The 6 (Maybe 8) Men's College Basketball Teams Who Can Win the 2025 Natty
Why wait to get FUNKy in March when I can be much more on-brand and get PUNKy in November?
There are very few ideas from my CBS era that live nearer to my heart than my endlessly silly and surprisingly controversial March Madness eliminator, the Flagrantly Unscientific Natty Kalculator aka the FUNK. I originally pitched the FUNK a decade or so ago for someone else’s show and it was immediately apparent that the idea had legs when all the analysts had steam coming out of their ears at the end of the segment. A couple years later, bored during an office shift in the run up to March Madness, I added a written piece to distribute with the CBS research team’s NCAA Tournament notes packet. A couple years and a canceled Tournament after that, it turned into a CBSSports.com piece that ran for a couple years and finally my favorite segment from my favorite show I’ve ever produced.
The idea behind the FUNK was never really to correctly predict the National Champion — I have “unscientific” right there in the title and a rule about wearing the fucking color blue. I just thought it was a fun way to throw a bunch of information at people without it feeling like homework. Over the years, though, two things kept happening: it kept making people mad and it kept actually picking the National Champion (with a 2023 UConn exception along the way). I didn’t update it in March mostly because three weeks after getting laid off, I really didn’t feel like it. Also because it was painfully obvious that UConn met all the rules this time and was gonna win the Natty again.
On the eve of a new college hoops season, I find myself feeling the itch to eliminate somewhere in the range of 350-360 Division I men’s basketball teams and wondering if I can figure out who can really cut down the nets next April before anyone even plays a game. How the hell else do I decide who to watch without 12 screens? I give you the Preseason Unscientific Natty Kalculator — let’s get PUNKy, motherfuckers!
Round #1 — I Don’t Know About You, But I’m Feeling Twenty Wins
The Rule: the National Champion must have won at least 20 games last season
The Reason: 35 of the 39 National Champions since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985 met this threshold. All four of the exceptions — 1985 Villanova, 1986 Louisville, 2005 North Carolina and 2011 UConn —won at least 18 games the year before their Natty (three of the four exceptions won exactly 19). 35 of 39 is an 89.7% hit rate, which is plenty good enough for me. It’s an added bonus that there’s a UConn exception — they’ve always been the exception that proves my rules.
The Eliminated: 221 of the 362 teams in D-I last season, so I won’t list them, and we also bid farewell to our newest members of D-I Mercyhurst and West Georgia. There are several other notable eliminations off the bat. Preseason AP #16 Arkansas, #17 Indiana, #22 UCLA and #25 Rutgers all failed to hit the 20-win threshold last season. In the Scarlet Knights’ case, this is the only substantive criteria they failed to meet.
Round #2 — It Would’ve Been Fun If You Would’ve Been One Of the 55 Who Received Preseason AP Poll Votes
The Rule: the National Champion must have received at least one vote in the preseason AP Top 25
The Reason: 34 of 39 National Champions since 1985 were ranked in the preseason AP Poll, so it would feel entirely fair to say a team has to be ranked and call it a day. But the last two exceptions to the rule, 2011 and 2023 UConn, each received votes in the preseason Poll. The others (1985 Villanova, 2003 Syracuse and 2006 Florida) played far enough back that I can’t find a Poll showing who “also received votes.” 36+ of 39 makes a 92.3% definite success rate for this rule and it’s possible it has a 100% rate.
The Eliminated: Truthfully, not many teams of note as a staggering and honestly somewhat absurd 55 teams received a preseason AP Poll vote. Dayton, FAU, Seton Hall, South Carolina and Syracuse are the most notable casualties as they meet three of the other four substantive criteria.
Round #3 — ‘Nother Fortnight Lost in America
The Rule: the National Champion must have previously played in a Final Four
The Reason: only one National Champion since 1985 won it all in their program’s first trip to the Final Four, UConn in 1999. This rule has been tested over the last couple years with the likes of Alabama, San Diego State and Miami making their first trips to the Final Four. My perennial pests UConn have, in an ironic twist of fate, been the defenders of the P/F-UNK (not to be confused with PFunk), vanquishing those who would’ve invalidated this rule at the last two Final Fours. Thus it remains clear: you can have a fortnight, but a third victorious weekend is just too much to ask the first time around.
The Eliminated: We lose several of the more…let’s say aspirational…AP vote-getters here such as High Point, McNeese, Little Rock and Grand Canyon. We also lose preseason #12 Tennessee, #13 Texas A&M, #15 Creighton and #24 Ole Miss. All told there are 13 teams who met the first two criteria but failed to meet this one.
Round #4 — The Smallest Men Who Ever Lived Do Not Win Natties
The Rule: the National Champion must have a player ranked among NBADraft.net’s top 50 prospects for 2025
The Reason: 32 of 39 National Champions since 1985 had a player selected in the First Round of the subsequent NBA Draft and six of the seven exceptions are specifically a result of multiple star players returning to school. That was the case for:
1990 UNLV (Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon and Greg Anthony)
1991 Duke (Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill)
1997 Arizona (Mike Bibby, Michael Dickerson, Miles Simon and Jason Terry)
2006 Florida (Joakim Noah, Al Horford and others)
2010 Duke (Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith and multiple Plumlees)
and 2016 Villanova (Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges)
The one 64-team era champ which had neither a First Round pick that year nor multiple future NBA players return to school, 1994 Arkansas, had Corliss Williamson return to school but didn’t produce any other pros. However you slice it, the Champs gotta have some NBA talent.
The Eliminated: Preseason #2 Alabama, #4 Houston, #5 Iowa State, #6 Gonzaga #10 Arizona, #11 Auburn, #14 Purdue and #18 Marquette are all among 17 teams without a top 50 prospect after clearing the first three rules. Also gone are Rick Pitino and St. John’s as well as 2023 National Runner-Up San Diego State. All of those teams except Gonzaga cleared the other four substantive rules.
Round #5 — I See You Over There, on the Internet, Comparing All the Defenses Who are Killin It
The Rule: the National Champion must be in the top 30 of BartTorvik.com’s preseason Adjusted Defensive Efficiency ratings
The Reason: whether you go with Bart Torvik or Ken Pomeroy for your advanced college hoops stats, one thing you will find is that National Champions always feature a defense in the top 10% or so of Division I as measured by Adjusted Defensive Efficiency (and generally closer to the top 3-4%) — it’s been true every year in KenPom’s dataset, which goes back further of the two.
Torvik’s “T-Rank Time Machine” also allows me to tell you that over the last 10 seasons, 8 of 9 National Champions were in the top 30 in the preseason Adjusted Defensive Efficiency projections, so that’s the threshold I’m using for this one. It’s the smallest sample size of the rules based purely on a lack of available data, but 8 of 9 (88.9%) is at least a very strong small sample, right in line with my other rules. As a little treat, the exception is 2023 UConn, and since UConn is exempt from all the rules I’m basically calling this one nine-for-nine.
The Eliminated: a third of the dozen teams who make it this far, though surprisingly only one preseason AP Top 25 team, #8 Baylor. The others (Ohio State, Oregon and Texas Tech) all cleared rule number two on the virtue of “also receiving votes.”
TRANSITION! — I’m Only Cryptic and Machiavellian ‘Cause I Care
Only eight teams out of more than 360 in Division I men’s basketball have made it this far, and I’m all out of substantive rules, so I could just pack it in here and tell you who’s left. But I have come here to chew bubble gum and be a PUNK ass bitch, and I’m also all out of bubble gum. It’s time to blue ourselves.
Round #6 — It’s (Still) Blue, The Feeling I’ve Got
The Rule: the National Champion must wear a shade of blue
The Reason: 30 of 39 National Champions since 1985 wore blue as one of their official colors, as well as 19 of the last 21. More importantly, there’s nothing more March Madness than losing a bracket pool to someone who picked based on the mascots and there’s no success rate that could replace the gratification of being called an idiot on television or getting the GOAT bracket expert guy (a term he would definitely prefer to “bracketologist”) mad in my dearly departed inbox. The blue rule stays until I come up with an even dumber one to replace it.
The Eliminated: unranked Michigan State and preseason #19 Texas are the two teams who could totally win it all this season if only they were smart enough to be more inbluesive.
Long Live the 2025 National Champions…
After six rules to mirror a six-game run through the Big Dance, we’re left somewhat fittingly with six teams who can win it all (a fact I definitely spoiled in the title). Four are in the preseason AP Top 10 — #1 Kansas, #3 UConn, #7 Duke and #9 North Carolina. Two possible dark horses also ran the PUNK in #23 Kentucky and unranked Illinois. Congrats to whichever of those six teams wins it all next April! To everyone else, don’t say I didn’t, say I didn’t warn ya.