137: The AP Poll’s Strong Proof
A look at the preseason poll and teams in the Sweet 16, plus did the ball impact three-point shooting in the first two rounds?
The Sweet 16 of the 2025 NCAA men’s basketball tournament features teams from four conferences, the fewest number of leagues ever represented in a Sweet 16 in the tournament’s history. The previous record for fewest leagues represented in the Sweet 16 was seven (1987, 1989, 2012, 2016, 2017, 2019).
The reaction to this news has many people jumping to conclusions. The reasons include conference consolidation, the transfer portal, NIL, and general corporate greed.
I’m not here to litigate the death of March Madness, but I’m surprised that we’re all surprised by only four conferences in the Sweet 16. The Sweet 16 of the women’s tournament also features only four conferences, and it’s even chalkier than the men’s, with the lowest seed being a 4.
Each season is a new opportunity to make declarative statements, but what if it doesn’t have to be?
If we were paying attention back in November, this shouldn't be a shock. The answer was hiding in plain sight or in the Preseason AP Top-25 poll.
While the AP Top 25 poll is borderline useless during the season, the preseason poll is actually quite informative. Ken Pomeroy wrote about this all the way back in 2010.
11 teams in the preseason AP Top-25 poll are in the Sweet 161. The same preseason poll of 25 teams featured only six total conferences too (Big 12, SEC, Big East, WCC, ACC, Big Ten).
Here’s a look at the 25 preseason-ranked teams and how they fared in the 2025 NCAA Tournament—whether they missed the tournament, played in the First Four, or advanced through the first few rounds thus far2.
18 of these 25 teams won a game in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament. Four of the teams were knocked out in the First Round or First Four, and three of the teams missed the tournament entirely.
Just as all bourbon is whiskey but not all whiskey is bourbon, not every team in the preseason AP Top 25 is guaranteed success. This trend has been consistent in recent seasons, proving that the preseason poll is a reliable indicator of which teams have the talent and resources to make a deep tournament run.
The fact that most Sweet 16 teams come from these rankings isn't a coincidence. It’s a reflection of how the sport’s power structure is more rigid than we might want to admit.
Here is a list of teams in the preseason AP Top-25 poll that made the Sweet 16:
Number of teams in
Preseason AP Top-25
Poll that made the
Sweet 16
| Year | S16 |
|------|-----|
| 2025 | 11 |
| 2024 | 12 |
| 2023 | 9 |
| 2022 | 10 |Of course, the preseason poll featuring only six conferences doesn’t mean the ceiling for the most amount of conferences in the Sweet 16 should be six too. If just a few results had flipped—UConn-Florida, Colorado State-Maryland, or Gonzaga-Houston—we’d be talking about six or seven unique conferences instead of four.
The basketball and three-point shooting
As sterile as the Sweet 16 field has been, the real surprise of this tournament might be the First Round’s brutal three-point shooting numbers. Connor Bradley, @cobrastats, put together this great graphic showing the worst two-day three-point shooting percentages across all of college basketball since 2008.
The chatter about the basketball being overinflated started up again too. The discourse around the ball went mainstream after Fairleigh Dickson’s upset over Purdue in the 2023 tournament. Wilson Sporting Goods’ Evo NXT ball was reported to be overinflated, affecting shooting numbers.
I’ve been a bit skeptical that it’s the case, but after watching Friday’s slate of games, I had a tinfoil hat on all weekend staring at some of the point totals3. Especially after hearing Kentucky’s Koby Brea’s comment and watching Baylor’s VJ Edgecombe’s missed dunk travel damn near the length of the court
It’s hard to say definitively whether the ball is causing poor shooting right now. Will Warren put together a fascinating analysis in his newsletter, Stats by Will, that points out how the NCAA does not have a standard PSI for the ball. More data and analysis—including shot performance at the rim—and a film review with PSI numbers would be needed to corroborate the claim.
I write this newsletter for free, so I can’t do that. But what I can do is surface three-point shooting data by round of the NCAA Tournament.
Connor was kind enough to share the data with me, so here are the three-point shooting percentages by round of the tournament since 2011.
Teams in First Round of the 2025 Tournament made 504 of 1,633 three-point shots. This matches the lowest percentage (30.9%) in the First Round over the past 14 NCAA Tournaments, the same percentage was shot in 2023.
I took off my tinfoil hat after the Second Round, as the three-point percentage improved to 35.7% in the Round of 32 (246-689). That’s despite a brutal St. John’s-Arkansas game where both teams combined for just 4-of-41 from three. Consider that Duke’s Tyrese Proctor made three more threes (7 total in 8 attempts) in 33 fewer attempts than both the Johnnies and Hogs combined.
I do think it’s natural for three-point percentages to improve as the tournament progresses because the teams should be more capable. Of course, as the sample size of games decreases, it’s quite noisy.
For instance, North Carolina and Villanova combined to make 19 of 31 three-point attempts in the 2016 National Championship game while UConn and Purdue made a combined seven of 29 three-point attempts in last season’s title game.
This leads to some bigger questions worth exploring in the future:
do teams shoot better/worse in large stadiums or domes?
for example, the Midwest Regional being played at Lucas Oil Stadium this weekend feels odd
does the ball affect shot percentages at the rim like missed layups or dunks?
are certain players immune to any poor shooting or does the hot hand show up?
Anyhow, while there are only four conferences this weekend, we don’t have to declare it a boring tournament or the death of March Madness.
The Sweet 16 should deliver some dynamite games.
Thanks for reading this far. A couple recommendations this week:
check out some of Connor’s work at cobrastatistics.com - tons of useful filters on play-by-play data with a focus around Purdue and the Big Ten
I was interviewed last week in Sarah Day Own Wickersham’s newsletter, Just Bring Yourself, you can check it out here.
🤟 Subscribe if you so choose and enjoy the second to last weekend of this college hoops season 🤟
Teams in the Sweet 16 that were not ranked in the preseason AP Top-25 poll - BYU, Michigan State, Texas Tech, Michigan, and Maryland.
A green square means the team advanced, an empty square means the team did not advance, and a red square means the team missed the tournament.
Not financial advice, but unders were absolutely the sharp play this past weekend at least three tournament sites (Providence, Milwaukee, and Cleveland)