The beauty of the NCAA tournament is that, theoretically, any of the 68 teams could win it. Realistically, we know not everyone can win it. And there's a way of narrowing down which teams have a shot.
Since 2002, 19 of 21 champions started the NCAA tournament ranked in the top 25 of offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency at KenPom.com. The two outliers were 2014 Connecticut, which is the outlier NCAA champion to practically every exercise like this and was 57th in offense, and 2022 Baylor, which was 44th in defense.
There are 12 teams that have a top-40 offense and defense going into this NCAA tournament: Houston, Tennessee, Duke, Auburn, North Carolina, Arizona, UConn, Marquette, Purdue, Creighton, Nebraska and Nevada.