College Basketball · Preview: 2025-26 on Selection Sunday
In TheBag.
This is still last season's chart, as it stood on Selection Sunday.
Bad nights take about 10 games to show up, so the 2026-27chart starts around mid-to-late December, once the typical team has played that many against Division I teams (right now it's 2). Last season, all four Final Four teams (Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, UConn) started in the bag, including champion Michigan.
Statboy's champion chart. Across: how good a team is. Up: how far it falls on a bad night. The bag is where Final Four teams have come from for the last 21 tournaments.
Hover a logo for its numbers. Every Division I team is on the chart; the top 60, the tournament field and everyone in the bag get bigger logos. Green ring = made the Final Four · red ring = champion.
In the bag (20)
Teams with at least a 10% chance to reach the Final Four, by history.
| Team | Power | Drop | Final Four chance |
|---|---|---|---|
 ArizonaFinal Four | +39.4 #3 | -8.7 | 71% |
 Duke | +42.5 #1 | -13.7 | 70% |
 MichiganChampion | +41.8 #2 | -13.3 | 68% |
 Houston | +36.1 #5 | -11.9 | 46% |
 Florida | +36.6 #4 | -13.2 | 44% |
 IllinoisFinal Four | +35.5 #6 | -14.8 | 34% |
 Iowa State | +35.1 #7 | -15.7 | 30% |
 Michigan State | +30.9 #10 | -12.3 | 22% |
 Purdue | +34.4 #8 | -17.9 | 22% |
 UConnFinal Four | +30.3 #11 | -12.3 | 20% |
 Tennessee | +28.6 #15 | -10.4 | 19% |
 Arkansas | +28.7 #14 | -11.4 | 17% |
 Louisville | +28.2 #20 | -10.7 | 17% |
 Nebraska | +28.2 #19 | -11.2 | 16% |
 St. John's | +28.3 #17 | -12.0 | 15% |
 Alabama | +28.3 #18 | -12.2 | 15% |
 Virginia | +29.0 #13 | -13.5 | 14% |
 Vanderbilt | +29.5 #12 | -15.1 | 13% |
 Gonzaga | +31.4 #9 | -18.1 | 13% |
 BYU | +25.7 #23 | -11.7 | 10% |
How to read it
- Power rating (across): points per 100 possessions better than an average Division I team.
- Bad-Night Drop (up): how far below its own level a team plays in its worst 20% of games, per 100 possessions. Closer to 0 = steadier. It has nothing to do with how good a team is, only how steady.
- The bag: where a team has at least a 10% chance to reach the Final Four, learned from 21 tournaments (2005–2026) and tested on seasons the model never saw.
What history says, honestly
- Being great matters most: 19 of 21 champions and 55 of 84 Final Four teams were in the bag, but about as many came from simply the top 11 of the Power rating (19 champions, 58 Final Four teams).
- Steadiness is the tiebreaker: among top-10 teams with nearly the same rating, steady ones reached the Final Four 36% of the time and streaky ones 17% (14 champions to 5).
- But that edge has shrunk: 42% vs 11% from 2005 to 2015, and 30% vs 24% since 2016. Treat the up-and-down axis as a lean, not a lock.
100% computer. Final Four chances come from history, not from this season's bracket.