Building the best NCAA tournament championship-winning team in 2023

The field of 68 is set, and the 2022-23 season took a remarkable series of twists and turns to get us this far. The men's basketball selection committee said «no thanks» to the AP poll's preseason No. 1 (which then said «no thank you» to the NIT). The team picked in the preseason to finish ninth in the Big East won both the regular-season title and the league's tournament. And did we mention the coach who ended his 47-year career by casually mentioning it in passing after a Wednesday afternoon ACC tournament game in Greensboro, North Carolina?

Given all that's taken place, it's time for our latest men's fantasy draft.

The ground rules are simple. ESPN's Jeff Borzello, Myron Medcalf and John Gasaway are each out to build a team that can win the 2023 national championship. Each «general manager» picks eight players and one head coach from the field of 68. In this snake draft, GMs must each select one mid-major player and are prohibited from making more than one selection from any one team.

So, let's build some winners. The following is the conversation that took place between our GMs, edited for clarity, in selecting their teams in the third March Madness fantasy draft. Jump to the final roster here.

Brackets are open! Head to Tournament Challenge and fill out your bracket now!

John Gasaway: Hello! We all ready to Fantasy?

Myron Medcalf: Yep.

Jeff Borzello: While I refresh the portal, hell yeah.

Gasaway: Excellent, let's do this. Eight field-of-68 players, one of them mid-major and a coach. For draft order, I propose we use the order of finish from our Champ Week picks, remember those? I happen to have the final results here.

Medcalf: I'm down with that.

Borzello: Yeah that works. I'm assuming I didn't win.

Gasaway: Myron