If you think it’s been a crazy year in Men’s NCAA Basketball this year, you’re certainly not wrong. With the way this season has shaped up so far, Monmouth’s bench isn’t the only consistently crazy thing going on in the sport. So a word of advice: don’t fill out a serious March Madness bracket this year; meaning, don’t stake any money on a bracket. For all we know, this could be the year a 16 seed takes down a 1 seed. A repeat of the 2011 Final Four (3, 4, 8, and 11 seeds) might not seem that strange after this year.
Let’s take a quick look at some of the glaring stats from “the best teams in the NCAA” this year.
There have been six different teams in the #1 spot, with Kansas claiming it twice.
North Carolina had it for 2 weeks, Kentucky 2, Michigan State 4, Kansas 2, Oklahoma 3, Villanova 3, and Kansas for the past two weeks. Currently, North Carolina is ranked #7 in the AP poll, Kentucky is #16, Michigan State is #2, Villanova is #3, and Oklahoma is #6. So it’s not like these teams are all gonna be 1 seeds in the tournament (only half, potentially).
Kansas, the current #1, has a record of 27-4.
Let’s put it this way. When I went onto ESPN.com, it only has NCAA Men’s rankings dating back to the 2002-2003 season (good ole Dwayne Wade and Marquette). From that season until now, there has not been a team ranked #1 that had 4 losses in the regular season. Not one. The last team to have 3 losses and be ranked #1 at the end of the regular season was the 2008-2009 North Carolina Tar Heels. The combined losses of the top four teams in the past 2 YEARS amount to 17. Total losses of the top four teams combined this year alone? 19.
The top four teams changed 15 times in 18 weeks.
This includes preseason rankings. There have only been 3 weeks (2, 8, and 18) when there was no change in the order of the top 4 teams. 10 different teams cracked the top 4 this year, and not one team stayed in the top 4 for the entirety of the season. If that doesn’t speak to the volatility of the best teams in the NCAA, I don’t know what does. And if that also doesn’t speak to the volatility of literally every other team in the tournament, I just don’t know.
So you know that joke bracket that you fill out that you either pick all upsets starting in the second round, or where you flip a coin to pick the winner? Yeah, this year, that might not be such a bad idea. And hey, the Holy Cross Crusaders at 14-19 stand as good a chance as anyone at this point.
