It’s one of the great sporting days of the year Thursday with the official start of the NCAA Tournament, and I’m not here to tell you which team cuts down the nets, even if I hit Florida over Houston last year – but it was a Dance heavy on favorites winning. The Gators did hit two key parameters when forecasting the 2025 national champion: Sitting in the top six of KenPom’s overall team ratings entering the tourney and also ranking top 20 in his adjusted offensive efficiency and top 40 in defensive efficiency.
A total of 20 of the past 23 NCAA Tournament winners entered as one of KenPom’s top six overall, and 26 of the past 28 champions have been in the top 20 and top 40, with the only outliers being UConn in 2014 behind Shabazz Napier and Baylor in 2021 (barely missed hitting both benchmarks) when it knocked off unbeaten Gonzaga in the final.
There are 11 schools that meet that KenPom criteria: Duke, Michigan, Arizona, Florida, Houston, Iowa State, UConn, Michigan State, Gonzaga, Virginia and Tennessee. I’m here to tell you right now that my Spartans are not good enough to win it all. Maybe they can reach a ninth Final Four under Tom Izzo. He is one of seven active head coaches to have won a title, and six of them are in this year’s field. The only one missing is Scott Drew at Baylor.
The national title game is April 6 from Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, and here are some trends on which contenders to fade.
No repeat for the South top-seeded Gators, as that’s tough enough to do, and since 2016, only two defending champions have advanced beyond the first weekend. In addition, since seeding began in 1979, the conference with the most bids (or tied for the most) has never produced the national champion in back-to-back years. The SEC had a record 14 teams in the 2025 Dance and leads with 10 in this year’s.
East No. 1 seed Duke and West No. 1 Arizona have been dominant this season and both swept their regular-season and conference tournament titles – not so impressive by the Blue Devils in the ACC but incredibly so by the Wildcats in the mega-deep Big 12. But both are led in scoring by freshmen: National Player of the Year lock Cam Boozer (22.5 PPG) for Duke and Brayden Burries (15.9 PPG) for Arizona.
It’s the first Big Dance with multiple No. 1 seeds with freshmen as their leading scorer, and there are 13 teams with a freshman as their top scorer, by far the most ever. Interesting in the NIL era. Arizona is the fourth top seed with freshmen as the top two scorers, as Koa Peat is second at 13.6 PPG. The other teams were 2009-10 Kentucky, 2018-19 Duke and 2024-25 Duke.
None of them even reached the Final Four. Only three freshmen all-time have led a national champion in scoring in a season: Syracuse’s Carmelo Anthony in 2003, Kentucky’s Anthony Davis in 2012 and Duke’s Jahlil Okafor in 2015. I do think Arizona has the easiest route to the Final Four among the top seeds as the West looks weak.
The Blue Devils are the No. 1 overall seed but arguably landed in the toughest region in the East, as seven of the top eight seeds in the region have won a national title and six of seven have won at least two. The 32 national titles won by East teams are second-most for a region all-time. I will say that Duke has won three of its five titles in Indy (1991, 2010 and 2015), which hosts again in 2029. But just one of the past 11 No. 1 overall seeds won it all: UConn in 2024.
We include West No. 6 BYU in the group that likely won’t win simply because it is also led by a freshman in scoring in AJ Dybantsa, who looks to become only the third freshman to lead Division I in scoring. But the Cougars have largely fallen to pieces since No. 2 scorer and guard Richie Saunders was lost to a season-ending injury. In addition, a sixth seed hasn’t reached the Final Four since Michigan’s Fab Five in 1992. That drought is easily the longest among seeds that have a Final Four appearance.
As for Midwest Region No. 3 Virginia, I simply don’t think the Cavs are that good, and they were my top choice as a possible 14 over 3 upset in Round 1 when facing Horizon League regular-season and tournament champion Wright State on Friday. The last No. 3 seed to win it all was UConn in 2011. A No. 3 seed hasn’t made the Final Four since 2019. This is only the second time in the modern era that third seeds have failed to reach the national semifinals in five consecutive tourneys.
UVA’s Ryan Odom is one of 13 coaches leading their school in the Dance for the first time, if not necessarily their first time in it personally. That’s a record of such head coaches, with the previous mark of 11 in 1987 and 2008.
Only three head coaches have won the national title in their first season with a school: Ed Jucker with Cincinnati in 1961, Steve Fisher in 1989 with Michigan (I remember that so clearly) and Tubby Smith in 1998 at Kentucky. Since that ’98 season when Smith and North Carolina’s Bill Guthridge reached the Final Four, only one first-year (at school) head coach has gotten back to the national semifinals since: UNC’s Hubert Davis in 2022. Virginia is the only top-three seed with a new head coach.
