March Madness always features very sneaky teams that fly under the radar. Typically Cinderella low-seed teams.
The first team I think can be very sneaky is New Mexico Lobos, they just won the Mountain West and defeated the five-seed San Diego State Aztecs in their last game. So they are riding a hot streak into the tournament which is always solid and a very big positive for your team. Also, they recently beat Boise State, Colorado State, and Utah State who are tournament teams this year which is also a very good sign. Their first-round matchup is also against a shakey six-seed Clemson that has been mid the whole year and hasn’t shined this year. So when you have a conference champ who’s hot against a team that took an early-round exit in their conference tourney, the odds start to call for an upset. So I would definitely look for New Mexico to take a run this year.
Another sneaky team is staying with the 11 seeds, which as you see will be a common theme. But this team is NC-State. Another hot team coming off of winning the ACC tournament which is a stacked conference. And especially when you beat Duke and North Carolina in a span of three games that goes to prove how good you can actually be. They are a very versatile team that can shoot from the perimeter but they can also play down low with DJ Burns Jr. Again NC State has a lot of momentum and is coming in hot against Texas Tech, who they will be up first again.
Sticking with the theme of 11 seeds Oregon Ducks, who are also coming off of winning their conference tournament in the PAC-12. They beat Arizona who is a two-seed this year in the PAC-12 semis and then Colorado who is also in the tournament this year in the PAC-12 finals. Again another hot team coming off a conference championship, after beating two ranked teams and two tournament teams in their last two games. And their matchup in the first round game of the NCAA tournament is against South Carolina whose last game was a thirty-point loss to Auburn which is very demoralizing for a team. A very hot Oregon team against a team that has been cold in South Carolina. So I would look for Oregon to channel that energy from the PAC-12 into the NCAA tournament to help propel them to what would be called an upset victory.
This year I think the eleven seeds will definitely shake up the tournament, along with a lot of other high seeds because the amount of bubble teams that won their conference tournament means a lot of unexpected hot teams will be in the tournament this year. This makes the field very hard to predict because a lot of teams that are higher seeds that people overlook are actually teams that are coming off of conference tournament wins. This year’s March Madness tournament will sure be wild and crazy just like the previous as we probably see even more upsets than we think which always ends up being the case in the best tournament on planet Earth.
