Read This Before You Fill Out Your Bracket: 1 of These 11 Teams Will Win the NCAA Tournament

Since Ken Pom began tracking statistics in 2001-02, no National Champion has ranked worse than 40th offensively or 20th defensively from an efficiency standpoint. If you want to win the tourney, you have to be a well-balanced team.

I wrote about this 40/20 rule to pick a couple of long shots a month ago, but let’s revisit it now to help us with our brackets.  Using Ken Pom’s College Basketball Ratings, only eight teams currently fit the 40* /20* rule going into the tournament:

"Duke (+750) – AdjO 3 AdjD 7 Gonzaga (+2000) – AdjO 12 AdjD 16 Houston (+10000) – AdjO 29 AdjD 18 Michigan (+1600) – AdjO 27 AdjD 5 Michigan State (+800) – AdjO 10 AdjD 9 Ohio State (+8000) – AdjO 26 AdjD 17 Tennessee (+4000) – AdjO 40 AdjD 4 Virginia (+550) – AdjO 21 AdjD 1"

Other teams right on the cusp of that 40/20 range (+/- 5):

"Kentucky (+2000) – AdjO 23 AdjD 24 Texas Tech (+4000) – AdjO 44 AdjD 3 Villanova (+550) – AdjO 1 AdjD 22"

So there you have it, make sure you pick one of those teams to cut down the nets.  I also included their odds to win it all for you gamblers out there.

Let the games begin!

*Adjusted offensive efficiency (AdjO): Points scored per 100 possessions, adjusted for opponents

*Adjusted defensive efficiency (AdjD): Points allowed per 100 possessions, adjusted for opponents

*Odds to win the NCAA Tournament