We’re still a month and change away from the NCAA Tournament but the Final Four contenders are really starting to distinguish themselves from the pretenders.
ESPN’s College Basketball Power Index computer model (BPI) recently recalculated the odds of all teams’ national title hopes and there are some interesting changes to say the least. A new poll was released today with Purdue maintaining its place as the No. 1 team in the nation – but they weren’t given strong odds of making a run to the Final Four.
The top odds of reaching the Final Four, as of writing, belong to Houston (56.6-percent), Tennessee (52.6-percent), Alabama (26.5-percent) and UCLA (25.3-percent). Purdue weren’t even the first team out with their 19.6-percent odds of reaching the Final Four surprisingly trailing Texas at 20.7-percent.
Interestingly, despite giving Alabama slightly better odds of making the NCAA Tournament Final Four than UCLA, the ESPN BPI gave UCLA better odds of reaching the championship game and winning the national title.
POLL ALERT: Purdue becomes this season’s first unanimous No. 1 team in the men’s AP Top 25 college basketball poll; Tennessee, Houston next.
Full poll: https://t.co/ZJG5mgWrsa pic.twitter.com/ESwTHy1tKz
— AP Top 25 (@AP_Top25) January 30, 2023
It’s a head scratcher to see Purdue get lower odds in this way despite being the only one-loss team in a Power Five conference left standing.
Perhaps there’s a belief that Purdue will hit a wall with a bunch of games against their biggest rivals all coming up.
But the Boilermakers haven’t hit the wall yet. And if they beat teams like Indiana and Northwestern without seeing their odds improve, things might start looking fishy.
Who do you think are the four most-likely teams to reach the Final Four?