Iowa State Cyclones guard Jackson Paveletzke (1). (Photo by Chris Leduc/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

March Madness odds: Why one of these 8 teams will very likely win it all

Originally posted on Action Network | By Avery Yang | Last updated 3/17/24

Since this data has been available, every team that has fulfilled three specific advanced metrics has gone on to win the national championship.

Yes, every single March Madness for the last four seasons.

This is courtesy of my colleague Ryan Collinsworth, who developed this dataset.

Teams with the following metrics have won each identifiable NCAA men's college basketball championship. The data below is according to Ken Pomeroy.

Adjusted Offensive Efficiency (AdjO) of 113.9 or higher.
Adjusted Defensive Efficiency (AdjD) of 96.2 or lower.
Adjusted Efficiency Margin (AdjEM) of 23.83 or higher.

This season, eight teams fit those metrics. The following teams are listed in order of highest to lowest, according to Adjusted Efficiency Margin.

UConn
Houston
Purdue
Auburn
Iowa State
Arizona
Tennessee
North Carolina

The highest ranked team to not make this list? Duke, which clocks in as the No. 9 best team, according to KenPom. The Blue Devils aren't a part of this list on account of their 97.0 adjusted defense, which is 0.8 of a point too high for this historic metric.

The following are the best market prices as of Sunday night for each future on each of the aforementioned teams.

UConn (DraftKings, +450)
Houston (FanDuel, +600)
Purdue (BetRivers, +800)
Auburn (BetRivers, +2000)
Iowa State (BetRivers, +2000)
Arizona (BetRivers, +1800)
Tennessee (FanDuel, +1600)
North Carolina (FanDuel, +1800)

Personally, we'll be betting every single one of these markets. Do keep in mind that if the market goes chalk — with UConn or Houston winning it all — you'd lose a small amount. But, of course, if one of the other five teams wins, you'd win a handsome amount of units.

Out of these eight teams UConn, Iowa State and Auburn share a side in the bracket. Houston stands alone. Purdue and Tennessee are in the same region. And North Carolina and Arizona share a region, too.

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