Does it really matter how many Quadrant 1 wins a team has? Do Quadrant 1 (Q1) wins give any indication of a team’s title chances in the NCAA Tournament?
Yes! But we only have RPI-based quadrant history. Because the new NET rankings are new and cannot be calculated for past seasons, we can’t analyze how useful they are yet.
So, looking at RPI-based Q1 wins, there are currently only three teams that have enough…
The Magic Number is 9
Each of the past 16 national champions entered the NCAA Tournament with at least nine RPI-based Q1 wins. Even 7-seed Connecticut had 10 Q1 wins before they ripped through the 2014 tournament for the title.
2019 List of Teams With 9+ RPI-based Q1 Wins
- Kansas – 10
- Kentucky – 10
- Virginia – 10
2019 List of Teams With Almost 9 RPI-based Q1 Wins
- Duke – 8
- LSU – 8
- Michigan State – 8
- Tennessee – 7
- North Carolina – 7
- Michigan – 7
- Kansas State – 7
- Marquette – 7
Keep track of how these and other teams add to their Q1-win column with my tracker.
Last year’s post shows the number of Q1 wins each of the past tournament winners had entering the tournament. Last year, Villanova had 10.