Predicting college basketball’s national champion is a treacherous enough prospect when the NCAA tournament field is actually set. Picking one in mid-February is a fool’s errand, but for nearly two decades now, in a tradition begun by Grant Wahl and carried on by Luke Winn, SI.com has ventured to do just that. The key, however, is to pick not one team, but a pool of eight from which the eventual national champion will emerge.
Of course, the Magic Eight is not as simple as just listing the eight best teams in the country. Tradition dictates that the degree of difficulty be upped by excluding at least two of the top eight teams in the current AP poll, and including at least one team from outside that poll’s top 15.