Photo: Steph Chambers/Getty Images
The general consensus is that this year’s NCAA Tournament has been a huge bummer so far. This is, the thinking goes, primarily because it has lacked the driving force of the best tournaments of the past: Upsets. There is no St. Peter’s this year, no Fairleigh Dickinson, no Northwestern State. In fact, there is not a single mid-major team — defined as a team that plays outside the Power Five conferences — remaining in the men’s or women’s tournament. The favorites keep winning; the established powers remain entrenched. Some have attempted to blame NIL (“name, image, and likeness” rules) or the transfer portal for this, mainly because people try to blame NIL and the transfer portal for everything. The more likely culprit is simply the fickle nature of the tournament itself. Some years it gives you everything you want, some years it doesn’t. The chaos—or unpredictable lack thereof—is its defining feature. Besides, those people are wrong about NIL and the transfer portal anyway; they’re actually college basketball’s saving grace.
But there is an upside to the lack of upsets: A riveting set of Sweet 16 games. It turns out that when the favorites (mostly) win, it makes for some outstanding Godzilla vs. Mothra matchups in the later rounds. Six of the top 25 winningest coaches of all time remain in the tournament. The biggest, best teams in men’s and women’s basketball are all still remaining. And now they get to take each other out. Even without the upsets, this tournament always delivers.
Still, unless you’re an alumnus of one of the remaining 16 schools or possess gambling-related loyalties, it’s not easy to figure out where you should direct your affections. So, as is tradition, I’ve put together a harmless, just-playing-around — please do not sic your school’s Subreddits on me — ranking of the teams and schools by likability, a hopefully helpful Guide to the Otherwise Unaffiliated.
(Note: This is for the men’s tournament; the women’s Sweet 16 will be set by Tuesday morning and I’ll put my picks in the comments of this post on Wednesday. Free content!)
1. Maryland
It remains so strange, even in an age of expansion, even in a world where UCLA and Rutgers play conference games against each other, that Maryland is in the Big Ten. This is probably the best Maryland team since they joined the conference 11 years ago, and definitely the most Maryland team: All five of its starters are in fact from the Old Line State, and they’ve become known as “The Crab Five,” which is a fantastic nickname. They are led by freshman Derik Queen, a pending first-round draft pick who is a joy to watch and is responsible for the single best moment of the men’s tournament so far:
MARYLAND MADNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TERPS WIN IT! pic.twitter.com/NO0UozXVyj
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) March 24, 2025
Yeah, fine: He probably traveled, but if the referees declined to call it because “it looked so cool,” I would have a hard time blaming them.
Notable alumnus: Larry David (really).
2. Michigan State
If you do not like the turn that college basketball has taken toward professionalism; if NIL irks you; if you hate that players can transfer at will; if you wish it were 1998 again; well, Michigan State is absolutely your team. Longtime coach Tom Izzo (#23 on that winningest coaches list) has steadfastly avoided the quick-fix solutions that have gained widespread acceptance throughout the rest of the sports, focusing instead on consistency and familiarity: He’ll take a less talented team if they’re willing to stick around and play the way he wants them to. This is an outdated notion in college sports, to say the least, but Izzo has made it work this year with what is one of his most enjoyable teams to watch. (He has said it might be his favorite team he’s ever coached, which is high praise indeed.) Your tolerance for older white men sticking stubbornly to their mores and norms of the past may vary, but this is a fun team, and you almost have to admire Izzo for being the last guy tilting at the windmill.
Notable alumnus: Gretchen Whitmer.
3. Houston
Before coach Kelvin Sampson arrived in 2014, Houston hadn’t won a single NCAA Tournament game in 30 years, not since the mid-’80s glory days. He has turned the team into college basketball’s most consistently outstanding team, one that has dominated every league it has played in, making a huge jump from the American Conference to the Big 12 without missing a beat. Houston regularly does this without many All-Americans or future NBA draft picks, which is the sort of thing that would seem impossible in today’s game. Sampson was fired by Indiana in 2008 for recruiting violations that are not only no longer illegal but are so commonplace now that any coach who didn’t commit them would be fired for incompetence. At Houston, he has become perhaps the best college basketball coach in the country.
Notable alumnus: Dennis Quaid.
4. Purdue
Another team that represents consistency and straightforward competence, Purdue lost two-time National Player of the Year Zach Edey and barely missed a step. The main reason for their steadiness is point guard Braden Smith, this year’s Big Ten Player of the Year, and the kind of star that can exist in college basketball but rarely at the pro level. He’s short (well, 6-foot, which is basketball short), he’s white, he’s slow, he has a completely ridiculous beard. He’s also unstoppable, to the point that an opposing coach this year said the only player who was harder to deal with was Stephen Curry. That’s, uh, probably not Smith’s future career path, but no one should be surprised if he’s absolutely infuriating you as an opposing player in the NBA for the next decade.
Notable alumnus: Jim Gaffigan.
5. Michigan
Michigan basketball fans are slightly less insane than Michigan football fans, which still means you wouldn’t want to get stuck in a corner with any of them at a party. They’re one of the happier success stories in college basketball, a team that fired a beloved but slightly deranged famous alum in Juwan Howard and replaced him with Dusty May, the man who took Florida Atlantic to the Final Four and who instantly turned Michigan into a winner again. Their biggest asset is Yale transfer Danny Wolf, a 7-foot former Team Israel player who, I’ve argued, looks like Saturday Night Live’s James Austin Johnson if the comedian’s limbs were all cartoonishly extended to meet a much larger frame. Michigan’s fans make it nearly impossible to cheer for them at much of anything, but as far as their teams go, this is one of the more likable ones.
Notable alumnus: Jonathan Chait.
6. Brigham Young
Look out: The Mormons are good! Part of the reason for this is that, uh, most of their star players are not actually Mormons, including future NBA draft pick Egor Demin (It should be noted that, according to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, there are currently 5,101 Mormons in Russia. Demin is not one of them.) BYU has boosted its recruiting game in recent years thanks to some free-spending Mormons (really) and a former NBA coach who is now in charge, to the point that the top overall recruit in the 2025 class, AJ Dybantsa, signed with the school for next season. This is just the start of the BYU sports renaissance. Pretty impressive for a college that bans premarital sex, alcohol and caffeine. You’ve got to have a pretty impressive NIL budget to overcome that.
Notable alumnus: Mitt Romney, obviously.
7. Tennessee
A slow, plodding, brilliant defensive team, Tennessee gets points for notching some truly dramatic wins this season and for Zakai Zeigler, their 5-foot-9 point guard who is essentially impossible to deal with. They lose points for wearing the ugliest shade of orange imaginable; I’m not sure what you mix with actual orange to get that color, but I bet if you put it on your plants, it will help them grow faster.
Notable alumnus: Dave Ramsey.
8. Texas Tech
There’s always one or two mostly nondescript teams to make the Sweet 16, and Texas Tech is often one of them. (They actually made the national championship game a few years ago, under Chris Beard, whom we’ll be talking about in a bit.) They are led by All-American JT Toppin, who, contrary to popular belief, is not in fact the brother of former Knick and current Pacer Obi Toppin (or Obi’s brother Jacob, also a former Knick). The most interesting thing about Texas Tech is that their best player is not related to a mid-tier NBA player. That about sums them up.
Notable alumnus: John Denver.
9. Arizona
Here’s one undeniable truth about Arizona: This is the last time you won’t have heard of anyone on their team. That’s because their top recruit next year is Bryce James, LeBron’s other basketball-playing son, who has already committed to the Wildcats. He’s widely considered a better player than Bronny (though,while almost no one has noticed, Bronny has started making some very steady improvements). It is to LeBron’s credit that he never refers to either of them as “Prince.”
Notable alumnus: Kourtney Kardashian.
10. Alabama
No team better represents the sudden SEC dominance of college basketball — 14 teams from that conference made the tournament this year, an all-time record — better than Alabama, a football-obsessed institution that has never really cared about basketball but has so much money lying around that they went ahead and just spent their way to a great team anyway. There’s nothing specifically wrong with that, and while Alabama has been inconsistent, they can score like crazy and can be a blast to watch when they’re clicking. Still: They could win the national championship and only 30-40 percent of their football fanbase would likely even notice.
Notable alumnus: Joe Scarborough.
11. Arkansas
Run out of Kentucky’s infamously insane fanbase despite winning a national championship and putting together an endless string of top recruiting classes, Hall of Fame coach John Calipari retreated to SEC rival Arkansas. He got off to a miserable start this year, and his hiring had the makings of an expensive disaster before he turned things around to make the tournament, then beat Rick Pitino and reach the Sweet 16 as a 10 seed (the lowest one left). This isn’t the most inspiring team, and Calipari is hardly some plucky underdog. But anyone who ever left a job vowing revenge on your former co-workers — I’ll show them — can’t help but feel some solidarity with Calipari. Even if he has to live in Arkansas.
Notable alumnus: Jerry Jones.
12. Kentucky
The Wildcats replaced Calipari with Mark Pope, a former Kentucky star (he won a national championship under Pitino), who instantly charmed the fanbase in a way Calipari never could. He has been showered with love the way Calipari once was, but they’ll turn on Pope like they turn on everyone; that’s how it works here. I’ll confess to being grouchier about Kentucky than is probably fair, since they eliminated my beloved Illini in the Round of 32, which is not their fault but of course totally is. Unfortunately, Arkansas and Kentucky are on opposite sides of the bracket, which means the nuclear explosion that would result from an elimination battle between Calipari and his old team could only happen in a theoretical national championship game.
Notable alumnus: Ashley Judd.
13. Duke
That Duke—the most hated team in college basketball for several decades now, without any particularly close competitors—is as high on this list as they are speaks to the loathsomeness of those below them. But it also should be said: This isn’t that hatable a Duke team, relatively speaking. Coach K is gone. There are three future NBA stars on the Blue Devils, all of whom have more interesting games than, say, Steve Wojciechowski ever did. Cooper Flagg is going to be the No. 1 overall pick, an amazing thing to say about someone from Maine, and he’s actually pretty fun to watch. I mean, sure, it’s still Duke; all the bile currently building up in your gullet is entirely justified. But this is not a vintage throw-a-brick-through-your-TV iteration. If you find yourself almost kinda sorta liking them, don’t worry: No one has to know.
Notable alumnus: Stephen Miller.
14. Mississippi
We now reach the Dastardly Coaches portion of our list with the first of the The Three Assheads, all from the Southeastern Conference. Mississippi’s coach is Chris Beard, who, back in 2022, was the coaching profession’s rising star, having just been hired at Texas, his alma mater. In December of that year, he was arrested on a felony domestic violence charge. His then-fiancee said he had “choked me, bit me, bruises all over my leg, throwing me around, and going nuts,” accusations police said were consistent with the physical evidence. Texas fired him, but after the woman eventually declined to press charges, Beard rebuilt his career at Mississippi, whose athletic director, in a shockingly credulous article at ESPN over the weekend, said, “Being very candid, the situation that unfolded there [in Texas] certainly allowed us to get our name in [to hire him].” (The piece, bizarrely, focuses on a student outreach event Beard did at an Ole Miss sorority.) Beard’s success in Oxford has surely allowed him to launder his reputation into a better job than this one, which basically makes him the … I dunno, Corey Lewandowski of college basketball? Uh, go Rebs?
Notable alumnus: John Grisham.
15. Florida
Time for Asshead Number Two. That would be coach Todd Golden, a wunderkind hired out of San Francisco at the age of 36 to run one of the SEC’s top programs. The first couple of seasons were a bit middling, but there was optimism heading into his third season until last November, when, according to a blockbuster report in the student-run Independent Florida Alligator, he was accused by an “undefined” number of women, most of them students, of sexual harassment and stalking, including sending “unsolicited photos of his genitalia” to students. After a Title IX investigation by the school — and, it should be noted, a start to the season that was one of the best in Florida basketball history — the university dropped any disciplinary actions against Golden, saying it could not verify that any of the accusations “occurred within a university program or activity.” (None of the women have changed their stories, and the Alligator has stood behind its story.) Every game Florida wins, they get closer to the Final Four, and the more questions about this Golden faces. With two more Florida wins, those allegations become the story of this Final Four.
Notable alumnus: Jesse Palmer.
16. Auburn
Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl is living proof of the theorem that if shameless and relentless for long enough, even the most vainglorious scoundrel can paint himself as respectable. Pearl has been one of college sports’ most notorious con men for decades now – he has been blackballed from the sport twice—and he keeps popping back up, like a penny laced with anthrax. He has one of his best teams ever in this Auburn team, the No. 1 overall seed, albeit one that struggled a bit down the stretch. Pearl is, plainly, a terrible person — there has never been a less surprising MAGA coach, and I can’t think of a more apt metaphor for what it feels like to be an American in 2025 than watching him raise a national championship trophy over his head in San Antonio next month. My stomach is turning just thinking about it.
Notable alumnus: Kay Ivey
