When the NCAA men’s basketball bracket is unveiled on Sunday evening, a few coaches may have to fight the urge to fist pump under the table.
Maybe they landed in a region with a vulnerable top-four seed who peaked two months early and is skidding into March. Or maybe they drew an opening-round opponent weakened by a late-season injury to a key player.
The purpose of this now-annual column is to identify those opponents NCAA tournament teams should want to draw before the bracket comes out. These are teams that for whatever reason don’t appear to be as strong as ones projected to receive similar seeds.
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Three years ago, this column identified Purdue more than a week before it became the second No. 1 seed ever to collapse in the first round. Last year, this column correctly pegged Kansas and Marquette as ripe for an early exit but swung and missed on labeling Tennessee as the most wobbly top-two seed. We’ll hope for more hits than misses this time around.
Purdue Boilermakers
Record: 23-8, 13-7 Big Ten | Projected seed: No. 3
It doesn’t matter how lethal Purdue has been on offense this season or how many ball-screen defenses Braden Smith torches. The preseason No. 1 Boilermakers won’t advance deep into the NCAA tournament if they can’t offer some semblance of defensive resistance.
Purdue’s defense has collapsed during a stretch of seven losses in 13 games to close what was once a promising regular season. Opposing guards are getting into the paint far too easily and taking advantage of the Boilermakers’ slow rotations and lack of rim protection, resulting in a barrage of easy layups or uncontested catch-and-shoot threes.
Since Purdue has played Smith and Fletcher Loyer together nearly 67% of the time during Big Ten play, opponents always have two small guards to target. Trey Kauffman-Renn struggles with perimeter rotations and defending in space, while Oscar Cluff isn’t the sort of intimidating interior defender who erases mistakes at the rim.
A 97-93 home loss to Wisconsin in Purdue’s regular-season finale served as a microcosm of the Boilermakers’ defensive woes. The Badgers shredded whatever ball-screen coverages Purdue tried to throw at them and generated endless drive-and-kick catch-and-shoot chances, sinking 18 of 34 attempts from behind the arc and 11 of 16 attempts from inside the paint.
Purdue has so much offensive firepower that it only has to be adequate defensively to reemerge as a Final Four contender, but the Boilermakers recently haven’t reached that level very often. Teams with athletic, playmaking guards and an array of shooters should be salivating at the chance to try to outscore Purdue.
North Carolina Tar Heels
Record: 24-7, 12-6 ACC | Projected seed: No. 5-6
Only days before he was supposed to return to North Carolina’s lineup, Caleb Wilson suffered an ill-timed freak injury. The ballyhooed freshman broke his right thumb when he went up for a dunk attempt in practice and jammed it on the rim.
The absence of Wilson makes it more difficult to envision North Carolina reaching Indianapolis in a few weeks. This was a dark horse Final Four contender with a healthy Wilson drawing extra defenders to the paint, creating extra possessions on the offensive glass and altering opposing shots at the rim. Without his 19.8 points, 9.4 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game, the Tar Heels would be lucky to survive more than a round or two in this year’s NCAA tournament.
North Carolina outscored opponents by 16.6 points per 100 possessions this season when Wilson was on the floor, according to CBB Analytics. That gap shrank to 7.6 points per 100 possessions when Wilson wasn’t playing.
In Wilson’s absence, North Carolina needs to play through frontcourt stalwart Henri Veesaar, an elite passer and the team’s most skilled remaining player. The Tar Heels went 5-2 without Wilson in their final seven regular-season games, but their ceiling is not as high as it was as recently as a week ago.
BYU Cougars
Record: 22-10, 9-9 Big 12 | Projected seed: No. 6-7
As recently as mid-January, AP voters deemed BYU one of college basketball’s 10 best teams. Two months later, the Cougars are the No. 10 seed in the Big 12 tournament.
A regular season that began with talk of BYU making the Final Four for the first time in program history ended with the Cougars in a tailspin. They dropped nine of their final 14 games to finish in a four-way tie for seventh place in the Big 12 and to suffer the ignominy of having to open conference tournament play on Tuesday.evening.
Season-ending ACL tears suffered by glue guy Dawson Baker in late November and all-Big 12 guard Richie Saunders in mid-February certainly contributed to BYU’s collapse. The Cougars go from an elite offensive team to just a very good one without Saunders’ 18 points per game and ability to space the floor.
And yet offense clearly is not the problem for a team led by potential No. 1 overall pick AJ Dybantsa and talented point guard Robert Wright. A defense that has ranked outside the top 200 nationally since mid-January is the primary reason BYU hasn’t lived up to preseason expectations. Point of attack defense has been lackluster. Slow rotations have led to numerous open jump shots. And on the off chance opponents miss, they’re generating way too many second chances.
Dybantsa went off for a dazzling 40 points on Tuesday to lead BYU to a 105-91 victory over Kansas State in the Cougars’ opening game of Big 12 tournament play. When he and Wright get going, BYU can still outscore almost anyone. When Dybantsa and Wright are just solid, BYU’s defensive shortcomings are too glaring to overcome.
Miami (Ohio) RedHawks
Record: 31-0, 18-0 MAC | Projected seed: No. 10-11
There’s a chance that Miami makes its inclusion on this list look foolish next week. There’s a chance that the undefeated RedHawks extend their run of national prominence by toppling a big brand or two to evoke memories of the Wally Szczerbiak glory days.
There’s also a chance that Miami looks overmatched facing quality competition for the first time all season.
Miami was unable to find a single power-conference program or elite mid-major interested in scheduling a MAC title contender that returned six of its nine best players from a team that won 25 games the previous season. As a result, the Redhawks played a tissue-soft schedule that included three NAIA opponents and several other games against the dregs of Division I.
Their most impressive result of the season was a three-point home win over Akron. Other than that, they didn’t beat a single team ranked higher than 134th in the NET. Nine of their games either went to overtime or were decided by three or fewer points, contributing to their No. 91 KenPom ranking and similarly low rankings in other predictive metrics that factor in margin of victory.
At absolute minimum, Miami has proven itself to be an elite MAC team, one that has played in front of massive crowds on the road and has withstood everyone’s best shot. They also take and make a lot of 3-pointers, which adds to their threat level as an underdog.
Still, if you’re a No. 6 or 7 seed, who would you want to draw? Miami or Texas A&M? Miami or Ohio State? Heck, Miami or Santa Clara You’d rather face a team in the low 90s in predictive metrics than one in the mid-30s.