Share and Follow
(NEXSTAR) – As the excitement for March Madness builds, fans are eagerly piecing together their brackets, faced with the daunting task of selecting the ultimate champion.
With a lineup of 68 teams, making that crucial decision can be challenging, particularly if you’re aiming to outsmart friends and colleagues in your bracket pool for the top spot.
While the allure of choosing an underdog, like a 3-seed, to claim the championship is strong, historical trends suggest a more straightforward approach might be wiser.
KenPom, a site renowned for its advanced college basketball analytics, reveals that since 2000, 22 out of 24 NCAA Men’s Division 1 Basketball Tournament champions have ranked within the top 20 for both Offensive Efficiency and Defensive Efficiency.
The exceptions to this pattern are the University of Connecticut in 2014, which ranked 39th in offense and 10th in defense, and Baylor in 2021, narrowly missing the mark with a 2nd-place offense and 22nd-place defense.
Given the history of this century, there are only five teams in the tournament that match this criteria: Duke, Arizona, Michigan, Florida, and Houston.
Duke ranks as the best team in the tournament, ranking 4th in Offense and 2nd in Defense. The Blue Devils are also tied for the best record in the tournament at 32-2 with Arizona, which ranks 5th in Offense and 3rd in Defense.
Duke currently sits as the #1 seed in the East part of the bracket, while Arizona is #1 in the West.
Michigan finished its season with a 31-3 record and the No. 1-ranked Defense in the country and an Offense that ranked 8th.
Like Duke and Arizona, Michigan is also a #1 seed in the Midwest part of the bracket.
Florida, the #1 seed in the South, finished the season with a 26-7 record and ranks 9th in Offense and 6th in Defense.
Finally, there’s Houston, which joins Florida in the South part of the bracket as the lone #2 seed on this list. Houston is also the only team on the list not to be top 10 in both categories, ranking 5th in Defense but 14th in Offense.
So if you want the best chance at picking the winner for your bracket, the math says to pick one of these five teams.
If you’re hoping for more of a sleeper pick however, a couple of teams that might just missed the cut include Iowa State (21st in Offense/4th in Defense), Illinois (2nd in Offense/28th in Defense), Purdue (1st in Offense/36th in Defense), Gonzaga (29th in Offense/9th in Defense) and Vanderbilt (7th in Offense/31st in Defense).