Sorry to interrupt Notre Dame’s ongoing crashout over (deservedly) missing the College Football Playoff, but we’ve got hoops to dissect.
Specifically, one of my favorite stats in the sport.
1. The best quirky stat in college basketball
I’m not sure who deserves credit for discovering this — maybe longtime ESPN writer and basketball analytics professor John Gasaway — but if there’s one AP poll that college hoops fans should pay attention to, it’s Week 6.
Why? Because since 2004, every single national champion has been ranked in the top 12 of the Week 6 AP poll.
Congratulations, then, to fans of Arizona, Michigan, Duke, Iowa State, UConn, Purdue, Houston, Gonzaga, Michigan State, BYU, Louisville and Alabama. If precedent holds, one of your teams will be cutting down the nets in April in Indianapolis. (Tough luck for No. 13 Illinois, plus the reigning national champ, No. 18 Florida.)
So, which of the 12 looks most capable of winning it all? One reason to believe in each program, and one reason to doubt it:
No. 1 Arizona (8-0)
Why it will: With a top-10 adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency ranking, per KenPom, Arizona is gigantic — no rotation players under 6 feet 3 — and has the luxury of two go-to bucket-getters: freshman forward Koa Peat and senior guard Jaden Bradley. That’ll come in handy come March.
Why it won’t: Tommy Lloyd’s team shoots 37.5 percent as a team from deep, a top-50 mark nationally — but ranks third-to-last among all 365 Division-I teams in 3-point attempt rate. In a track meet against someone like Louisville or Alabama, that could prove fatal.
No. 2 Michigan (9-0)
Why it will: Uh, did you watch the Players Era Festival? The Wolverines are gigantic, have a coach with Final Four experience and proved that at their best, nobody can keep up with their frontcourt.
Why it won’t: Turnovers, maybe? Michigan turns it over on 17.3 percent of its offensive possessions, but that hasn’t stopped the Wolverines from winning their last five — all against high-majors — by an average of 35.8 points.
Win no. 9 🎥 pic.twitter.com/9aQyoAf72h
— Michigan Men’s Basketball (@umichbball) December 10, 2025
No. 3 Duke (10-0)
Why it will: Cameron Boozer is the sport’s most dominant individual player. The 6-foot-9 freshman has carried Duke to four Top 25 wins, tied with UConn for the most in the country.
Why it won’t: I hypothesized last week that the Blue Devils might not have a reliable No. 2 option, and instead have a Big 3 with Isaiah Evans and Pat Ngongba … only for those two to shoot 3-for-11 combined at Michigan State. Duke needs someone else — ideally multiple someones — to consistently help Boozer out.
No. 4 Iowa State (9-0)
Why it will: If you can demolish then-No. 1 Purdue by 23 at Mackey Arena, you can win anywhere — especially if ISU continues to be the best high-major shooting team in the country. Four Cyclones shoot above 40 percent from 3, including junior wing Milan Momcilovic, who shoots 53.6 percent.
Why it won’t: Health, which doomed TJ Otzelberger’s team last year. Tamin Lipsey just returned from a groin injury, but ISU’s star guard also missed most of the preseason with a knee injury. It’s fair to wonder if he can make it through March unscathed.
No. 5 UConn (9-1)
Why it will: Dan Hurley is arguably the best active coach in the sport, and after a year with misfitting pieces, the Huskies again have an ideal combination of experienced vets — hello, Alex Karaban — high-impact transfers and five-star freshmen. Even without being fully healthy, UConn has four top-20 KenPom wins, the most in the country.
Why it won’t: Defending without fouling, last season’s Achilles’ heel, remains an issue. The Huskies commit an average of 18.1 fouls per game, which translates to opponents averaging 21.3 free-throw attempts per game. Feels like the sort of thing that comes back to bite in March.
No. 6 Purdue
Why it will: Braden Smith is as good a guard as there is in the country, Trey Kaufman-Renn is a veritable All-American, and the Boilermakers have the most efficient offense in the country. Plus, in Matt Painter, Purdue has one of the nation’s sharpest coaches.
Why it won’t: Did you watch the Iowa State game? Purdue’s defense still struggles to make opponents uncomfortable, the offense’s lone flaw is a dire inability to get to the free-throw line and for as good as Smith is, he has yet to be great in the NCAA Tournament.
No. 7 Houston
Why it will: Besides a returning core of Milos Uzan, Emanuel Sharp and JoJo Tugler, who came up one play short in last season’s championship? Kelvin Sampson added three five-star freshmen, and while the defense is as stingy as usual, the Cougars have more offensive talent than ever.
Why it won’t: Integrating those flashy freshmen — Kingston Flemings, Chris Cenac Jr. and Isiah Harwell — remains a work in progress, especially offensively. Also, Houston somehow has the sixth-worst free-throw rate in the country.
No. 8 Gonzaga (9-1)
Why it will: Age, size, depth and the best coach in the country who’s never won a ring. The Zags have six players in their rotation who are at least 22, lead the nation in paint points and play nine guys at least 15 minutes per game.
Why it won’t: As Michigan proved in Las Vegas, if you shut down Graham Ike and Braden Huff, it’s much easier to unravel the Zags. But few teams in America have the frontcourt to do so. Also, while you don’t expect a top-100 3-point shooting team to have many 3-for-22 nights from deep, it’s always possible.
No. 9 Michigan State (8-1)
Why it will: Trying to score against the Spartans looks about as fun as getting punched in the face for 40 minutes straight, while Jeremy Fears Jr. has made the leap offensively and turned into maybe the best point guard in America. This is a classic Tom Izzo team, with an army of bruising wings and forwards.
Why it won’t: 3-point shooting, again. Sparty isn’t nearly as bad from deep as they were last year, but with five games under 30 percent this season, Michigan State almost undoubtedly will have to overcome (at least) one such effort to cut down the nets.
No. 10 BYU (8-1)
Why it will: At times, like in the second half against Clemson on Tuesday, AJ Dybantsa looks like the best player in the country. The 6-foot-9 freshman star outscored the Tigers by himself after halftime to seal BYU’s largest second-half comeback in program history.
Why it won’t: As good as the Cougars’ offense can be — currently top-10 nationally in adjusted efficiency, the best of the KenPom era (dating back to 1996-97) — it frequently, and weirdly, stagnates. Also, as well as BYU shared the ball last year, this season’s team is barely inside the top-300 nationally in assist rate.
cinema. pic.twitter.com/Dhy7HBKWtt
— BYU Men’s Basketball (@BYUMBB) December 10, 2025
No. 11 Louisville (8-1)
Why it will: Pat Kelsey has arguably the best backcourt in America, with future lottery pick Mikel Brown Jr. and two certified flamethrowers in Ryan Conwell and Isaac McKneely. The Cards can beat you from deep, from the paint and from the free-throw line, all while rarely turning it over.
Why it won’t: Inconsistency in the frontcourt, and an unshakable commitment to the 3 that can be detrimental. UL leads all high-major teams in 3-point attempt rate (54.6 percent), yet no team in the KenPom era has ever won the title taking more than 50 percent of its shots from 3. (Villanova in 2017-18, at 47.5 percent, is the highest.)
No. 12 Alabama (7-2)
Why it will: Sophomore guard Labaron Philon might be the best bucket-getting guard in the nation, and the sort of transcendent singular scorer who carries teams to titles. (Hello, Kemba Walker and Walter Clayton Jr.) Per usual, the Crimson Tide’s offense is top-five nationally in adjusted efficiency and can hang with anyone.
Why it won’t: Uh, everything else? Alabama’s rebounding and defense remain works in progress, and while Nate Oats’ Final Four experience will pay dividends, there simply might not be enough frontcourt talent.
2. At last, AJ Dybantsa’s breakout
The nation’s top recruit has lived up to his lofty billing through his first month of college ball. Entering Tuesday’s showdown with Clemson, he was averaging 19.4 points, 6.3 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game. He also already passed his favorite player, Kevin Durant, for the most 15-plus-point scoring games to begin a career in Big 12 history, and now ranks second behind only Trae Young.
But what Dybantsa did this week against Clemson was on another level. Not only did Dybantsa outscore Clemson by himself, 22-21, in the second half of BYU’s comeback win, but he showcased everything that makes him a front-runner to go No. 1 in the 2026 NBA Draft.
Including a dunk that made me stand up out of my office chair:
AYO @AJ_Dybantsa 🤯
📺 ESPN pic.twitter.com/DfcjDvBYQh
— BYU Men’s Basketball (@BYUMBB) December 10, 2025
The two offensive actions where Dybantsa has been best this season, per Synergy, are as a post-up scorer and as a pick-and-roll handler. Dybantsa is big enough, at 212 pounds, to back smaller opponents down and get to his spots in the midrange, where he’s a machine off turnaround jumpers:
He’s also skilled enough, from that same elbow, to spin baseline and hit pro-level 2s. Watch how he signals for the strong side clear-out first to give himself space:
Defenses know by now that Dybantsa wants to get to that elbow — and against Clemson, he used that to his advantage. Down the stretch, it looked like Dybantsa was trying to get back to the elbow, which tricked Keba Keita’s defender into leaving the big man alone, at which point Dybantsa whipped a lovely left-handed pass through two defenders for an open dunk:
Dybantsa’s just as good as a pick-and-roll passer, too. Kevin Young is more than comfortable letting his star make late-game decisions, because he has the vision to correctly read the defense, and he can make the alley-oop pass — over respectable drop coverage — that only his man can get to:
Dybantsa finished the Clemson game with season-highs in points (28), rebounds (nine) and assists (six), completely taking over in the final 10 minutes. It’s unrealistic to expect that level every night, but it’s just a matter of time before Dybantsa goes off again.
3. Ranking the best nonconference wins so far
Which nonconference wins have been the “best,” and is there a way to quantify results that seem comparably impressive? For example: Is Arizona’s season-opening, neutral-site win over Florida more or less valuable than UConn’s neutral-site win over BYU?
Turns out, according to Bart Torvik’s per-game Wins Above Bubble (WAB) statistic — which the selection committee adopted as one of its sorting metrics last season — those games carry equal weight, at +0.73 WAB. And actually, that figure is a good cutoff for deeming the “best” wins this season, with four others carrying the same value:
UConn over Florida in Madison Square Garden;
Duke over Kansas in MSG during Champions Classic;
Illinois at Ohio State;
And TCU over Florida in San Diego.
But the best of the best? You might be surprised at the eight that exceed +0.8 WAB:
1. Arizona at UConn, +0.88T-2: Duke at Michigan State, +0.86T-2: Purdue at Alabama, +0.864. Iowa State at Purdue, +0.855. Alabama at St. John’s, +0.846. UConn at Kansas, +0.837. Michigan over Gonzaga (in Las Vegas), +0.828. Tennessee over Houston (in Las Vegas), +0.81
Road games have always mattered, but I was still surprised to see Michigan’s 40-point beatdown over Gonzaga so far down the list.
As for the best of the rest:
T-9: UConn over Illinois (at MSG), +0.77T-9: Alabama over Illinois (in Chicago), +0.77T-9: Gonzaga over Alabama (in Las Vegas), +0.7712. North Carolina at Kentucky, +0.76T-13: Iowa State over St. John’s (in Las Vegas), +0.74T-13: Auburn over St. John’s (in Las Vegas), +0.74
Of the season’s 20-most consequential wins by WAB, UConn has four (!!); Alabama, Arizona, Duke and Iowa State have two apiece; and eight other teams have one. Something to keep in mind the closer we get to Selection Sunday.
