Kentucky Tops the List of Best Teams in BPI Era

by:John Wilmhoff04/09/15

@JohnWilmhoff

[caption id="attachment_177146" align="aligncenter" width="600"]Andy Lyons/Getty Images Andy Lyons/Getty Images[/caption] Since the 2011-12 season, ESPN has used the Basketball Power Index (BPI) to determine the truly best teams in the sport. The rating system accounts for the final score, pace of play, site, strength of opponent and absence of key players in every Division I men's game, including the NCAA Tournament. I dug up the top ten BPI teams and the results favor Kentucky's 2015 team as the best overall from the past four years, even above the 2012 Cats. 1. 2015 Kentucky (94.5) 2. 2012 Kentucky (92.4) 3. 2015 Wisconsin (92.0) 4. 2013 Louisville (91.3) 5. 2014 Arizona (91.1) 6. 2015 Arizona (90.9) 7. 2012 Syracuse (90.2) 8. 2014 Florida (90.1) 9. 2015 Virginia (90.0) 10. 2015 Villanova (89.6) Next three: 2015 Duke (89.5), 2015 Gonzaga (89.1), 2013 Florida (89.0) The numbers show that 2015 was by far the best season for college basketball in the BPI era. Five of the top 10 teams -- and seven of the top 12 -- are from 2015. Kentucky's lone loss of 2015 came against the highest-rated, non-Kentucky team of the BPI era. The Cats didn't reach 40-0. They didn't accomplish what we all wanted in the end -- but don't let anyone tell you they weren't great, that the SEC was too easy, or even that they choked. They reached the most-stacked Final Four in years, maybe decades, and fell to an elite Wisconsin team in a semifinal that could have gone either way.    

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