It’s not duck season. It’s not rabbit season.
Sorry, Daffy and Bugs. It’s bracket season.
You want to be that person in the office pool or the online bracket contest who nails the big upset pick. Here’s a guide, and remember this about guides — they reveal a general path, not so much a specific one. You have to be the one to make specific upset selections.
This is the great and underappreciated truth of the NCAA tournament: Upsets and surprises constantly emerge in most years, at least in the first three rounds. The confounding part is that you don’t know where the upsets will occur. “Predictable upsets” (which is something of an oxymoron) often flame out. It’s that other 14-3 game or 13-4 game which busts your bracket. It is in the nature of an upset to not be the predictable one everybody talks about in the 48 hours before you have to submit your bracket to the person (or online entity) in charge of your pool.
Want to win your pool? Let’s dive into the deep end, keeping in mind that if someone (that someone being me, in this case) tells you to clip the blue wire to defuse a bomb, you might be best served clipping the red wire instead.
Such is the nature of bracket advice — you have to choose your path, because crazy stuff happens… and because a busted bracket is a default setting for many of us, including (even especially) those who cover college basketball on a regular basis.
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10 – THE SEXY UNDERDOGS HAVEN’T MARRIED LADY VICTORY IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
The Belmont Bruins and Wofford Terriers are two of those double-digit seeds that always get a lot of bracket love on the days after Selection Sunday. Belmont’s shotmaking ability and Wofford’s combination of rugged defense with structured offense make these teams highly attractive as upset picks. Belmont famously came within an eyelash of pulling off a 15-2 upset of Duke in 2008. Wofford played BYU and Jimmer Fredette tougher than Gonzaga did in 2011. Yet, these two teams have never broken through.
Arkansas is a volatile “box of chocolates” team. Wofford would seem to be a perfect foil for the Hogs. Yet, when you’ve been toasted picking Wofford several times in the past, are you willing to let it ride again?
9 – CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT HOTSHOTS: CONFIDENCE OR FATIGUE?
The conference tournaments annually present a fundamental tension point to bracket students everywhere: On the first weekend of the NCAA tournament, do you value the team that just won its conference tournament if that team is not a top-four seed?
From 2014, consider Saint Joseph’s. The Hawks were the surprising winner of the Atlantic 10 tournament. After winning a bunch of games in consecutive days, would St. Joe’s thrive or fail in the round of 64? The answer was actually quite complicated. The Hawks outplayed a team named the Connecticut Huskies. All they had to do was get one late rebound, and they would have won. However, UConn’s Amida Brimah collected an offensive rebound, scored on a putback, was fouled, and made the tying free throw. The Huskies forced overtime, fouled out the Hawks’ big man, and pulled away. Saint Joseph’s played well but lost. The answer to the “hot conference tournament team” question was ultimately inconclusive.
The NCAA tournament can be that way.
This year, some teams to examine under the “hot conference tournament champion” banner are VCU (Atlantic 10) against Ohio State in a 7-10 game, and SMU (American) against UCLA in a 6-11 game. As we mentioned on Sunday, a lot of conference tournament teams which played championship games on Sunday are having to turn around and play on Thursday. Both VCU and SMU are in that boat. Those teams might have momentum… but they might also have dead legs and just might not be sharp.
Decisions, decisions.
8 – THE TOUGH-LOSS DYNAMIC
No Power 5 team suffered a tougher, rougher loss in its conference tournament than Oklahoma. Ryan Spangler blew an uncontested layup in the final three seconds, a layup which would have sent OU’s game with Iowa State into overtime. Will the Sooners carry that dark cloud with them into their game against Albany, a team that — as a 16 seed in past NCAA tournaments — has pushed both UConn and (last year) Florida? Or, will Oklahoma use that loss as a wake-up call, a moment in which to emphasize the need to not let games come down to one play in the final seconds?
LSU is another team which experienced a particularly disappointing end to its conference tournament, fouling Auburn repeatedly on three-point shots before losing to its SEC rival in overtime. Will the Tigers be renewed or wiped out by their SEC tournament experience?
North Carolina should also be included in this group. In the ACC, winning the conference tournament officially (per bylaws) confers the conference championship upon the winner. North Carolina felt it had Notre Dame dead to rights, but let the Irish slip way. Will the Tar Heels allow that loss to defeat them twice against Harvard in a 4-13 matchup?
7 – STALE OR UNMOTIVATED? A KEY QUESTION FOR CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT FLAMEOUTS
The conference tournaments are distinct from both regular-season basketball and the NCAA tournament, in that they feature games played one day after the other, with no break (at least at the power-conference tournaments). Given this reality, some teams just might not be built as well as others for everyday basketball. Some teams might crave the ability to play games after at least one day off. Other teams might simply feel that when they enter a conference tournament, they’ve already put in the work needed to achieve their goals during the regular season. Conference tournaments might not carry the urgency the regular season possesses.
In the Atlantic 10 tournament, Davidson looked like a team which felt it had already achieved what it needed to during the regular season. The Wildcats and coach Bob McKillop (pictured) won the A-10 outright. In Brooklyn, they seemed stale. Is this a team that just didn’t push itself hard enough, and is now in a better position to do well in the NCAAs, given the extra rest it gained by not having to play the A-10 final on Sunday? That’s one question worth asking. You could also ask this question: “Has Davidson gone stale, never to reclaim the high level of play it showcased in its regular-season finishing kick?” Only time will tell when the Wildcats, seeded tenth, play seventh-seeded Iowa in Seattle.
Other teams that looked stale in their conference tournaments: North Carolina State; Georgetown; Wichita State; Cincinnati; Butler; Oklahoma State; Ohio State.
6 – FIRST FOUR FUN – A POPPED BALLOON OR A RUN?
The First Four can either catapult teams to the second weekend (Tennessee last year) or leave them vulnerable to an inadequate performance in the round of 64 — think of Saint Mary’s and its dead legs against Memphis in a winnable 2013 tournament tussle. How will the BYU-Ole Miss winner and the Dayton-Boise State winner fare in their 6-11 games?
5 – THE FABULOUS FRESHMAN ANGLE
The reality of being carried along by a star freshman player is a precarious one. The advantage is that you have a tremendous player. The disadvantage is that, while said freshman is about to go to the NBA and likely enjoy a very successful career, he’s still a freshman, and it takes only one moment to short-circuit a tournament run. Andrew Wiggins did not play well for Kansas in the 2014 NCAA Tournament. What will happen with D’Angelo Russell of Ohio State in that enticing 7-10 game against VCU? Your guess is as good as mine.
4 – REPEATING THE BEAT: DOUBLE- OR TRIPLE-UPSET MAGIC
The Harvard Crimson are going for a third straight round-of-64 upset as a double-digit seed. The Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks are going for their second straight 12-5 upset in a Pacific time zone locale, having beaten VCU last year in San Diego. This year, the Jacks are in Portland to play Utah. Does the reality of an upset in one year point to the increased likelihood of another upset the next year? That’s another question you have to wrestle with.
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3 – GEORGETOWN GOES FAR AWAY FROM HOME
When Patrick Ewing (pictured, above) and Georgetown won their only national title in 1984, they went to the West. Georgetown’s path to glory was — in order — Pullman, Washington; Los Angeles; and Seattle. Connecticut is another team which became very successful at winning NCAA tournament games — and championships — from the West Region, playing in Western cities. Getting far away from home helped instead of hurting.
This year, Georgetown will be making its first NCAA tournament appearance in a Mountain or Pacific time-zone city since 2001. GU will be in Portland to face Eastern Washington. When the Hoyas went to Boise in 2001, they advanced to the Sweet 16. Will this team — so noted for losing NCAA tournament games with plus-7 or plus-8 seed differentials — use a Western site (in the South Region bracket) to get healthy and restore a bit of its reputation? Eastern Washington should have a good crowd on hand in Portland, but maybe a difficult geographical placement is just what Georgetown needs in order to improve in March.
2 – FIRST-TIME CALLERS: FREEDOM OR NERVES?
The Buffalo Bulls (in a 12-5 game against West Virginia) and UC Irvine Anteaters (in a 13-4 game against Louisville) are making their first NCAA tournament appearances. They will be very excited. Will enthusiasm turn into free-flowing brilliance and inexhaustible confidence… or a bundle of nerves that never get tamed? Buffalo plays a much more open-court brand of ball, so the Bulls would be the better choice for an upset. Yet, UB and Irvine are playing teams coached by Bob Huggins and Rick Pitino.
We report, you decide.
1 – THE “GIFT BASKET” EFFECT
The UCLA Bruins were and are the recipient of a generously-awarded NCAA tournament berth. When a team gets an unexpected ticket to Bracketville, it could fall flat on its face… but it could also do something amazing, as VCU did in 2011, running all the way to the Final Four national semifinals.
What will UCLA do with its unexpected gift basket against a tired but well-coached SMU team?
It’s worth mentioning this fascinating historical note, shown in the photo below:
SMU’s Larry Brown coached UCLA to the 1980 national championship game against Louisville. On one hand, the coaching matchup between Brown and Steve Alford would seem to be a mismatch. Then again, SMU — having played a lot of basketball with a Sunday conference tournament final — could be spent. UCLA could take that “gift basket” and add it to its stash. One could even go so far as to say that UCLA over SMU really wouldn’t be an upset at all, given the circumstances…
but that’s for you to determine.
