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Forbes: Louisville is most valuable college basketball team

Louisville poses for cameras after beating Connecticut for the AAC tournament title. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Louisville poses for cameras after being Connecticut for American Athletic Conference tournament title. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Nearly a year after claiming the national championship, Louisville is No. 1 on the list of college basketball's most valuable teams for the third straight year.

According to Forbes, the Cardinals are worth $39.5 million. Forbes took information from the Department of Education and standardized revenue and expense streams to ensure that all schools were being measured equally.

The defending national champions open their title defense against Manhattan Thursday as a No. 4 seed in the Midwest Region.

Second on the list is Kansas ($33 million), followed by Kentucky ($32.5 million) and North Carolina ($25.7 million). Rounding out the top five is Indiana ($25.4 million).

College basketball's top 20 most valuable teams generated $425 million in combined revenue last year, according to the report.

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