When the college basketball season started, we posted a predictive piece on which teams were most likely to contend for the 2024 NCAA men’s basketball title based on historical data and past precedent. Well, we’re back today to update that list. We will post our “favored” teams in tiers, just like we did on Halloween, to show the levels in which the schools currently are competing, and then you can make your own judgments.

This is our “short” list of first-tier teams with the best shots to win the 2024 NCAA crown:

  • Houston (16th in offensive efficiency; 1st in defensive efficiency)
  • Purdue (2nd; 13th)
  • Connecticut (3rd; 17th)
  • Arizona (4th; 15th)
  • Auburn (14th; 4th)
  • Tennessee (13th; 7th)

These 6 teams definitely have separated themselves from the masses, so they’re the ones worth keeping the sharpest eyes on as we approach the end of the regular season and the onset of the conference tournaments. The second-tier teams are as follows, which includes some usual suspects (in more ways than one) that are very capable of winning it all if they get hot at the right time and get favorable matchups:

  • North Carolina (28th; 6th)
  • Marquette (21st; 16th)
  • BYU (9th; 23rd)
  • Duke (8th; 33rd)
  • Kansas (33rd; 14th)

Finally, our third tier represents those teams with a legitimate “long shot” at the title, meaning it’s within the realm of possibility (not probability)—because as we know, a lot of crazy goes down in March Madness:

  • Michigan State (26th; 22nd)
  • Creighton (22nd; 26th)
  • Gonzaga (23rd; 36th)
  • New Mexico (39th; 24th)
  • Alabama (1st; 77th)
  • Iowa State (44th; 3rd)
  • Illinois (6th; 41st)
  • Baylor (7th; 67th)

We remember Texas Tech’s run to the final in 2019, and that’s what Iowa State mirrors, for example. Each of these teams in the third tier could put it together, although it’s a long shot. It’s hard for a team like Alabama to outscore a team on the way to the title; think Loyola Marymount in 1990, for example. Defense wins championships, more often than not, and that’s why it’s a cliché we all love to roll out when appropriate.

Okay, so that’s our prediction: the NCAA champ will come from one of these three groupings of these 19 teams total. Bet on it (if you could arrange such a wager?), but we make no guarantees, ever.