Final 4 Short List as of February 20^th

Tags: North Carolina, Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, Final 4, NCAA Tournament, Bracketology, Bracket Analysis

Here is a look at our current Final 4 short list. I have expanded the list slightly and will explain more below.

Villanova has fallen dramatically, but when you lose to Rutgers and play DePaul, that stuff will happen. Their last four games should allow them to get back near the top of the list.

Six teams have all the attributes for a likely Final 4 appearance. Ohio State, Texas, Kansas, Georgetown, Syracuse, and Kentucky all show they have what it takes. We are slightly worried about Kentucky as they really rely heavily on the three and they get so many points from there playing at home, it really makes you wonder. The other teams have had some hiccups, but that will happen during the season.

Duke’s point distribution is improving and they could be on the Green List by next week. Wisconsin is the only other team that can move from yellow to green at this point.

The orange list was created because I am getting several inquiries about “What about ______?”. If you are not on the orange list, you have absolutely no shot. The orange list provides a margin of error that casts the widest net of outcomes. If a team makes the Final 4 and isn’t on this list it will be unprecedented based on our filters.

Just to give you an idea of what this list looked like last year, I have reproduced our list going into Selection Sunday.

Two points of interest: (1) Only one team on this list lost in the first round, and (2) only 5 of these teams lost to a team not listed here.