Bracket busters: Three teams to watch out for this March

BY PETER RAUTERKUS @peter_rauterkus

It’s officially March, which means the sports world is getting ready to focus in on a 68-team college basketball tournament that is consistently just as unpredictable as it is exciting.

Every year, the most causal to the most diehard college basketball fans put together brackets predicting the results, with those brackets often in the paper shredder already by the second weekend of the tournament.

Upsets are synonymous with March Madness. Underdogs, Cinderellas, whatever you like to call them, there are always teams that come seemingly out of nowhere that bring joy to their fan bases and dismay to those who had their opponents going far in their personal brackets.

Some are more expected than others, with it ultimately nearly impossible to predict what teams will put their best foot forward in a 68-team single elimination tournament. However, there are always a handful of mid-major schools who look poised to make a run headed into the men’s NCAA Tournament.

Many factors go into what makes a good NCAA Tournament team, but with these teams it can also be pretty random. Sometimes it’s as random as who gets hot on the right day.

Other times, though, it’s easier to tell. This article will look primarily at teams’ schedules and efficiency metrics, along with their personnel.

Oral Roberts

Making its second NCAA Tournament appearance in the last three seasons, many fans still remember Oral Roberts’ fairy tale-like run in 2021. The Golden Eagles were a 15-seed in 2021 and made it all the way to the Sweet Sixteen before narrowly losing to Arkansas.

IMPROVE, from page 11 out games.

Looking at their most recent games the Tigers have had some close calls. Starting in January when they played Arkansas, to when they played Ole Miss in February, these wins have come down to the wire. Especially with a team like this and with all of their talent, they are expected to take care of business. Not taking anything away from the teams that they played, but it has become a theme that they become a little careless down the stretch of games.

Another example is when a six-win Texas A&M team kept it close all game long and LSU didn’t pull away until late in the fourth quarter. When LSU played Tennessee the first time the Vols hung around toward the end when it seemed LSU was going to pull away.

Missing defensive assignments, becoming sloppy with the ball, having bad turnovers, getting late into the shock clock and

The star of that team was point guard Max Abmas, who is still with the team and currently averages 22.2 points per game, good enough for sixth in the country. Having an elite scorer like that is often a key for teams like this to make a run in March, and Abmas already has the experience coming from Oral Roberts’s run in 2021.

The Oral Roberts offense, led by Abmas, ranks third in the country in total points per game at 84.2 and ranks 24th in adjusted offensive efficiency at 115.5 hoisting up a shot, all allow teams to stay in the game. For LSU to make a deep run in the tournament, it has to take care of these mistakes. points per 100 possessions.

As generic as it sounds, you have keep the foot on the pedal and play like the score is 0-0, especially in tournament games. There are many talented teams in the tournament and by the second-round matchup, it starts to get serious to where little mistakes become big and have an impact on the game.

It would be better for this team to continue to apply pressure throughout the whole game to make sure that they don’t have a situation where the game is closer than it should be.

Whether it begins at the beginning of the game or halftime, there’s little doubt Kim Mulkey would like her team to put away teams when they have a chance. Mulkey along with Alexis Morris has stated that there is work to be done to make the type of run that they are capable of.

This team has talent and experience and is an efficient offensive unit that could give many big teams problems. The Golden Eagles have also won 16 games in a row heading into the tournament, so momentum is on their side.

College of Charleston

Charleston was a fan favorite team for much of the season, even spending a portion of the year ranked in the AP Top 25. The Cougars finished the season 31-3 and in the eyes of many should have been a lock to make the NCAA Tournament even if they hadn’t won their conference tournament.

The team is about as balanced as it gets with five players averaging 10 or more points per game and no one averaging more than 28 minutes per game.

Experience is also on Charleston’s side. Its leading scorer, Dalton Bolon, is currently in his seventh year of college basketball and is one of four graduate students on the roster.

The stats and advanced metrics don’t favor the Cougars as much as they do Oral Roberts, but the importance of having an experienced, cohesive group shouldn’t be underestimated.

Drake Drake is also making its second NCAA Tournament appearance in the last three years as the Bulldogs were an 11-seed in the 2021 NCAA Tournament. The Bulldogs still have a handful of players from that team, but are led by sophomore Tucker DeVries, the son of head coach

OUTLIER, from page 12 gram sported surprising promise heading into the 2022-23 season. Preseason projections even had the Tigers scraping into the NCAA Tournament.

Come March, and those projections are merely a distant memory to fans that were simply desperate to see McMahon pick up a win down the stretch.

It initially secured promising wins over Wake Forest and Kentucky, which correlated with strong, flawed performances in losses to Kansas State and Kentucky. But just as the Tigers entered the bubble, as analysts projected they would, their success would fall at an alarming rate.

The result was a near-historic low in program history, where LSU not only came one loss short of tying its worst losing streak in history, but also concluded the season with a tie for its worst SEC record in 50 years at 2-16.

That record would be understandable if McMahon had expectedly struggled to assemble a talented squad. But despite his team showing clear promise, especially in later games, things never seemed to work out for it in the end. Its ever-growing list of flaws remained prevalent until its last loss of the regular season.

MISTREAT, from page 11 they could have needed to make sure they were physically right for the tournament.

The women’s weight room was a couple of dumbbells all under 25 pounds and a few sanitized yoga mats.

This incident sparked outrage all over social media as people learned how the women were being mistreated during the time of bubble play. The women’s teams also were given pre-packaged meals while the men were given chefs with full buffets.

The bubble was the turning point for the women’s game, and while the treatment has improved, there is still much work to do.

One game, the Tigers would start slow offensively, the next it would finish slower. They followed one of their best rebounding performance against Alabama with one of their worst against Mississippi State and could not defend the three through much of SEC play, finishing as the second worst team in the conference ahead of only Missouri.

When it showed progress in a tough stretch in February, it followed that up by progressing backwards in an easier one. In its final six games, four came against teams in the bottom half of the conference. It managed to win just one of them, despite having notable leads in its last two games.

While there’s still plenty of time for McMahon to turn things around, he was the only coach of the four to not meet preseason expectations and he wasn’t particularly close. His situation warrants one more season before the verdict is truly out but if the next season produces little-to-no improvement, Woodward’s hiring of him will be a blow to his resume.

Just this season at the Las Vegas Invitational, Indiana and Auburn played against each other in a hotel conference room. More ridiculous than that was the inadequate seating. A small group of chairs were placed on one side of the court, allowing little space for fans.

These are just a few of the many instances that the women’s game has dealt with over the years. The NCAA, spectators and organizers of events must do better.

The women’s game has everything it needs to grow. It just needs the support of the NCAA and fans alike to continue to grow the great game of basketball in universities around the states.

BRACKET, from page 13

Darian DeVries.

Tucker Devries averages 19 points per game and 5.6 rebounds per game and had 22 points in the Missouri Valley Conference championship game.

Much like Charleston, Drake also has an abundance of experience, with three graduate stu- dents and two seniors on the roster.

Statistically, there are a couple things that stand out about the Bulldogs. They rank in the top 50 in adjusted efficiency margin, allowing 97.8 points per 100 possessions. They also like to slow it down on offense, averaging just 66.6 possessions per game. Depending on the matchup, this can be an adjustment for teams who can be thrown off by having to play at a slower pace.

Defense travels in tournament settings like March Madness and combining that with Drake’s experience and possession of a high-level scorer makes them a team many high-seeded teams won’t want to play in the NCAA Tournament.