NCAA basketball: Power ranking the 2022 Final Four teams

The Final Four is set with Villanova, Duke, Kansas and North Carolina punching tickets to New Orleans. How do the last teams standing rank?

The road to get to New Orleans hasn’t always been smooth but the Final Four have certainly earned their tickets to the Big East. Villanova, Duke, Kansas and North Carolina are set to bring a bit of blue blood favor to Bourbon Street with some compelling games on tap for Saturday night.

As we have done ahead of the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight, let’s rank the teams that are still dancing in terms of their odds to complete the journey by cutting down the nets on Monday night. We’ll start from the bottom with the North Carolina Tar Heels.

Power ranking the 2022 Final Four

4. North Carolina Tar Heels

The clock struck midnight on Saint Peter’s but the Tar Heels deserve a ton of credit for doing what three other heavyweights couldn’t by knocking out the Peacocks. North Carolina’s aggressive defense smothered Saint Peter’s while Armando Bacot was a huge factor, racking up 14 rebounds by the under-four timeout in the first half to take advantage of a lack of size on the interior from the Peacocks.

Hubert Davis’ team has caught absolute fire over the last month and now gets a shot at Duke where all the pressure is on the Blue Devils to win it all. That scenario led to a win for the Tar Heels in Durham to spoil Mike Krzyzewski’s last home game and a repeat would perhaps be the ultimate bragging rights for college basketball’s most storied rivalry.

3. Villanova Wildcats

No team in the Final Four has flown more under the radar than Villanova, which cooled off a red-hot Houston team to reach its third Final Four in the past seven years. The Wildcats cut down the nets in each of their last two Final Four appearances but they do have a significant hurdle to overcome with the loss of Justin Moore to injury.

Moore was on crutches and tore his Achilles’ tendon in the loss to the Cougars, ending his season and costing Villanova their second-leading scorer at a crucial time. There is still a good shot that Villanova can win it all if they execute at a high level and hit their free throws, but the path to victory got significantly harder without Moore.

2. Duke Blue Devils

The history books continue to be re-written by Krzyzewski as Duke is the betting favorite to win it all. The Blue Devils have grown considerably since their struggles at the end of the regular season but no team is under more pressure in New Orleans to cut down the nets than Duke.

That pressure proved to be crippling against North Carolina in Krzyzewski’s final home game and now the Tar Heels are set to meet Duke again in the first-ever NCAA Tournament meeting between the two bitter rivals. The fact that the Blue Devils have the most pressure and the more difficult Final Four matchup ensures that they aren’t the top team on the board right now.

1. Kansas Jayhawks

There are certain moments that can make you take notice of how dangerous a team truly is in the NCAA Tournament. Kansas had one of those on Sunday when they managed to completely flip the script on Miami in the second half of their Elite Eight matchup, turning a 35-29 halftime deficit into a 76-50 win by outscoring the Hurricanes 47-15 in the second half.

That level of dominance hasn’t been matched by anyone in the field, making the Jayhawks the team to beat in New Orleans. It won’t be easy for Kansas to win but they are in the best position to hoist the championship trophy right now.

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