Welcome to this year’s Sports Illustrated Magic Eight!
The Magic Eight is an SI tradition, one that attempts to cut through the noise and find the eight teams capable of winning March Madness well before a bracket is ever revealed. Picking the eight comes with some stipulations to avoid leaning too heavily into chalk. At least two teams have to be from outside the most recent AP poll’s top eight teams, and one of those needs to come from outside the top 15.
