but one real shocker gets crossed off your list of potential champs — Nate Oats and his Alabama analytical darlings. Enjoy the Tide’s offensive explosions while you can, folks.
Teams eliminated: Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Purdue, Arizona, Gonzaga, Texas Tech and Alabama.
Just like that, we are down to four teams — Houston, Auburn, Duke and Florida — all of which would be wise bets to win it all. To pare it down from here, however, we have to really dive deep into two metrics in which underperforming leaves a potential champion vulnerable to a season-ending loss.
Third cutoff: Defensive 3-Point Rate Allowed of 40.9 or lower
Now that we’re down to a select few, the nitty gritty matters. And 3-Point Rate Allowed is a sneaky important stat for teams with title hopes. No matter what coaches tell you, 3-point percentage allowed isn’t a “thing” to hang your hat on, but the ability to eliminate 3-point attempts certainly is. Teams that can prevent 3s are typically more sound defensively than ones that don’t.
In 2019, Virginia claimed a title despite a relatively large amount of shots launched against them from beyond the arc. The fact that Houston clocks in even higher than that, might spell doom for the Cougars. Kelvin Sampson has certainly done great work with that program, but per our simple formula, a title will likely elude him again this year.
Team eliminated: Houston
Fourth cutoff: Defensive Free Throw Rate Allowed of 38.7 or lower
We’re really in the weeds now, huh? Once again, the 2023 Huskies team that captured a championship sets the bar, this time for how often their opponents get to the line. Apologies to Bruce Pearl and the Tigers, but this is where they get the axe. Auburn is almost a pro team in all other aspects, but they sure do hack the you-know-what out of their opponents. Their opponent free throw rate ranks a startling 310th in the country. Recent history says these frequent trips to the line will be their undoing.
Team eliminated: Auburn
Fifth cutoff: Teams whose best player didn’t just sprain their ankle
Okay, okay, so this isn’t a real metric. But the truth is there was no statistical indicator that gave us a reason to eliminate either of our final two teams. Trust me, we went as far as to even look at the rate at which Florida and Duke got their shot attempts blocked compared to past champions trying to find something to separate them. So to get down to one team, we’re going to utilize the recent Cooper Flagg injury. Flagg is massively important to the Blue Devils’ success and ankle injuries are nasty little buggers that can flare up again with one misstep. If Flagg is limited or re-injures his ankle at some point, it’s hard to imagine their path to a title.
Team eliminated: Duke
Your Champion: Florida
The Gators are a talented, well-rounded team. Given how deep and talented the SEC is, it’s not all that shocking that our champion came from that conference. Florida had to scratch and claw its way to a second-place finish in the most brutal conference, then claimed the SEC tournament. Facing that level of competition – and satisfying all of our critical analytical checkpoints – has the Gators ready to tame the NCAA tourney field.
(Photo of Johni Broome: Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
