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Saw this floating around, here is a condescended version:
Q: How often did the poll rank the eventual champion number 1?
A: 6 times. That means, out of 33 tournaments, the AP poll has nailed the champ 18% of the time.
A: 20 times. That gives the AP Preseason Top 5 a record of 20-13. If you want to know how many times the AP poll has ranked the eventual national champ period, that would be 29 out of 33. The only unranked national champions were 2003 Syracuse, 2006 Florida, and UConn twice (2011 and 2023).
A couple of other notes:
A: Out of 132 possible Final Four teams, 56 were ranked in the AP Preseason top 5. That’s good for a 42% success rate. That’s good for an average of 1.68 final four teams correct per season.
Some other tidbits relating to this question:
Q: How often did the poll rank the eventual champion number 1?
A: 6 times. That means, out of 33 tournaments, the AP poll has nailed the champ 18% of the time.
- The last team to be ranked preseason #1 and win: UNC, 2008-09.
- The preseason #1 team has been the runner-up 7 times.
- 3 of those 6 preseason #1 teams to win the title were pre-2000: 1990 UNLV, 1992 Duke, and 1996 UK.
A: 20 times. That gives the AP Preseason Top 5 a record of 20-13. If you want to know how many times the AP poll has ranked the eventual national champ period, that would be 29 out of 33. The only unranked national champions were 2003 Syracuse, 2006 Florida, and UConn twice (2011 and 2023).
A couple of other notes:
- 26 national champions were ranked in the Preseason AP top 10.
- The AP top 5 missed 4 times in the 90s, twice in the 2000s, and 7 times since the 2009-10 season.
- The Preseason #6 team has won the title 3 times.
A: Out of 132 possible Final Four teams, 56 were ranked in the AP Preseason top 5. That’s good for a 42% success rate. That’s good for an average of 1.68 final four teams correct per season.
Some other tidbits relating to this question:
- The entire Final Four has only been present in the preseason top 5 twice: 2001 and 2008.
- In 2008, the Final Four teams were identical to the preseason top 4 teams.
- 2006 was the first time the preseason top 5 went 0-fer. It also happened in 2011 and 2023 (both UConn championship seasons)