USF Athletics Photo
By SPM Scott
Updated March 9 at 6:30 p.m. EST
Imagine a world in which the actual top-68 teams received bids to the NCAA Tournament and were able to take at least one spin around the floor at the Big Dance.
We’re talking about the true, legit top-68 NCAA Division I basketball teams, not what the Net Rankings, Ken Pom or any other number-crunchers say and not what a group of out-of-touch old-boy committee members think.
The real top 68.
“But then the Little Guy gets screwed,” some of you might say, while others might lament, “then there would be no small-school Cinderallas or massive early round upsets.”
Not so fast.
The real top 68 would include some of those teams. For example, let’s take a look at South Florida this year.
They’ve beaten everyone in a very good American Athletic Conference, and although none of the numbers point to them getting an NCAA bid without winning their conference tournament, anyone who has watched them play more than once recently can confirm that they likely are among the top-40 teams, much less the top-68.
We have USF ranked No. 38. Others included on our current list include Princeton, Drake, Indiana State, Florida Atlantic, Utah State, New Mexico, Boise State, Nevada, Dayton, St. Mary’s and San Diego State.
We won’t even list Gonzaga as one of those mid-major teams since the Stags have been a perennial national-championship contender for a long time.
But you say that’s not enough of the Little Guys for your liking? What about the 15 and 16 seeds who have given us some of the greatest upsets in sports history?Well, we have a solution for that, too. Let’s scrap the conference tournaments for the traditional one-bid leagues. Instead, the top-two regular-season finishers in those leagues spend the two weeks between the end of their seasons and Selection Sunday playing for the Mid-Major National Championship.
A champion would be crowned, and perhaps the Final 8 from that tournament could be allowed to join the final NCAA Championship field. Maybe the NCAA Tourney field could be expanded by eight to 76 or we just include the top 60 teams plus the Final 8 or 16 or whatever from the Mid-Major event.
There are too many details to work out in this space, but that’s a concept we think would generate a ton of excitement and actually generates millions of dollars in additional income for those smaller programs. And we all know that if there’s not a financial benefit for someone that it never would be approved.
The only issue would be if the greedy NCAA would want to take something off the top for the “haves” so that the “have nots” don’t get too fat and happy.
But we digress.
What a world it would be if the true top-68 teams could get a shot at the national championship. With that in mind, we thought it would be fun to come up with our own top 68 while also keeping an eye on which of those teams were locks to get into this year’s tourney and which ones were on the bubble or pretty much out of the running completely.
So, here goes. The first-ever SPN Top 68!
Remember that we look at analytics and other numbers-based ratings, polls and other rankings and recent results. We also rely on the good-ole eye test. Groundbreaking for sure, but it is what it is.
Teams in bold are locks for this year’s NCAA Tournament. Teams in green need a win or two to be locks. Red teams are on the bubble. Others need a miracle run or auto bid. Teams in blue that aren’t colored otherwise are likely automatic-bid teams.
THE SPM TOP 68
1. Houston
2. UConn
3. Purdue
4. Arizona
5. Tennessee
6. Auburn
7. UNC
8. Duke
9. Marquette
10. Creighton
11. Alabama
12. Kentucky
13. Iowa State
14. Illinois
15. Baylor
16. BYU
17. Clemson
18. Gonzaga
19. Kansas
20. Michigan State
21. Florida
22. St. Mary's
23. San Diego State
24. Texas Tech
25. Texas
26. Mississippi State
27. TCU
28. Nebraska
29. South Carolina
30. Oklahoma
31. Dayton
32. Colorado
33. St. John’s
34. Villanova
35. Nevada
36. Boise State
37. South Florida
38. Washington State
39. Wake Forest
40. Wisconsin
41. New Mexico
42. Utah State
43. Florida Atlantic
44. Pittsburgh
45. Virginia Tech
46. Seton Hall
47. Colorado State
48. Northwestern
49. Indiana State
50. Cincinnati
51. Iowa
52. Utah
53. Providence
54. Butler
55. Kansas State
56. Texas A&M
57. Memphis
58 Xavier
59. Ohio State
60. Drake
61. Princeton
62. Washington
63. Minnesota
64. Oregon
65. James Madison
66. Virginia (ridiculous a team this bad is on the bubble)
67. Central Florida
68. McNeese State
Best of the Rest
LSU
Syracuse
Mississippi
Bradley
Grand Canyon
San Francisco
UC Irvine
Loyola (Ill.)
St. Bonaventure
SMU
Appalachian State
Indiana
Richmond
Yale
UNLV
North Carolina State
VCU
North Texas
UMass
Samford
Penn State
Cornell
Rutgers
Georgia
Miami
USC