On the same seed line, preseason AP Top 25 teams won 0.23 more NCAA tournament games than unranked ones in 22 tournaments. The March poll adds almost nothing.
By CollegeAthleteInsider
What each group won in the NCAA tournament above the average for its teams' seed lines. Left: grouped by the preseason AP poll. Right: grouped by the last AP poll before the tournament. Lines are 95% intervals; numbers in parentheses are teams. Source: ESPN's core rankings API (men's AP Top 25) and public scoreboard, 1,408 round-of-64 teams in 22 tournaments, 2003–2026, retrieved October 10, 2026. Computed and pinned by charts/chart_cbb_preseason_poll.py — 280 checks.
On the same seed line, a team that was in the preseason AP Top 25 has won nearly a quarter of a game more in the NCAA tournament than a team that was not. In the 22 men's tournaments from 2003 to 2026 that ESPN's data can pair with a preseason poll, the 459 teams the poll had ranked won 0.15 games per tournament more than the average for their seed lines, and the 949 it had not ranked won 0.07 fewer.
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