Undefeated (and regular season #1) Kentucky declined their NCAA invitation because their graduate student athletes were ruled to be ineligible for the NCAA tournament. Moving them to the predicted rank of #1 would then decrease the rank of the predicted top six teams by one position, and those ranks more closely match the actual rank in the final poll this year.
Illinois, Iowa, Duke, Minnesota, UCLA, Kansas and Maryland could not be invited because of the one team per conference tournament restriction in place at this time. NIT wins were awarded at the same value as the NCAA wins, since the NIT was just as prestigious as the NCAA tournament in the early 1950s. The number of NCAA wins in that column in the table below has been normalized to when 64+ teams are invited. Therefore, a team that loses its first round game can have one or two NCAA wins listed below - the latter if they received a bye. (There were only 24 teams invited to the NCAA tournament this year.) 5 wins indicates the NIT Champion - and so on.
| Team Name |
Predicted Poll Total |
Pred. Rank |
Actual Rank |
Win Pct (* 100) |
Power Rating |
NCAA (NIT) Wins |
| LaSalle | 809.5 | 1 | 2 | 86.667 | 114.699 | 6 |
| HolyCross | 778.6 | 2 | 3 | 92.857 | 115.605 | 5(NIT) |
| Duequesne | 713.4 | 3 | 5 | 89.655 | 118.123 | 4(NIT) |
| NotreDame | 592.8 | 4 | 6 | 88.000 | 116.918 | 3 |
| WKentucky | 583.6 | 5 | 8 | 90.625 | 115.400 | 3(NIT) |
| OklahomaSt | 518.6 | 6 | 10 | 82.759 | 114.699 | 3 |
| Kentucky | 492.7 | 7 | 1 | 100.000 | 126.697 | Declined |
| Indiana | 484.0 | 8 | 4 | 83.333 | 117.521 | 2 |
| Niagara | 460.8 | 9 | 16 | 80.000 | 112.469 | 3(NIT) |
| Bradley | 430.3 | 10 | 7 | 59.375 | 108.552 | 5 |
| PennSt | 391.1 | 11 | 9 | 75.000 | 105.410 | 4 |
| LSU | 390.6 | 12 | 14 | 80.000 | 113.488 | 2 |
| Rice | 363.9 | 13 | NR | 82.143 | 111.163 | 2 |
| Seattle | 342.9 | 14 | 17 | 92.857 | 110.918 | 1 |
| NCState | 331.6 | 15 | NR | 78.788 | 110.604 | 2 |
| WichitaSt | 323.4 | 16 | NR | 87.097 | 111.991 | 1(NIT) |
| Dayton | 318.8 | 17 | NR | 78.125 | 110.131 | 2(NIT) |
| USC | 313.0 | 18 | 11 | 57.576 | 107.586 | 4 |
| SantaClara | 270.2 | 19 | NR | 74.074 | 103.911 | 3 |
| Navy | 256.2 | 20 | NR | 69.231 | 104.950 | 3 |
| GWashington | 231.8 | 21 | 12 | 88.462 | 106.284 | 1 |
| BowlingGreen | 228.7 | 22 | NR | 70.833 | 107.786 | 2(NIT) |
| Fordham | 219.7 | 23 | NR | 75.000 | 110.701 | 1 |
| StFrancisNY | 204.2 | 24 | NR | 80.769 | 102.636 | 2(NIT) |
| Illinois | 202.2 | 25 | 19 | 77.273 | 118.848 | 0 |
| Louisville | 192.2 | 26 | NR | 75.862 | 108.815 | 1(NIT) |
| Connecticut | 185.9 | 27 | NR | 88.462 | 103.685 | 1 |
| ColoradoSt | 181.3 | 28 | NR | 75.862 | 103.194 | 2 |
| Cornell | 155.0 | 29 | NR | 70.833 | 103.613 | 2 |
| Iowa | 142.7 | 30 | 13 | 77.273 | 115.474 | 0 |
| OklahomaCity | 128.0 | 31 | NR | 72.000 | 106.640 | 1 |
| Duke | 125.4 | 32 | 15 | 77.778 | 114.307 | 0 |
| Minnesota | 118.8 | 33 | NR | 77.273 | 114.123 | 0 |
| UCLA | 105.7 | 34 | NR | 72.000 | 115.379 | 0 |
| TexasTech | 94.5 | 35 | NR | 80.000 | 101.709 | 1 |
| Kansas | 60.6 | 36 | 18 | 76.190 | 111.233 | 0 |
| Colorado | 36.2 | 37 | NR | 50.000 | 104.771 | 2 |
| Maryland | 0 | 50 | 20 | 76.667 | 99.216 | 0 |