By Aidan Joly
After two years of waiting, the day is finally almost here: the start of the NCAA Tournament. 68 teams have descended on Indianapolis and will start play this weekend. Here’s some of what could happen in the next weekend and some predictions!
West Region:
Gonzaga, the best team in the country, is the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament and is in this region after a 26-0 campaign and winning the West Coast Conference. They have some of the best players in the country in Corey Kispert, who is a finalist for National Player of the Year as well as Drew Timme and star freshman Jalen Suggs, all of whom will have a major impact over the next couple of weeks. The Bulldogs are my pick to win the national championship, which would be the first in program history.
Their biggest competition in this region is Iowa. The Hawkeyes boast star senior Luka Garza, who has arguably been the best player in the country all season, averaging 23.7 points, 8.8 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game. The Hawkeyes went 21-8 this season and 14-6 in Big Ten play, a league that sent nine teams to the tournament, the most of any conference. Joe Wieskamp and Jordan Bohannon are also very important players for Fran McCaffrey’s bunch. Expect an Elite Eight matchup of Iowa and Gonzaga. By the way, their first-round matchup with 15th-seeded Grand Canyon should be a good one. It’s the first tournament appearance in program history under first-year head coach Bryce Drew. It would be shocking if the Antelopes pulled off an upset, but it should be a fun, offense-driven game.
A couple upsets could very well happen in this region. 12-seeded UC Santa Barbara and 13-seeded Ohio both have very good squads. The Gauchos, out of the Big West Conference, went 22-4 overall and 15-3 in league play. They have a trio of double-digit scorers in JaQouri McLaughlin, Amadou Sow and Ajare Sanni along with Miles Norris, who can come up in the clutch. They face a Creighton team that sputtered late in the season with three late-season losses, the last of which was a 25-point drubbing against Georgetown in the Big East championship game last Saturday.
Ohio, out of the MAC, has a lot of depth that may overwhelm fourth-seeded Virginia. Jason Preston has blossomed into one of the stars in mid-major basketball, averaging 16.6 points, 6.8 rebounds and 7.2 assists per game for the Bobcats and coach Jeff Boals. Dwight Wilson III, Ben Vander Plas, Ben Roderick and Lunden McDay are all double-digit scorers. Expect this to be a team that makes some noise, potentially to Sweet 16 run, especially if they face the Gauchos in the second round.
A first-round game that will be a lot of fun is seventh-seeded Oregon facing 10th-seeded VCU. Both at-large selections, Oregon has a pair of stars in Eugene Omoruyi and Chris Duarte, both averaging more than 16 points per game. Meanwhile, VCU, one of two teams in the tournament out of the Atlantic 10 went 19-7 this season. Nah’Shon Hyland averages nearly 20 points per game for the Rams. This will be for the right to (probably) face Iowa in the second round.
A potential second-round matchup that would be fun is third-seeded Kansas against sixth-seeded USC. Kansas has had some COVID-related issues in the past week but they should be back to full strength in their second game if they are to move on. We will see.
East Region:
The top-seeded team in this region is Michigan after they went 20-4, including a 14-3 mark in Big Ten play. Their top player is freshman Hunter Dickinson, who burst onto the scene this season by averaging 14.2 points and 7.6 rebounds per game, much more than was expected from him in year one under Juwan Howard. Senior Isaiah Livers and sophomore Franz Wagner are a pair of important role players for them. However, some are worried about them coming into the tournament considering they have lost three of their past five games, including the Big Ten title game against Ohio State last Sunday.
Who’s the hot team in this region? Look no further than the Alabama Crimson Tide, the No. 2 seed in thi region. The best team in the SEC all season and they won the league title with an 80-79 win against LSU in the league title game. Jaden Shakelford, Jahvon Quinerly, John Petty Jr. and Herb Jones are the four big guys for them. Personally, they are my pick to make the Final Four out of this region. To kick off their run, they will face 15th-seeded Iona and Rick Pitino. The legendary coach, in his first year at Iona, is back in the tournament for the first time since 2017.
There are a couple of lower-seeded teams to watch out of this region, and they are not small schools: Michigan State and Georgetown. Yeah.
The Spartans were one of the last four teams in and they will play a play-in game against UCLA on Thursday and they have to win that game to be placed into the main bracket, where they would face BYU. Michigan State’s tournament chances looked dead in the water a few weeks ago, but they picked up some big wins that allowed them to sneak in, the biggest being a win over Michigan on March 7. Tom Izzo’s best coaching always comes in March, so nobody should be betting against his team.
Georgetown’s path to the tournament was a wild and unconventional one. They went 7-9 in Big East play and earned the No. 8 seed in the league tournament, not even close to being on the bubble, much less making the field. However, they rattled off four wins in four nights to win the tournament and the league’s automatic bid with wins over Marquette, Villanova, Seton Hall and Creighton. They are the No. 12 seed in this region and will face Colorado. Momentum is a real thing and they could continue it to a first-round win.
The most fun first-round matchup comes towards the top of the bracket, where eighth-seeded LSU will face ninth-seeded Saint Bonaventure. The Tigers, led by Will Wade, boast three gifted scorers in Cameron Thomas (22.6 PPG), Trendon Watford (16.7 PPG) and Javonte Smart (15.9 PPG). Watford is a big-game player, having scored 30 in the SEC title game, albeit it being a loss. As a team, they are eighth in the country in average points, at 82.1. The Bonnies are the second team out of the Atlantic 10 after earning that league’s automatic bid. Kyle Lofton and Jaren Holmes are fun watches and Osun Osunniyi nearly averages a double-double.
South Region:
This region has the potential for the No. 1 seed to go early as well as the best chance for a Cinderella.
The top seed here is Baylor, who went 22-2 overall and 13-1 in the Big 12. They looked like the second-best team in the country for a good portion of the season, starting 18-0. However, they went on a COVID-related pause and didn’t play between February 2 and February 23. They have not looked the same since then, losing a pair of games and winning close against far inferior opponents, including in the Big 12 tournament. The second loss was to Oklahoma State in the semifinals of that tournament. They do have two of the best players in the country in Jared Butler and MaCio Teague, who can lead them to a deep run.
Now, for the potential Cinderella. Look at 12th-seeded Winthrop. The Eagles, under head coach Pat Kelsey, went 23-1 this season, its only loss coming to UNC Asheville on January 29. They are one of the best rebounding teams in the country, which will help them against power conference, higher-seeded teams.
They are the sexy first-round upset pick, and for good reason. They face Villanova on Friday. The Wildcats lost four of their final seven games of the season and lost arguably their best player in Collin Gillespie to a season-ending knee injury on March 3. Obviously, they have not been the same since, having lost each of their two games since that.
If the Eagles were to win, they would (likely) face fourth-seeded Purdue in the second round. Purdue is one of the more inconsistent teams in the country and if they are able to catch the Boilermakers on a bad day, it could allow the Eagles to make the Sweet 16. However, they would probably face Baylor there, which could end their run.
Some of the other good first-round matchups include high-seeded teams against low-seeded teams. First off, 3rd-seeded Arkansas will face 14th-seeded Colgate in a matchup that will surely be a track meet. The Razorbacks out of the SEC are seventh in the country in points per game with 82.4, and the Raiders are second in the country at 86.3. This game could very well be first to triple digits wins. It will be entertaining. Jordan Burns of Colgate and Moses Moody of Arkansas are the ones to watch here. The Razorbacks, led by Eric Musselman in his second year, are my pick to win this region and make the Final Four, somewhere the program has not been since 1995.
The second fun matchup is the 2-15 game, which sees Ohio State go up against Oral Roberts, the Summit League champion. Oral Roberts has the nation’s leading scorer in Max Abmas, who averages 24.7 points per game. The Buckeyes have no shortage of talent in Duane Washington, EJ Liddell, Justice Sueing, CJ Walker and Kyle Young, so they will certainly be a tough out. Don’t expect an upset here, but it should be fun.
Midwest Region:
The last region is a good one. The top team here is Illinois, the Big Ten’s second No. 1 seed after they went 23-6, 16-4 in the league. They have a two-headed monster in Ayo Dosunmu and Kofi Cockburn as well as a couple other great role players in Trent Frazier and freshman Andre Curbelo. Expect them to make a deep run. The Illini are my pick to make it out of this region and I have them falling to Gonzaga in the national title game.
In my opinion, the team that gives them the stiffest competition is 3rd-seeded West Virginia. Despite them struggling late in the season, I’m a strong believer in this group. Deuce McBride, Derek Culver, Taz Sherman and Sam McNeil is quite the foursome and they should be able to ride with that group on offense, on top of the patented Bob Huggins defense, to make a deep run.
Another team that can provide them with great competition is 4th-seeded Oklahoma State. What more can you say about Cade Cunningham? He is the consensus No. 1 overall pick in this summer’s NBA Draft after becoming a superstar freshman, averaging over 20 points and six rebounds per game and coming up clutch every time they need him to. Other players have blossomed into being good players like Avery Anderson, Kalib Boone and Isaac Likekele.
The crazy thing about this group? They aren’t supposed to be here. The NCAA gave them a postseason ban for this season this past summer for recruiting violations by the previous coaching staff, but they appealed and the appeal has not been answered yet and that allowed them to play. I’m sure that Cowboy fans will be okay with the ban coming another year.
Another team in this region that really isn’t supposed to be here but earned their way in is Oregon State. They had a similar path to Georgetown. They were picked last in the Pac-12 preseason poll but went 10-10, which was not good enough to be considered for an at-large but was good enough to earn the No. 5 seed in the Pac-12 tournament. They went and picked off UCLA, Oregon and Colorado on three consecutive nights to make the tournament for the second time since 1990.
Wayne Tinkle’s group, led by senior Ethan Thompson, got the No. 12 seed in this region and will face Tennessee in the first round. I’ll say that an upset is less likely here, but it would not be overly surprising, considering they carry momentum like Georgetown.
A team to consider to make a bit of a run is 10th-seeded Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights would have made the tournament last year but are now officially in for the first time since 1991. They don’t have a true superstar but have a plethora of good players in Ron Harper Jr., Jacob Young, Geo Baker, Montez Mathis and Myles Johnson. They will face Clemson in the first round, which they have a very good shot at winning. If they are to do that, they will likely face No. 2-seeded Houston, who in my mind are a weak No. 2 seed. They come out of the American, where they went 14-3 and 24-3 overall but have played close games against teams not on their level and have a pair of weird losses, which came to Tulsa on December 29 and East Carolina on February 3. That win for the Pirates was one of its two league wins all year. If there’s a big second-round upset, it very well could be that.
Finally, a fun first-round matchup between Loyola-Chicago and Georgia Tech is on tap. Loyola-Chicago is back in the tournament since its miraculous Final Four run in 2018. They are no slouch this season, having gone 16-2 in the Missouri Valley, 24-4 overall, ending the season at No. 17 nationally and grabbing the No. 8 seed in this region. Cameron Krutwig, a freshman on the 2018 team, is a star senior now. They face Georgia Tech, a team that has not lost a game since February 12 after its tournament hopes seemed slim for much of the season. Jose Alvarado is a fun watch for the Yellow Jackets, as is coach Josh Pastner and his majestic face shield. However, they will be without ACC Player of the Year Moses Wright for Friday’s game, which is a big loss.
All in all, each of the 32 first round games will be fantastic and it’s so exciting to finally be about to watch some NCAA Tournament games. It’s going to be an incredibly fun three weeks.
AJ Hoops 