Preseason polls are like sandcastles on the beach.
One good wave – or in college basketball’s case, a few early games – and so much can be washed away. Take the past three preseason No. 1s – Kansas twice and North Carolina. In the end, they would win one NCAA Tournament game combined. The Tar Heels in 2023 didn’t even make the field. Only one of the past eight Associated Press preseason top teams showed up in the Final Four. The last early No. 1 to actually win the championship was North Carolina, 17 years ago.
Not to rain on Purdue’s happy parade. “The goal,” Boilermakers coach Matt Painter noted without fear of rebuttal, “is to be No. 1 at the end of the year.”
Still, the first rankings can give some pretty broad hints. Thirty-one of the past 39 national champions in April were listed in the AP top 10 in early November, so it’s a reasonable guess to think that could happen again. What would it mean? What’s at stake this season for the names on the preseason marquee? Depends on which team . . .
If No. 1 Purdue wins . . .
Painter would be summarily kicked out of the best-active-coaches-never-to-win-a-title club. He has solidified his membership by having the Boilermakers ranked No. 1 in the AP at some point in four of the past five seasons, something only six other programs have ever done. And he’d be winning a championship with a nucleus of seniors he recruited himself. You know, glory the old-fashioned way.
Also, life would be easier in a state where, just down the road, ancient rival Indiana University can wave five title banners in the Boilermakers’ faces. Purdue can claim alum John Wooden with his 10 UCLA championships, but none of its own. And now IU is even way better in football.
Also, at long, long, long last, the Big Ten would not have to answer any more questions about going a quarter-century without producing a champion. Old league hands such as Tom Izzo would likely not miss that annual conversation.
If No. 2 Houston wins . . .
The Cougars would be much less conspicuous on the list of programs with the most Final Four trips. They’re one of 18 schools to get there at least six times. The other 17 all own at least one championship. Houston is 0-for-7, a bittersweet number if there ever was. Especially after last April’s two-point gut shot in the title game to Florida.
Kelvin Sampson would be a national champion at the age of 70. That’d be history worth a cover on the AARP magazine. Jim Calhoun is the oldest title coach so far at 68.
If No. 3 Florida wins . . .
The Gators would repeat, just like their famous predecessors of 2006-07, and that would put Florida basketball in very hallowed company. Several programs have gone back-to-back, but the Gators would join UCLA as the only places to do it more than once.
Suddenly, Florida – known for decades as a football school – would own 20 percent of the past 20 national basketball championships. Unlike the repeaters back in 2007, these Gators aren’t returning their entire lineup, but they do have something Billy Donovan and the guys didn’t have then – a transfer portal.
If No. 4 Connecticut wins . . .
Time to trot out the D-word, and this time the dynasty in Storrs wouldn’t be the UConn women. That’d be three titles in four seasons for the Huskies. UCLA has done that, Kentucky has done that, but nobody else. Wouldn’t that be climbing the blue-blood ladder? It would also be seven championships in the past 27 tournaments, and make UConn 14-1 in Final Four games, the best percentage all-time for any program with a minimum of two appearances. Yeah, even better than John Wooden.
Dan Hurley could then dismiss his stormy 2024-25 season as a mulligan.
If No. 5 St. John’s wins . . .
Rick Pitino would have three national championships at three different schools. Nobody else has even managed it at two places. Also, remember Sampson with the chance to set a record at the age of 70? Pitino has an even grayer beard at 73.
St. John’s would become the portal poster team. Six players expected to be in the rotation wore the uniforms of North Carolina, Arizona State, Providence, Cincinnati, Stanford and Idaho State last season.
The Red Storm would hit the jackpot in their first Final Four in 41 years. For all the program’s tradition, St. John’s has been there only twice. The Red Storm would also be the first national champions from a school that didn’t have a football program in 41 years, going back to Villanova in 1985 — and the Wildcats resumed the sport the next fall.
If No. 6 Duke wins . . .
The Blue Devils would cut down the nets with a lineup they largely recruited from high school, not lured in from other campuses hither and yon. They’d party like it was 1991. It’s a sign of the frenzied shifting landscape of our times that being led to a championship by a couple of one-and-doners might be considered quaint.
This would also be a Duke title in the fourth consecutive decade, a streak only UConn has going at the moment. The Blue Devils have already extended their run of being ranked in the top 10 to 30 consecutive seasons.
Bob Knight and Dean Smith would get company with Jon Scheyer joining them as the only men to both play for and coach a national champion. Scheyer would be the only one to do both at the same school.
If No. 7 Michigan wins . . .
In two years, Dusty May would have taken Michigan from an 8-24 record to the title, and gone from the former student manager who put Florida Atlantic on the map to the top of his profession.
It’d be 37 years after the Wolverines’ 1989 championship, the longest stretch ever for a program between a first and second national title. Michigan has been in the championship game four times since 1989 and lost them all.
If No. 8 BYU wins . . .
The Cougars, ranked in the AP preseason top-10 for the first time in school history, will have taken the title in their first Final Four trip. The only other program to accomplish that in the past 59 years is Connecticut in 1999. BYU currently has the most NCAA Tournament appearances (32) of any program that has never played in the Final Four.
The Cougars haven’t even been to the Elite Eight since 1981, back when Danny Ainge dribbled through every man on the Notre Dame defense – and possibly the Four Horsemen, too – to beat the Irish at the buzzer in the Sweet 16.
It would make BYU only the third school to win both a football and basketball national championship in the past half-century. Florida and Michigan are the others.
By the way, good thing we’re talking about the Cougar men and not the women. The women’s national championship game is on Sunday, and that’d be a tricky issue for BYU’s never-on-Sunday scheduling policy.
If No. 9 Kentucky wins. . .
It’d be the second national championship for the Wildcats in 28 years, and if you think that number sounds a tad modest for Lexington, just ask anyone from Big Blue Nation. It would also require Kentucky’s first Final Four in 11 years.
It’d be a proper way to mark the 50th season of Rupp Arena. The place has already seen four national championships by four different coaches. This would be the fifth by five.
See the above item on Duke’s Jon Scheyer winning as both a player and coach. Now erase Scheyer and insert Mark Pope.
If No. 10 Texas Tech wins . . .
It’d make up for all those nagging recent cases of what might have been. In the past seven NCAA Tournaments, the Red Raiders have been knocked out by the eventual national champions three times, including Virginia in the 2019 title game in overtime. So maybe fate owes Texas Tech.
Then again, nine other teams in the preseason top-10 believe that, too.
P.S. Florida began the run to last season’s championship from the No. 21 slot in the Associated Press preseason rankings. That’s your cue, Gonzaga.
