Poll performance can be an indicator of impending NCAA Tournament success

They say polls don't matter, especially in college basketball, even more so when we get to March. At heart, they're right. The polls don't factor into the NCAA Tournament bracket. The polls won't get you a higher seed or an easier path to the Final Four. The polls are a collective opinion, not an advanced metric, and the ditch alongside the road to a national championship is littered with teams that looked imposing getting off the bus but didn't have the requisite combination of skill and will, pretty and gritty, dirty work that led to clean looks at the rim.

However …

While it's true that a No. 1 overall ranking by the Associated Press is no guarantee that you'll be the last team standing when they play "One Shining Moment," the AP poll has proven remarkably prescient in separating the contenders from the pretenders.

Twenty of the last 25 national champions have something in common. Eighty percent of the teams that snipped the final net, from UConn in 1999 to UConn in 2024, fit this profile based on their poll performance.

1. -- They were ranked in every AP poll during the season, including the preseason poll.

2. -- They were ranked no lower than No. 14 in any single poll.

3. -- Their average ranking throughout the year was no lower than No. 8.

If those parameters hold for the NCAA Tournament that begins next week, your national champion will be one of these five teams: Auburn, Alabama, Duke, Tennessee or Iowa State.

All five have been ranked in all 19 polls this season. Now consider their highest, lowest and average ranks.

High Low Average

Auburn 1 11 2

Alabama 2 10 5

Duke 1 12 5

Tennessee 1 12 5

Iowa State 2 12 6

That's it. That's the list.

That's no guarantee, of course, that the Tigers, Tide, Blue Devils, Vols or Cyclones will win it all. Poll performance is not a perfect predictor. Twenty percent of the last 25 national champions did not fit this criteria. The outliers: 2003 Syracuse, 2006 Florida, 2011 UConn, 2014 UConn and 2023 UConn were not ranked in every poll during their title-winning seasons.

But if you've performed well enough to be recognized by the AP poll voters among the top teams in the country from the preseason through the regular season, there's a reason. The reason is you're a really good basketball team. Good enough, more often than not, to make a real run at a big ring.

Other fun facts to consider before filling out your bracket:

• -- 22 of the last 25 national champions were ranked in the top 10 in the last AP poll before the tournament. The exceptions: UConn 2014 (18), Florida 2006 (11) and Syracuse 2003 (13).

• -- 17 of the last 25 national champions were ranked in the top five in the last pre-NCAA Tournament AP poll, including five of the last six title-winners.

• -- Only three of the last 25 national champions were ranked No. 1 in the last AP poll before the Big Dance. They were: UConn 2024, Kentucky 2012 and Duke 2001.

• -- The most frequent final pre-tournament poll positions of teams that went on to win it all since 1999 were No. 2 with six champions and No. 3 with five.

• -- Only two positions among the top 10 final rankings failed to produce a national champion: No. 5 and No. 8.

So if you believe in trends, maybe Auburn was fortunate to fall out of the No. 1 AP poll position Monday after losing its last two regular-season games. Meanwhile, Alabama has a chance to make history as the first team in the last quarter-century to go from No. 5 to national champion.