It is one of our favorite times of the year. The NBA playoffs may still be a while off but attention in the basketball world will now switch to the college game, as the Conference Tournaments take center stage. After that will come Selection Sunday – and then everyone will be frantically putting together their brackets for March Madness.
The attraction of the NCAA Men’s Basketball National Tournament is obvious. The best college hoops teams in the country are brought together for a winner-takes-all, single-game eliminator contest to determine the college champion. There is so much scope for upset and Cinderella teams that making a confident prediction is something of a lottery. The March Madness online betting markets suggest an open competition, as ever, and hoops fans are sure to be in for a treat.
With that in mind, we thought we would stick our necks out and come up with some of the top teams who we think have a real chance of winning the championship this year. There is no guarantee that any of these will end up cutting down the nets, of course. But making wild predictions is part of what March Madness is all about.
Duke Blue Devils
The Blue Devils have dominated the ACC this year and will go into the National Tournament believing that another championship is within their grasp. Just one conference loss all season does not guarantee that a team will even make the Final Four, of course. But there is something very special about this current Duke roster.
It is not just the number of wins that Duke has managed this year that has been so impressive. The majority of those have come with large margins of victory and the Blue Devils have enjoyed two separate long winning streaks. If they can keep it going during March Madness, it does feel as though they will be the ones to beat.
Auburn Tigers
The other stand-out team of the year has been Auburn. The SEC has been ultra-competitive this year (and we will be looking at another of its teams in a moment) so the Tigers making it deep into the tournament feels like a good move. This is a team that has been ever-present in the last few years but still hasn’t been able to win a championship.
The Tigers won the SEC regular season but face tough competition in the conference tournament before even beginning the March Madness experience. How those SEC games go could determine whether the Tigers fly through the opening rounds or burn out against one of the lower-seeded teams. There is a lot of potential here but a tough regular season could end up taking its toll.
Houston Cougars
Houston is another team that went big this season in its conference. Like Duke, there was just one loss in the regular season, giving the Cougars the number one seed for the Big 12 Tournament. Houston has been a lot of people’s outsiders for the national championship in recent years but it has failed to get to the final clash.
What Houston might have on its side this year is that is has somehow improved going into the stretch at the end of the regular season. Texas Tech might pose a problem in the Big 12 Tournament but the Cougars could come into March Madness on full head of steam – and just about everyone else should be concerned about that.
Florida Gators
The SEC could get three number one seeds for March Madness this year, so the Gators finishing on a 14-4 conference record is not as bad (relatively) as it might initially seem. When you consider that Florida has also beaten Auburn by nine points and gotten the better of Texas A&M and Alabama, thoughts will naturally turn to the potential of a national championship.
It is almost 20 years since those back-to-back championships of the 2000s and Florida has recently been showing off its title-winning credentials. An excellent run towards the end of the season was pushed by some incredible offense and that kind of form could easily spill into March Madness at precisely the right time.
UConn Huskies
There are not many pundits who are publicly backing the Huskies to win the championship this year but, after winning back-to-back titles, we thought we would at least consider the chances of a three-peat for the first time since the UCLA glory days of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The Huskies were always going to find this season a struggle after so many important players left for the NBA and an inconsistent run of wins and losses seemed to have proven that. Four wins at the end of the regular season have changed perceptions somewhat, however, and now another Big East title is not out of the realm of possibility. A third national title seems very unlikely but March Madness is, well, crazy.
Someone Else
With 68 teams, including the First Four, all competing to become the champion – and the relentless and unforgiving format of the tournament – any of the teams mentioned here could come out on top. But it is just as likely that none of them will prove victorious. That is, after all, the real attraction of March Madness.
What can be guaranteed is just over a month of exciting and exhilarating college basketball that delivers in each and every game. There will be shocks and there will be incredible performances – and we wouldn’t have it any other way, no matter who ends as the champion.
