Building the Perfect Men’s March Madness Lineup
Let's look at the best players of each type in the 2025 NCAA men's tournament field.
One of the (many) magical things about March Madness is that it can be a coming-out party for new stars every bit as much as a showcase for the big names you already know. For every Zach Edey in 2024, there’s a Steph Curry in 2008, Carmelo Anthony in 2003, Ja Morant and Carsen Edwards in 2019, or Kemba Walker in 2011, all of whom used the NCAA tourney stage as an opportunity to propel themselves to greater levels of hoops stardom.
With an eye on which names might excel in this year’s tournament — BTW, check out my 🏀2025 NCAA Tournament Forecast 📊 to see how far each team is likely to go — let’s run through the metrics looking for the best players in the field this year at each positional type, courtesy of data from Bart Torvik’s invaluable site.
Players will be ranked according to Combined Value Over Replacement (CVORP), a stat I created by blending Torvik’s offensive and defensive PORPAGATU! ratings with their Box Plus-Minus equivalents.1 The combination of two very different approaches should give us a holistic view of each player’s statistical performance this season. Then, players are grouped according to broad positional categories, plus Torvik’s listed player roles.
(Note: Be sure to explore the charts by mousing over the circles for more information about each player.)
Point Guards
I love how this year’s crop of NCAA tourney lead guards offers a little bit of something for everyone. If you like pure floor generals, Purdue’s Braden Smith is your guy — he averaged 8.7 assists per game while dropping a dime on nearly 45 percent of teammate baskets when on the court, leading the Boilermakers to the No. 4 seed in the Midwest (and a 50 percent Sweet 16 probability). Tennessee’s Zakai Zeigler, Louisville’s Chucky Hepburn and New Mexico’s Donovan Dent also fit into this category.
But if you like players who score and dish, it’s tough to do better than Drake’s Bennett Stirtz, who averaged 19.1 PPG (on an efficient 60.1% true shooting) with 5.7 APG. The 11th-seeded Bulldogs have a tough path in the West that starts with Mizzou and potentially leads right through metrics-darling Texas Tech. But Stirtz led the nation in Win Shares and could help engineer some upsets. Behind him, the next-best scoring PGs in the field are Kam Jones of Marquette, Walter Clayton Jr. of Florida and Kadary Richmond of St. John’s — and we know that if there’s any environment that loves a scoring PG, it’s the NCAA tourney.
Finally, we have the combo guards, led this year by VCU’s Max Shulga, 2024-25’s A-10 Player of the Year. VCU is a better second-weekend threat from the No. 11 seed than Drake, so we might get to see more Shulga as the tourney progresses. The same surely goes for Houston’s LJ Cryer and Emanuel Sharp, who are just a few of many impact players for the Cougars that we have a good chance of seeing in the Final Four. But we should probably savor the chance to see Memphis’ PJ Haggerty while we can; the numbers notoriously do not like the Tigers’ chances to even win a single game this tournament, much less go on a deep run.
Wings
It’s no surprise to see Duke’s Cooper Flagg leading the way among the wing forwards, as the only thing that might stand in his way of dominating this tournament is any residual effect from the ankle injury he suffered during the ACC tourney.2 Flagg does basically everything at a high level — he even improved his 3-point shooting to make 44 percent in conference play! — so there isn’t much else to add except that this dude has the potential for a Carmelo Anthony-like freshman title run before heading to the NBA.
Behind Flagg, your wing forward to watch should probably be Nique Clifford of Colorado State, who went on a tear in the Mountain West tourney (25.0 PPG, 10.3 RPG) and is arguably the best player in the field on a double-digit seeded team. And Iowa State’s Joshua Jefferson, Purdue’s Trey Kaufman-Renn and RJ Luis Jr. of St. John’s should top your watchlist as well.
As for the wing guards, it’s a deeper (if not as top-heavy) group, led by a quintet of power-conference stars — John Tonje of Wisconsin, Duke’s Kon Knueppel, Baylor’s V.J. Edgecombe, Chance McMillian of Texas Tech (if healthy) and Florida’s Will Richard — plus a special smaller-conference player in Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones of UC San Diego. The Tritons were one of the Bubble Watch teams we loved in the leadup to the tourney, so it will be exciting to see UCSD try to make a run (11 percent Sweet 16 odds!) as the No. 12 seed in the South.
Bigs
Two big men stand out above the rest this season: Auburn’s Johni Broome and Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner, each of whom averaged at least 19 and 8 in their senior seasons.3 Kalkbrenner also has extensive NCAA tourney experience, making it to the Sweet 16 on three different occasions (2021, 2023, 2024) — though Broome’s Tigers (81 percent) are far more likely to get there this year than Kalkbrenner’s Bluejays (7 percent).
The rest of the more traditional bigs are led by Kansas’ Hunter Dickinson, Baylor’s Norchad Omier, Zuby Ejiofor of St. John's, Georgia’s Asa Newell and Derik Queen of Maryland. The forecast model doesn’t like the Johnnies’ or Dawgs’ draws, but it loves Maryland and is fond of Kansas and Baylor’s chances to exceed expectations for their seeds as well, so we might see a fair amount of these guys filling up stat sheets.
Finally, we have the Stretch 4s, who are a smaller group than some of the other micro-positions in this data, but the best representatives are Ian Schieffelin of Clemson and Alex Karaban of Connecticut, well ahead of Robert Morris’ Alvaro Folgueiras and Florida’s Thomas Haugh. UConn might not stick around past Round 2 with the Gators looming, but Clemson has a 10 percent chance of getting back to the Elite Eight again after last year’s run.
If I were building the perfect March Madness lineup, I’d play Braden Smith at the point for his playmaking, pairing him with the scoring of Bennett Stirtz at off-guard. (If that backcourt proves too small, we can always slot in Shulga or Richmond at the 2.) Cooper Flagg will be our centerpiece star at small forward, while Johni Broome’s versatility will give us plenty of options at the 4. Finally, we’ll use Ryan Kalkbrenner as our elite rim-protector and inside finisher with tons of NCAA experience.
And I adore our bench: Nique Clifford as the Swiss Army Knife; Kam Jones as the Microwave with instant offense; Max Shulga as our Glue Guy who can man either guard spot; Zakai Zeigler as our on-ball defender (he’s the first player in SEC history to be named to the all-defensive team four times); Kadary Richmond as a two-way threat; Hunter Dickinson as a dominant backup big; Ian Schieffelin as our Stretch 4; and maybe the size and shooting of Kon Knueppel on the wing.
Sadly, such a team of stars could never be assembled on the same roster. Then again, give me enough NIL money, and we’ll see what we can make happen. 😉
Filed under: College Basketball
Specifically, we can compute the O-PRPG! equivalent for offensive BPM via:(OBPM+3.5)*(Min%/100)*(65/100)
And the defensive equivalent via:(DBPM+5.4)*(Min%/100)*(65/100)
Clearly thanks to the curse I placed on him on behalf of my Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.
Well, Broome had 18.9 PPG — we’ll give him the courtesy of a gentleman’s round-up.