The 2023 NCAA Tournament is here and everybody is scrambling to fill out their brackets and get their bets in.
What if I told you there has been a historical trend that backs up all but one National Championship since 2002? KenPom, the advanced metric website that is gospel for hardcore college basketball fans, helps rank all the team’s in the sport by their adjusted efficiency margin, which is a combination of inputs including their adjusted offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency metric.
Since 2002, when KenPom’s numbers go back too, each team that cut down the nets, except for UConn in 2014, had the sum of their adjusted offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency ranking below 50.
Here’s more, from our introduction a few weeks back:
“Since 2002, if you added up the AOE and ADE of each team that won the National Championship prior to the start of the NCAA Tournament, every single team except for one would have had a sum of less than 50. The outlier is 2014 UConn, who went on a torrid run to the title with Shabazz Napier. This is as good of a way to capture teams that are well balanced and elite on both sides of the ball.”
Now that the regular season is finished, we have our 10 teams that fit these historical parameters.
First, let’s set the stage with the updated National Championship odds now that we have the bracket:
2023 National Championship Odds
2023 National Championship Contenders
These are your 10 teams that fit the bill as two teams that have a sum of rankings below 50, and the results are not all that surprising. All four No. 1 seeds fit the bill of historical National Championship contending teams as well as three No. 2 seeds.
If you are looking for teams that are possibly overqualified relative to their seeds it’s UConn, St. Mary’s and Creighton. Ironically, UConn and St. Mary’s are on track to face in the Round of 32 with the winner potentially facing No. 1 seed Kansas in the Sweet 16. The Midwest is stacked with National title threats.
While the teams are less congested in the South Region, three of the 10 teams listed above are in that bracket with No. 1 overall seed Alabama on a collision course with No. 2 seed Arizona, who played their way into the less than 50 group with a PAC-12 title run last week. However, the Wildcats may draw Creighton in the Sweet 16 for a chance to face Alabama if the Crimson Tide avoid an upset.
In the East Region, Purdue is unchallenged as the No. 1 seed in that region, with no team fitting historical parameters of a title team, but there are several teams that just missed the cut in the region including Memphis, who has a sum of 59 and Florida Atlantic at 68. Those two meet in the first round with the winner very likely facing Purdue in what should be one of the most intriguing matchups of the ‘Big Dance.’ Not to mention, No. 2 seed Marquette has a sum of 55.
Lastly, Houston, who is trying to make the Final Four in their own city, is on track to face another worthy title contender in Texas, if all holds form in the South Region. However, there aren’t any other title threats under this filter. The No. 3 seed Xavier has a poor defense that is rated 70th according to KenPom, and No. 5 seed Miami has a similar issue with the 132nd ranked defense.
Records are meant to be broken, and just because history says one of these 10 teams are definitely cutting down the nets on the first Monday in April, that doesn’t mean that will be the case. However, if you are filling out your brackets or placing Futures bets, this is a good place to start when looking to pick a likely winner.
Track all of Reed’s bets at Betstamp HERE!
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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
