Analysis: The 7 best bets to win the 2024 NCAA men’s basketball tournament

Unheralded teams extending their seasons with upset wins in the NCAA tournament are a big reason everyone loves March Madness, but when it comes to crowning a winner, Cinderellas are usually nowhere to be found. The men’s national champion typically comes from a select group of elite teams, and we can use past data to identify the eventual winner.

Celebrated stats guru Ken Pomeroy ranks teams by adjusted efficiency margin, which he lists in the “AdjEM” column on his website. Each team’s AdjEM “represents the number of points the team would be expected to outscore the average D-I team (by) over 100 possessions,” Pomeroy wrote in 2016. Calculating it involves merely subtracting a team’s defensive efficiency number, adjusted for strength of schedule, from its adjusted offensive efficiency number.

Pomeroy has been publishing his ratings since the 2001-02 season, so we can go back and look at each national champion’s profile entering the NCAA tournament. This makes it easier to see how teams in this year’s field compare with past champions, and to identify which teams have the best chance of winning it all.

We can break down the past national champions into tiers:

• The low bar: 19.1. This is the lowest adjusted efficiency margin for any NCAA men’s tournament champion since 2002, when Pomeroy’s data begins. The honor is held by the 2014 Connecticut Huskies, a No. 7 seed that was pretty meh statistically – entering that year’s tournament, the Huskies ranked 57th nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency – but still had enough firepower to win it all. If your title pick clears 19.1, it’s not completely insane, but most rational picks look a little more like …

• The “average” champs: 27.9. If a team enters the tournament with an AdjEM number above this, it’s a sound choice to be your champ. The North Carolina team that won the 2017 national title came closest to this average, with a 28 AdjEM number entering the NCAA tournament.

• The best of the best: 35.7. Virginia raised the bar with its 2019 title run, becoming the most efficient team in the Pomeroy era to cut down the nets. Considering the team the Cavaliers overtook for the honor was the 2008 Kansas Jayhawks, who prevailed in a Final Four of all No. 1 seeds, that’s a notable achievement.

For the first time since 2021, more than one team surpasses the winners’ AdjEM average of 27.9. This year, there are four such teams: Connecticut, Houston, Purdue and Auburn.

There’s one caveat for KenPom No. 1 Connecticut, however: Only three teams that entered the NCAA tournament ranked first in Pomeroy’s ratings – 2008 Kansas, 2012 Kentucky and 2019 Virginia – have won it all. Houston was ranked No. 1 by KenPom entering last year’s tournament but was bounced by Miami in the Sweet 16, the second straight KenPom No. 1 to fall in the region semifinals.

Here’s a breakdown of how Pomeroy’s pre-tournament No. 1 teams have fared over the last two-plus decades. As you can see, two-thirds of them (14 of 21) failed to reach the Final Four.

• First round: 1

• Second round: 1

• Sweet 16: 6

• Elite Eight: 6

• Final Four: 2

• National runner-up: 2

• Won national title: 3

The average pretournament KenPom ranking of the past 21 national champions is 5.7, a number that is skewed a bit by three lower-ranked KenPom teams that won it all (No. 20 Syracuse in 2003, No. 15 Connecticut in 2011 and No. 25 U-Conn. in 2014). Take away those three comparative long shots, and the average KenPom ranking rises to 3.3. Those three outliers were the only teams ranked worse than KenPom No. 6 to win the national championship.

UConn was ranked fourth in Pomeroy’s final ratings before last year’s tournament and won it all.

There are 22 teams that clear our low-bar AdjEM number of 19.1.

To narrow that list, we can point to the fact that all but two national champions since 2002 – UConn in 2011 and 2014 – have ranked in the top 20 of Pomeroy’s offensive efficiency metric entering the tournament. That means we are crossing the following teams off our list: Iowa State, Tennessee, North Carolina, Marquette, Michigan State, Saint Mary’s, San Diego State and Kansas.

Let’s further narrow it down to teams that rank in the top 20 in offensive efficiency and in the top 40 in defensive efficiency, a feature of all but three of the past 21 national champions. That leaves us with Connecticut, Houston, Purdue, Auburn, Arizona, Duke and Creighton.

(Odds taken Sunday night from DraftKings Sportsbook.)

Connecticut (+425)

No. 1 in East Region

The defending champion Huskies are the favorites to once again cut down the nets for a whole lot of reasons: They’ve lost once since Christmas and are simply mowing down opponents (eight of their last 10 wins came by double digits). UConn has an effective field -goal percentage – which takes into account that three-pointers are worth more than two-pointers – that ranks sixth nationally on offense and fourth on defense, and opponents have made only 43.7 percent of their two-point shots against UConn (Only six teams have done better in that metric.)

Houston (+500)

No. 1 in South Region

The Cougars will look to break through after last season’s disappointing Sweet 16 exit. With point guard Jamal Shead running the show, Houston is a beast defensively, with opponents making only 30 percent of their 3-pointers (13th in the nation) and 43.4 percent of their two-pointers (fourth). But there are worrying signs, and not simply because the Cougars could only scrape together 41 points in a Big 12 championship-game loss to Iowa State. Houston is one of the tournament’s shortest teams (none of its main contributors stands taller than 6 -foot -8) and is facing some major depth issues after three players suffered season-ending injuries. Forward J’Wan Roberts, the team’s top defender, also suffered a shin injury in the Big 12 semifinals, and his status bears monitoring.

Purdue (+600)

No. 1 in Midwest Region

Is this the year the Boilermakers finally live up to expectations in March? Purdue has been seeded fifth or better in each of its previous seven NCAA tournament appearances but has advanced past the Sweet 16 only once and lost three times in the first round, including last year’s shocking loss to 16th-seeded Fairleigh Dickinson. The pieces certainly are there, with national player of the year candidate Zach Edey patrolling the paint and three players (Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Mason Gillis) ranking in the top 50 nationally in 3-point percentage. As a team, the Boilermakers shoot 40.8 percent from 3-point range (only Kentucky is better), which is a major improvement from last year’s disappointing team, which shot only 32.2 percent from deep (Purdue made just 5 of 26 in the loss to Fairleigh Dickinson).

Auburn (+1800)

No. 4 in East Region

The Tigers collected themselves after a midseason swoon and have won six straight entering the NCAA tournament – all but one by at least 14 points – while earning their first SEC tournament title since 2019. Auburn is probably the deepest team in the NCAA tournament, with 10 players who average at least 13 minutes per game, and it leads the nation in opponents’ effective field -goal percentage (43.4). That depth comes in handy because the physical Tigers commit nearly 20 fouls per game, one of the highest averages in the tournament, and send their opponents to the free throw line at a high rate. Auburn might be looking at a matchup with fellow best bet UConn in the Sweet 16, however, which isn’t great for its chances.

Arizona (+1600)

No. 2 in West Region

The Wildcats enter on a mini-slump, having lost two of three. Pac-12 player of the year Caleb Love has seen his production plummet over that span, as he’s hit only 7 of 34 field goal attempts (4 of 21 on 3-pointers) with 11 turnovers. As a team, Arizona attempts 3-pointers at a well-below-average rate even though its players are shooting 37.1 percent from long range for the season (23rd nationally). This presents problems when opponents employ zone defenses, as Oregon did in the Pac-12 tournament semifinals (the Wildcats shot 5 of 19 from 3-point range in a 67-59 loss).

Duke (+3000)

No. 4 in South Region

The Blue Devils come in having lost two in a row, including a five-point defeat to North Carolina State in the ACC tournament quarterfinals, which might be a troublesome omen: Since the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, every national champion advanced to at least the semifinals of their conference tournament, as did all but four teams to play in the national championship game (excluding teams without conference tournaments). Of the 390 at-large bids handed out to teams that did not get past the quarterfinals of their conference tournament over that span, only 14 advanced to the Final Four. But still, Duke doesn’t commit a whole lot of turnovers (No. 31 in offensive turnover percentage) and its 37.7 3-point percentage ranks 15th nationally. Like Auburn, the Blue Devils got a tough draw, with No. 1 seed and fellow best bet Houston looming in the Sweet 16.

Creighton (+2500)

No. 3 in Midwest Region

The Bluejays won seven of eight to close the regular season, with a 19-point rout of UConn among the victories. But then Creighton suffered a Big East tournament quarterfinal loss to Providence, which puts it in the same boat as Duke in terms of that concerning trend. The Bluejays live and die by the 3-pointer – only BYU takes a higher percentage of shots from long range among NCAA tournament teams. But if those shots aren’t falling, Creighton tends to struggle: It shot 27.6 percent or worse from 3-point range in six of nine losses this season. And in its two most recent losses, it combined to shoot 12 of 52 from long range.