Rewards standings before the tournament games and after them.

Commentary: Nine out of the top ten teams in the Rewards ranking appeared in the polls' top ten as well. In fact, six were just about the same, and two more were only "off by one position", and so the 0.7 average difference - between where the polls and Rewards thought the top teams should be - was fairly negligible this year. The UPI thought well enough of Navy to put them into a tie for 18th place, whereas Rewards had them as #29, and with the Midshipmen's wins over UNC (#9 - and tied for 6th - in the polls) and then over St. Joe's (#14/#20 in the polls) vindicates that the sportswriters, and Rewards, were not as aware of Navy's strength this year as the coaches. (Rewards did elevate Navy to #19 after those two tournament victories.) In the top 15 teams, only St. Mary's was more than six positions away in the Rewards ranking from where the polls thought they should be: #15 in the AP, and tied for 18th in the UPI, whereas Rewards ranked them as the #23 team in the country, given their body of work before the NIT and NCAA tournaments began. Boston University made the Elite Eight, and moved up from #54 to #43 while Idaho State did likewise (improving from #87 to #68) after they won their first round game, and the Western regional consolation game. Louisville reached the Final Four, and improved their position from #49 to #37, but the NCAA Champion California team only moved three positions (from #12 to #9) primarily due to their four losses (one of them to 9-16 Oregon); four teams of the teams that were ranked higher than Cal had fewer than four losses. (NIT Champion St. John's moved up from #20 to #14 as well.)