The Best Teams In The 2017 NCAA Tournament, According To Stat Geeks

March 13, 2017 - by Seth Trachtman

When it comes to making NCAA tournament picks, it’s critical to have trustworthy performance data about every team at your fingertips.

Every year, as part of our process of figuring out the best picks for NCAA bracket contests, we aggregate data from the most respected power ratings systems in college basketball.

Unlike power rankings based on biased human opinion, these objective systems are all data-driven, and analyze thousands of game results in a sophisticated way.

How Top Stat Geeks Rank the Entire 2017 NCAA Tournament Field

Below is a table that lists the ranking of every 2017 NCAA tournament team in five different leading quantitative systems. The five systems are:

Looking through the data, it’s important to note not only the consensus ranking of each team, but the range of individual ranks that each one earned.

Some teams rank quite consistently across systems, while others received a much wider variation of rankings, which implies a higher degree of uncertainty around how that team is likely to perform in the 2017 tournament.

Rankings Highlights

No. 1 seed Villanova is a the consensus top-ranked team, but No. 1 seed Gonzaga actually earned one more first place rank. However, the Zags’ #4 ranking in PredictionMachine landed them slightly behind Villanova’s average 1.6 ranking.
Three No. 1 seeds lead the rankings, but the fourth, No. 1 seed Kansas, is ranked way down at #9. There’s agreement among the stat geeks that the Jayhawks are over-seeded; not one system ranked Kansas better than seventh.
The stat geeks love No. 4 seed West Virginia, resulting in the overall #4 average ranking. For what it’s worth, the Mountaineers were also the #6 ranked team among the stat geeks as a No. 3 seed last year, and lost in the first round to No. 14 seed Stephen F. Austin.
There is huge disagreement regarding No. 2 seed Duke, with an average ranking of 6.8 but a high ranking of #2 (Prediction Machine) and a low ranking of #12 (KenPom). Duke’s results have been inconsistent this season, but they ranked #1 in the preseason voter polls and finished the year as ACC Tournament champions.
There are three No. 10 seeds in the top 25 ranked teams, and No. 10 seed Wichita State is certainly the team that stands out. The Shockers are the #11 ranked team overall, with one individual ranking as high as #6 (LRMC).
The stat geeks are somewhat pessimistic about the top Pac-12 teams, with No. 3 seeds Oregon and UCLA ranking #14 and #15, respectively, while No. 2 seed Arizona is ranked even worse at #18.

We evaluated all of these data points (and thousands more) as part of our process to give you the best chance to win your NCAA pool.

Seed	Rank	Team	TeamRankings	KenPom	ESPN BPI	Pred Mach	LRMC	Avg. Rank
1	1	Villanova	2	2	1	1	2	1.6
1	2	Gonzaga	1	1	2	4	1	1.8
1	3	North Carolina	3	3	3	3	5	3.4
1	9	Kansas	7	10	10	8	7	8.4
2	5	Kentucky	4	4	9	6	4	5.4
2	6	Duke	6	12	6	2	8	6.8
2	7	Louisville	8	6	5	7	12	7.6
2	18	Arizona	20	20	24	9	21	18.8
3	14	Oregon	11	16	13	16	16	14.4
3	15	UCLA	12	18	14	22	13	15.8
3	16	Baylor	15	13	17	19	18	16.4
3	20	Florida St.	19	19	20	20	20	19.6
4	4	West Virginia	5	5	7	5	3	5.0
4	10	Florida	10	9	8	13	9	9.8
4	12	Purdue	13	15	11	12	14	13.0
4	25	Butler	24	26	25	25	25	25.0
5	8	Virginia	9	7	4	10	11	8.2
5	17	Iowa St.	17	17	23	11	17	17.0
5	24	Notre Dame	25	25	22	15	23	22.0
5	35	Minnesota	37	33	38	45	35	37.6
6	13	SMU	18	11	16	14	10	13.8
6	22	Cincinnati	21	22	19	18	19	19.8
6	27	Creighton	26	27	27	30	27	27.4
6	44	Maryland	44	45	49	47	49	46.8
7	19	Saint Mary's	22	14	12	24	24	19.2
7	21	Michigan	23	21	18	21	15	19.6
7	33	South Carolina	38	31	43	34	33	35.8
7	39	Dayton	40	36	36	35	51	39.6
8	23	Wisconsin	16	23	21	23	22	21.0
8	30	Miami	31	32	28	36	42	33.8
8	38	Northwestern	47	39	46	31	34	39.4
8	40	Arkansas	45	38	47	46	40	43.2
9	31	Vanderbilt	41	34	39	26	31	34.2
9	37	Michigan St.	36	43	44	32	41	39.2
9	43	Virginia Tech	42	44	50	43	46	45.0
9	45	Seton Hall	49	53	53	39	53	49.4
10	11	Wichita St.	14	8	15	17	6	12.0
10	26	Oklahoma St.	27	24	26	27	26	26.0
10	28	Marquette	28	28	29	37	30	30.4
10	41	VCU	46	52	40	42	39	43.8
11	29	Kansas St.	33	29	37	28	28	31.0
11	32	Rhode Island	39	37	33	29	36	34.8
11	34	Wake Forest	35	30	32	56	29	36.4
11	36	Xavier	32	40	35	44	38	37.8
11	47	Providence	57	56	56	58	57	56.8
11	49	USC	55	61	59	61	70	61.2
12	42	Middle Tennessee	59	48	45	38	32	44.4
12	46	Nevada	53	55	48	53	45	50.8
12	48	UNC Wilmington	66	60	61	62	48	59.4
12	50	Princeton	58	59	54	57	80	61.6
13	51	Vermont	73	63	51	64	58	61.8
13	52	East Tennessee State	81	64	74	67	60	69.2
13	53	Bucknell	89	80	85	83	62	79.8
13	56	Winthrop	114	112	101	114	103	108.8
14	54	New Mexico St.	101	88	98	93	95	95.0
14	55	Florida Gulf Coast	102	108	80	98	97	97.0
14	57	Iona	110	118	137	116	96	115.4
14	59	Kent St.	141	141	139	136	120	135.4
15	58	Troy	147	130	127	129	114	129.4
15	61	Northern Kentucky	174	147	177	150	187	167.0
15	62	North Dakota	163	173	146	168	187	167.4
15	63	Jacksonville St.	198	158	174	169	157	171.2
16	60	NC Central	181	152	152	137	138	152.0
16	64	South Dakota St.	177	187	188	177	170	179.8
16	65	Texas Southern	201	207	178	209	148	188.6
16	66	Mt. St. Mary's	221	213	207	214	155	202.0
16	67	New Orleans	219	178	217	184	221	203.8
16	68	UC Davis	214	218	210	224	198	212.8