Interesting breakdown of historically who can win the big dance

[votan]

Teams to eliminate:

• Teams with losing record in conference play.
• Teams that suffered 5 game losing streaks during the season.
• Teams that lost their conference tournament opener.
• Teams never ranked in the AP poll during the season.
• Teams seeded 9-16 have never won the NCAA.
• Teams with at least 12 losses.
• 34 of the last 38 champs were 3 seeds or higher.
  – No. 4 (Arizona in 1997),
  – No. 6 (Kansas, 1988),
  – No. 7 (Connecticut, 2014),
  – No. 8 (villanova, 1985)

That leaves approx 10 teams that meet the historic qualities to win the tournament:

• Alabama
• Houston
• Kansas
• Purdue
• UCLA
• Texas
• Arizona
• Marquette
• Gonzaga
• Xavier

Might be interesting to fill out your brackets backwards and then work out how to get there and see how it does.

Food for thought.

[hawgcotton]

@votan

31 of the last 33 champs were 3 seeds or higher.

Interesting data. I think this quote is more telling. If you are ranked that high , then your body of work has weathered the year pretty well.

[luskimo]

saw that at halftime of the West Virginia/Maryland game too…it went by kind of fast so i didnt catch all of the details but i thougt NC State or UNC won the title 1 time with about 12 losses

[SwineFusion]

Villanova had the worst record of any NCAA champion, going 25-10 in 1985. NC State went 26-10 in 1983.

And Nova was an 8 seed.