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College basketball rankings: Top 25 best teams since Jan. 1 – 247Sports
With the NCAA Tournament being a single elimination tournament, crowning a champion is less about which team is the nation’s best and is more which team is the hottest. Of course, there’s luck and other factors there, too — a seemingly unbeatable force can go home early if it has one bad shooting game, or an opponent one lethal shooting game — but generally speaking, it’s about who’s playing the best right now. And with the NCAA Tournament selection committee about to release its top 16 seeds (indicating that the tournament itself isn’t far away), it’s time to look at which teams are playing the best right now.
There needs to be a little bit of sample size, so we looked at the nation’s most efficient teams since Jan. 1, with the help of statistics website BartTorvik.
Most of those games come with heightened urgency, as almost all of them have come against conference teams who have extensive familiarity with their opponents’ systems and players.
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Here’s a look at the best college basketball teams since the start of the new year:
While Houston is the nation’s most efficient team over the course of the entire season, the Huskies have been No. 1 since the start of the new year. The defending national champs are the only team over that time period to rank in the top 10 in both adjusted offensive efficiency and adjusted defensive efficiency. The Huskies have been elite on both ends of the court, with the No. 3 offense and the No. 7 defense, though that dominance has only given the Huskies the No. 1 spot by a tiny margin over the No. 2 team. UConn has a perfect 11-0 record since Jan. 1.
So why are the Boilermakers hot on UConn’s efficiency heels despite fielding the No. 22 defense? Because the Boilermakers have the No. 1 offense since Jan. 1 by a significant margin. The gap between the No. 1 defense and No. 2 defense is 0.3. The gap between Purdue’s No. 1 offense and the No. 2 offense (Illinois) is 2.9, or close to 10 times that. Purdue offensive rebounds well, gets to the free throw line at a high rate and just in case opponents try to pack the lane against National Player of the Year Zach Edey, the Boilermakers are making 41.9% of their 3-pointers in 2024.
The Cougars have an absolutely lethal defense, though it hasn’t been quite as good — even relative to competition — in Big 12 play. The Cougars have the nation’s second-best defense since Jan. 1, trailing only Rutgers. The Cougars would climb back into first if they could leave behind an A+ offensive game from Kansas on Feb. 3. Offensively, things haven’t been as rosy, but still pretty good, as Houston has the 20th-best offense. That the Cougars have been able to be that offensively efficient despite the No. 273 offense in effective shooting percentage shows how well they take care of the ball and pound the offensive glass.
The Cyclones are tied with Houston atop the Big 12 and actually currently hold the tiebreaker by virtue of their win over Houston in Ames (Iowa State has to make the return trip on Monday). And this is how good the Cyclones have been since the start of conference play, boasting the nation’s third-best defense — one spot below Houston — and No. 41 offense. Iowa State is turning over Big 12 teams on more than a fourth of their possessions, and that’s a trait that could help Iowa State win games in March as well.
The Wildcats are 9-2 since Jan. 1, just missing deploying a top-25 unit on both ends of the court. It wouldn’t surprise much of anybody to hear that Arizona has the nation’s fifth-best offense in the new year, while the Wildcats’ defense sits at No. 26. That backs up the eye test, as Arizona’s defense has been really good for stretches and has let the Wildcats down at times as well. If Arizona can get that defense to show up for 40 minutes at a time, then the Wildcats would be well equipped to make a run to the Final Four.
Like UConn, Saint Mary’s has a winning streak that predates Jan. 1, and like the Huskies, the Gaels are 11-0 since the start of the new year. During that time, Saint Mary’s has wrested control of the West Coast Conference — a league typically dominated by Gonzaga — title race, leading the Bulldogs (and San Francisco) by two games in the loss column with Saint Mary’s playing just five more conference games. Most of that has come courtesy of the nation’s eighth-best defense, but Saint Mary’s offense has also ramped up, with the 16th-most efficient offense in the new year.
The Tigers have absolutely clobbered the teams they should clobber and for the most part have had a more mixed back against top teams. That has Auburn here with a 9-3 record, the No. 43 offense and the No. 5 defense. Auburn’s defense hasn’t been quite as good of late, giving up 77 points to Ole Miss, 81 to Alabama (which is below Alabama’s average) and 81 in a loss to Florida. Wednesday brings a chance to get back on track against SEC co-leader South Carolina and a team that has been a bit up-and-down on offense itself.
The Volunteers are 8-3 in the new year and have actually been better offensively (No. 14) than defensively (No. 18). The good news on that front is that Tennessee isn’t as likely to go down swinging the way recent Vols teams have: Watching the basketball clank off the rim too many times in a March game. But Tennessee has also shown spells of elite defense, and the Volunteers’ ticket to a potential Final Four run depends on Tennessee re-finding said elite defense before the start of March Madness.
Another team that has the ability to shore up its defense but needs to do so in a hurry. Illinois has the No. 2 offense and No. 80 defense, resulting in an 8-4 record since Jan. 1. And quite frankly, that level of defense is unacceptable for the level of talent, length and switchability that Illinois has. Remember: From the start of the season through Dec. 31, Illinois had the No. 22 defense. The Fighting Illini are capable of being even better than that, but a trip back into the top 25 would be welcomed after a rough defensive start to the new year. And if Illinois rediscovers its defensive potential, look out.
The Golden Eagles have the nation’s No. 12 offense and No. 31 defense since Jan. 1, with Marquette doing a really nice job of winning the turnover battle. Having a seasoned point guard like Tyler Kolek helps; in addition to his recent All-America-level play, he’s presided over an offense that turns the ball over on 14.2% of its possessions, a top-50 rate, but one that looks better when compared to the fact that Marquette’s opponents give the ball away 21% of the time. The Golden Eagles have been surging of late with an eight-game winning streak, and Saturday brings a game at UConn.
11. Kansas
12. North Carolina
13. Alabama
14. BYU
15. Duke
That’s how loaded the Big 12 is; Kansas is the nation’s 11th-most efficient team since New Year’s, but that’s 1) the third-best mark in the Big 12 and 2) only good enough for the Jayhawks to go 7-5. North Carolina is a spot down in the efficiency ratings, but sits at 10-3, while Alabama is two spots down from Kansas and is 9-2. BYU has the nation’s No. 11 offense since Jan. 1, but sits at 6-5. And Duke also took advantage of the ACC’s relative weakness to go 10-2 in conference play despite ranking No. 15 nationally.
16. Baylor
17. Gonzaga
18. Texas Tech
19. Florida
20. New Mexico
Baylor has the No. 9 offense since Jan. 1, but the No. 63 defense has held the Bears back a bit in the Big 12 title race. Gonzaga hasn’t been as elite offensively as the Bulldogs have been in previous years (19th), but has shown some balance. Texas Tech and Florida have been more extreme versions of Baylor: No. 6 offense, No. 100 defense for Texas Tech, No. 8 offense, No. 85 defense for Florida. New Mexico has actually been the most efficient team in a loaded Mountain West race, with the Lobos tied for second in the conference standings, a half-game back of Utah State.
21. Dayton
22. Wake Forest
23. Michigan State
24. St. John’s
25. Texas
It’s tough to be Rick Pitino right now. His Red Storm are the 24th-most efficient team since Jan. 1 … and are 5-7 since the start of the new year. Texas is just one game better, at 6-6. If those two teams just had easier conference slates over that time …
Dayton, on the other hand, is 10-2, thanks to the 15th-best defense since the new year, while Wake Forest has used the No. 28 defense to sit at 7-5. Is Michigan State starting to play more like the top team the Spartans came into the season projected as? Michigan State is 7-4 since Jan. 1, but ranks in the top 25 in efficiency.
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