Welcome back to Sports Illustrated’s Magic Eight! We’re less than a month away from Selection Sunday, and it’s time to start separating the pretenders from contenders at the top of the men’s college basketball landscape. Started by the late Grant Wahl in his days covering college hoops for SI, the Magic Eight selects the eight teams that can win that season’s national championship and weeds out those that can’t before we even see a bracket.
Last year’s Magic Eight missed the mark, leaving Kansas off because of questions at point guard and inconsistency at center. The Jayhawks answered those in March and cut down the nets in New Orleans. But it’s a new year, so hopefully I’ll have slightly better luck.
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