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The 11 best bets to win the 2025 NCAA men’s basketball tournament

Washington Post
Summary
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87% Informative

Basketball stats guru Ken Pomeroy ranks teams by net rating, which he lists in the NetRTG column on his website.

The low bar: 19.1 is the lowest adjusted pretournament net rating for any NCAA men’s tournament champion since 2002 .

Last year's champion, Connecticut , had the third -best net rating in the KenPom era at 32.2 .

Virginia raised the bar with its 2019 title run, becoming the most efficient winner.

Duke, Florida , Houston , Auburn , Tennessee , Alabama , Texas Tech, Gonzaga , Iowa State , Wisconsin and Arizona .

Duke is the most efficient national champion in the Pomeroy era, with a NetRTG of 38.15 .

The Blue Devils both take and make a lot of three -pointers, with 45.4 percent of their field goal attempts coming from beyond the arc.

Gonzaga is back in the NCAA tournament for the 26th straight season .

The Bulldogs have a unique stat profile for a successful modern-era team.

Iowa State barely made this list, ranking 20th in offensive efficiency.