I have tremendous news: the NCAA Tournament has selected our nation's greatest city to play the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight in. No, not Hammond, Indiana: Chicago!
The Midwest Region has some excellent storylines littered all over it. Michigan, the most dominant team in the sport for three months, is coming in off its third loss of the year. (Gasp!) How will they recover? Iowa State is trying to reach not only its first Elite Eight since 2000, but also its first Final Four since...1944. Seriously! Almost the entire region has younger coaches with big plans on going far - Dusty May, TJ Otzelberger, Ryan Odom, Nate Oats, Grant McCasland - and then there's Rick Barnes, the most experienced Tournament coach in the field, still searching for Tennessee's first-ever Final Four after back-to-back Elite Eights.
Also, Kentucky is here. Saint Louis is here. MIAMI IS HERE. There are so many intriguing teams and storylines that I'd be here all day if I tried to list them all.
This will be similar to the previews Jordan Majewski and Matt Winick did, going pod-by-pod then doing some regional predictions (and awards?) at the end. Let's roll.
Buffalo Pod
Not actually about the Bills or Joe Pera.
(1) Michigan (-a lot) vs. (16) UMBC/Howard
Kind of unbelievable to me but I had a guy angry at me I didn't list UMBC in my odds online. Buddy, it ain't happening twice. If it does, it would be unreal and I would laugh a lot before calling my father (M grad) to ensure he does not have knives nearby, but still.
Michigan is going to be gigantic, otherworldly favorites against either option here, but a potential matchup with UMBC is slightly more interesting. The Retrievers are exceptional at slowing the game down defensively and allow very few points in transition, which has been Michigan's game for a lot of the season. They're also a fairly sound P&R defense, if obviously at a giant athletic disadvantage. But these are UMBC's numbers against top-200 competition per Hoop-Explorer:
And these are Howard's:
So you could argue Howard is more likely to make for an interesting game, but I can't get there either. Howard's whole thing this year was running up a gigantic shot volume edge on the boards/turnovers against overwhelmed MEAC competition, but that huge rebounding edge is totally nuked by good teams and the Bison gave up a 68% hit rate at the rim versus the six top-200 teams they drew. Howard would also run out some interesting zone press looks, but Michigan has thrived in zone offense the entire season and this would open up Howard to getting demolished even further both at the rim and on the boards.
I covered the First Four game here in my stats and history article but I have a minor lean to Howard. I have no strong feeling on this, as they're both about equal at KenPom and UMBC is actually favored there. However, Howard projects to earn somewhere around 3-5 extra possessions in this game compared to the Retrievers, which is enough to help me lean their way in an otherwise dead-even affair.
(8) Georgia vs. (9) Saint Louis
Mike White versus the power of friendship and good vibes. Georgia has actually been quite fun to watch this year as White went back to his days at Louisiana Tech and brought back both the transition game and his famed (to me) full court press. Here's 2026:
and here's 2014:
This has made White's team much more entertaining and much more prone to hilarious variance. Georgia has given up 29 (to UMES, but it counts), 57, 59, 94, 96, and 100 this year. Predictably, a team that presses after made baskets has huge bench usage, but to White's credit the drop-off from the starting five to everyone else isn't as severe as you'd guess. They also run a bunch of nifty dribble handoff sets to free up a jittery and small backcourt, which goes super-small when Jeremiah Wilkinson (6'1") enters to pair with Marcus 'Smurf' Millender (5'11").
Because of the way UGA plays Wilkinson has a huge Steal% for a bad defender (3.5%), which will make you believe he isn't a bad defender, but do not believe this. Georgia's defense is 80th nationally and gave up 1.2 PPP on average to top-70 offenses (nearly half of their schedule). They're particularly really bad at defending DHOs and off-ball screens, which is perhaps a major problem when you are about to play the Billikens:
Who are as great as anyone this year in scoring on these actions. Georgia is among the worst teams in the field at allowing open catch-and-shoot threes, and the ones they turn into guarded ones are largely shot fakes with a step to the side. The most similar thing to Saint Louis I would guess UGA played in the SEC is maybe Oklahoma, who dropped 1.5 PPP on the Bulldogs and annihilated them instantly. Obviously you can't guess that SLU will shoot 56% from 3 like OU did but UGA's defense opens themselves up to that possibility. Georgia also allows a ton of transition opportunities with how they play defense, which means SLU (who loves playing fast) could simply outscore UGA via bucket after bucket.
I picked Georgia here but my main lean is a super-watchable game and whatever the over is pending the ball being overinflated or something.
Quick thoughts on second-round matchups from this pod: I think Michigan matches up better with UGA than they do Saint Louis but with the note Georgia could force Michigan's ballhandlers into a lot of turnovers and make that game somewhat interesting before the Wolverines annihilate UGA with free throw after free throw and dunk after dunk. The SLU matchup has the capacity to be a larger blowout but SLU was actually pretty good in post defense this year and if SLU hit enough threes early on, it would make Aday Mara come out and defend in space, which is far from his strength. That's a game that feels unlikely to be decided by whatever the KenPom margin is and would be plus or minus 15 of said number.
Tampa Pod
(5) Texas Tech vs. (12) Akron
Cause du jour of this year's 12-over-5 must-find it seems. Akron is pretty easily the most popular 12 seed picked at most sites and is actually out-picking the Texas/NC State winner on the 11 line, which is wild to me considering the odds involved with that winner against BYU. I think people see First Four and don't think twice, but that's a different talk.
The obvious question people will have w/r/t Texas Tech is how they play without JT Toppin, but to be honest their play post-Toppin has been more or less what you'd like to see. Tech ranks 14th at Torvik in that span. While they don't force turnovers and now suffer negative effects on the defensive boards without him (their defense is 108th, which...yeah), these are items unlikely to be exploited too badly by an Akron team that doesn't get to the foul line at all against top-150 teams (345th in offensive FT Rate), had a negative rebounding margin, and gave up an alarming 1.35 PPP to the four top-75 offenses they drew this year including a 43% DREB%.
My feel is that TTU got a pretty good draw as a whole for how they'll be forced to play, very backcourt-heavy against an Akron team that doesn't defend P&R well and had major issues defending the perimeter against teams that can find kickout opportunities from the paint. A major area of opportunity here is P&R with Christian Anderson and Luke Bamgboye; per Hoop-Explorer these actions are running a white-hot 1.29 PPP since the day Toppin went out. Akron was in the 27th-percentile in defending any sort of pass from a P&R which is a problem when your opponent has Christian Anderson.
The upside for Akron is that they can score on a Texas Tech defense much leakier without Toppin playing. Tech hasn't zoned once this season which will be a problem for a TTU defense struggling majorly to defend P&R right now. If Akron doesn't run a ball screen on >50% of possessions in this game it would be a failure, as Tavari Johnson has the quickness to get downhill and score at the rim against this TTU unit. Still, banking on an upset here means banking on Akron to continue shooting 40% from three as they have over the last month. I can't get there myself. This has very strong Villanova/Winthrop vibes from 2021 to me - 5 seed has severe injury, 12 seed has gaudy record and is the most popular upset pick, and what happens is the 5 seed winning without much trouble.
(4) Alabama vs. (13) Hofstra
This one has largely been written off, it seems, by your average observer. I do imagine the average observer didn't believe Aden Holloway would get arrested the week of this game with what's probably going to end up being some sort of drug dealing charge dismissed in court by a friendly Alabama judge? Either way, this game has more to the eye than it seems, at least for me.
For one, this Alabama team has significantly more holes than everyone seems to believe it does. They're the rare 1-6 seed this year that gets outrebounded - it's them, Kansas, and Nebraska - and narrowed down to the 3-5 seed lines historically, teams that get outrebounded on the average night win nearly 0.25 games fewer than expected. In fact, of the 41 test cases before Alabama, just four have made the Elite Eight, and only 13 of 41 (31.7%) have made the Sweet Sixteen. When the average Sweet Sixteen rate for 4 seeds is exactly 50%, that's fairly notable!
That's all more likely to matter more in the next round, but Hofstra strikes me as reasonably live here, particularly without Holloway. Alabama's non-Holloway lineups are a little alarming:
And this will all be coming against a Hofstra defense that sits third in 2PT% allowed while having outstanding numbers at defending a lot of Alabama's most-used actions: rim attempts, kickout threes, inside-out play, and even pick-and-pops. Hofstra is 79th-percentile in P&R defense, which is pretty good regardless of competition, and Speedy has shown an ability to be versatile with his defensive looks, tossing out this zone out of nowhere against Syracuse early on:
Which shifts from everything from a 2-3 to a 3-2 to a 1-2-2 to a 1-3-1 to, yes, a 4-1 depending on who and what it's playing. This zone has mostly been mothballed since said Cuse game with some cameos in conference play but this is the highest usage rate for zone Claxton has had since his first season. Alabama has barely played against any zone at all this season, last getting serious experience with a zone against Missouri in late January, but despite all the shooting the Tide offer zone offense has routinely been a source of struggle, and this year Alabama scored just 0.912 PPP in their 68 zone possessions.
All of this is reliant on Hofstra to actually score, though. As bad as Alabama is defensively they're actually fairly good in standard P&R coverage, and Hofstra can get bogged down in ugly 1-on-1 ISO ball far too often. If the tough shots they generate from ISOs go in it looks brilliant, but if they don't you're left pretty frustrated. All in all this is a case where I'd probably pick Alabama in a bracket pool but take Hofstra to cover in some sort of ATS setup. Alabama's defense is so bad and their shot volume stats so ugly that I continue to think of them as a paper tiger.
Worth noting three additional items - Hofstra graded out 65th in America in games against top-150 competition (Bama 18th) while still holding their opponents to just 45% from 2. Also, the Pride dropped 1.16 PPP against top-150 competition - actually shooting better from two than against everyone else while outrebounding their opponents. One more: since Charles Bediako left the team, Alabama sits 81st defensively (23rd overall) and is surrendering an average of 1.14 PPP.
Quick thoughts on second-round stuff: I would pick Texas Tech out of this pod strictly because I don't believe things are that bad for them and because Alabama is wildly overrated by your average bracket-picker. TTU would be favored, correctly so, in an average matchup...and I think TTU's P&R attack could really put Alabama's defense in a tizzy for two hours. TBD if TTU could actually stop the Tide themselves. If upsets occur, Texas Tech matches up really similarly to Alabama against Hofstra but with a way better zone offense. Hofstra has had issues at times in post coverage and even sans Toppin I wouldn't love it for them, though as always they would be scoring at will on TTU's P&R coverage. Alabama/Akron favors the Tide but, again, Akron would be able to win the pure number of shot attempts stat and could score consistently in half-court, though I'm not sure they could outscore Alabama. Hofstra/Akron: stays a dream.
Philadelphia Pod
(11) SMU vs. (11) Miami (OH)
Quick thoughts on the First Four matchup here...lean towards an SMU win but a Miami cover of the +6.5. Both defenses are awful in the half-court and SMU may get shredded in P&R, but the next good offense Miami slows down will be the first. SMU has moved from "B.J. Edwards is absolutely playing" to "well, we didn't mean it like that" which means to me B.J. Edwards is probably a no-go for this and the potential Round of 64 game. That's bad news because SMU is a much worse team without him:
And that total lack of rim pressure applied would be tremendous news for a Miami team that has surrendered a hilarious 61% hit rate at the rim against top-150 teams. All told, I lean SMU by a hair here because in a game where neither team can or will stop the other from scoring it's probably best to take the superior team in that instance. A straight-up Miami upset would be no surprise, however, and of the possible three First Four matchups they could've drawn this is easily the most favorable and conducive to Miami's style.
(6) Tennessee vs. (11) SMU or (11) Miami OH
Tennessee is the most annoying type of 4-6 seed: a super safe one that gets back a ton of offensive rebounds and has literal record-setting offensive shot volume for someone on their seed line. It makes them pretty unlikely to get bounced early, which is bad news for people who like watchable basketball but good news perhaps if you are the writer of this post and you went to Tennessee.
This Tennessee team was a baffling evaluation all year long but one thing has been pretty clear the whole way: they generally smoke worse competition and can play up to elite competition. Teams in the 20-50 range nationally, for whatever reason, seem to be their bugaboo. That's how you arrive at a team that beat Vandy, Alabama, and Houston all away from home but also lost to Syracuse and Missouri while getting swept by a 7-seed Kentucky.
Of the possible matchups here it's clear to me Tennessee would rather see Miami than SMU, but SMU is in a diminished state as covered. Either team wouldn't enjoy hearing that Tennessee got back 47% (!!!) of their missed shots against non-top 25 competition this year or that they held these teams to 44% from 2. Miami offers a really interesting counterpoint to UT's whole thing, however - their 5-out style is simply not something you see a lot of in the SEC. The only team that was good at running it this year was probably Vanderbilt, who Tennessee had three super-close games with. I don't think Miami is near the level of a Vandy, but the path is at least there, and this year's Tennessee is less amazing in P&R coverage than previous editions of Tennessee.
The SMU game is frankly less interesting. SMU plays through the post much more than the average team but isn't efficient at all with it. The closest comp to SMU I can think of in the SEC would maybe be Texas, who takes a lot of ISO midrange jumpers with Tramon Mark and played through Vokietaitis a ton this year. Tennessee beat them by 14 despite the Longhorns shooting 38% from 3 and 80% from the line because Tennessee themselves shot 58% from 2 and got back half of their missed shots. (It was also Ja'Kobi Gillespie's best game of the season.) All in all I'd see these games as probably two different ways to arrive at a very similar result, which is a Tennessee win by something like 8-13 points.
(3) Virginia vs. (14) Wright State
Bad feeling for ol' Wright State that this will go similarly to the last time they were a 14 seed and got smoked by Tennessee in 2018. Wright can score very effectively in half-court and pounds the post just like they did back then, but that's a really bad idea against an excellent post defense in Virginia. On the other end of the court, teams have been picking apart Wright all season long with off-ball screens, which they simply don't seem well-equipped to defend:
Actions like these could lead to a fairly big offensive day for the Cavs. Somewhat similar to Tennessee's game back then (which the Vols won by 24) this has a strong smell to it of a game where Virginia motors down early and doesn't look back. Not sure the Hoos have the same getaway power as other 3 seeds - in fact I know they don't - but in this specific setup something in the range of a 14-24 point win feels accurate. Virginia averaged 1.32 PPP against non-top 100 competition this year and held a +16% 2PT% delta in those games. When you get back 44% of your missed shots in said games you're very well equipped to avoid a miserable Round of 64 experience. Wright against top-100 competition: 0.99 PPP. If those held it's an 87-65 UVA victory, so we'll see.
Second round thoughts: I think Tennessee matches up exceptionally well with Virginia and would possibly be favored in that game. Virginia has the more diverse scoring frontcourt but an argument could be made that Tennessee has the best player in the game and possibly the two best players if Nate Ament is going for 20+. Similarly to Tennessee, Miami (OH) would match up in a more unique way with UVA and would add a lot of variance while SMU would be more of a traditional two or three-possession win, but both would likely be the same result. Would be genuinely surprised if your Sweet 16 rep from this grouping isn't wearing their preferred shade of orange. Sorry to Wright State, but I can't get my hopes up.
St. Louis Pod
(7) Kentucky vs. (10) Santa Clara
I have Santa Clara here and have had it since Selection Sunday, so color me surprised to see Kentucky not only favored but rising rapidly from -1.5 to -4.5. I think this is kind of a terrible matchup for them, as the 'Kats struggled mightily all season long against physical basketball teams and were blown out by a WCC counterpart in Gonzaga that Santa Clara had three strong performances (though all losses) against.
This is almost as simple as just telling you how Kentucky played against top-50 and top-100 competition this year. UK was OUTSCORED by top-100 teams this season, which has to be a first for them in ages, and lost both the rebound and turnover battles in the average game along with 2PT% (50.6% to 50.9%). The numbers against top-50 competition are even worse: 1.14 PPP surrendered to the average top-50 opponent and playing at the level of the 41st-best team in America versus a top-10 team against squads outside of the top 100.
Santa Clara does have a hard time staying focused for 40 minutes for whatever reason, and it's probably not a coincidence they gave up 12 10-0 runs this year because of it. But Kentucky has the exact same problem, if not worse (13 10-0 runs surrendered). Santa Clara will have a major advantage both in true post-ups and in P&R. The main UK path I can see is ramming Otega Oweh into the teeth of the Santa Clara frontline over and over and rooting for endless foul calls, and to be fair, the Broncos have been kind of bad at defending DHOs, which would open things up for Denzel Aberdeen to get loose. But it's all a little hard to take seriously when Santa Clara grades out 24th against top-100 comp and UK 43rd, especially given that this is an unusually bad transition D for Kentucky program standards and that they've gone an unbelievable 4-11 against top-35 offenses this season, along with 2-5 against top-25 OREB% teams.
(2) Iowa State vs. (15) Tennessee State
It's cool that TSU is here as a lifelong Tennessee resident, but I don't anticipate their stay to last much more than a couple of hours. It probably won't be enjoyable for more than the first couple of media timeouts if I had to guess. Iowa State is another one of these teams exceptionally unlikely to be upset because of the pure volume of extra shots they generate in the average game. TSU does a great job themselves of defensive shot suppression, but this will be just their third top-100 opponent of the year. In four games versus top-150 comp: -2.1 on turnovers per 100, +1.7 on the boards, and a nasty -13% in 2PT%. Most likely outcome here is an ISU romp by 25+.
Second-round thoughts: Kentucky is actually a more interesting matchup for Iowa State because of their guard play. I could see a scenario in which the Wildcats are able to break through to the rim against Iowa State and create some in-game panic for Otz and crew. Santa Clara's whole thing is the extra shots and the pure efficiency they bring on both ends, which sets up less ideally for an upset to me when Iowa State is like plus-plus Santa Clara. Best of luck to Tennessee State.
Regional Pick
(1) Michigan over (2) Iowa State. It's really boring, but I do genuinely believe Michigan is the best team in this region by a significant enough margin for no one to get that close to them. I would hear out ISU as a pick, and as a very deep wildcard shot, I wouldn't fault you if you think Texas Tech has enough to shock the world.
Biggest Potential Upset
I would argue for Hofstra over Alabama as the largest by seed difference I can realistically see here. Neither 1/16 nor 2/15 game will be interesting, and 3/14 is only interesting if UVA has a complete defensive collapse I don't see coming. Most popular R64 pick here is Akron over Texas Tech, but I don't buy it, though with TTU's reduction in team strength post-Toppin it's not an insane theory. Second round upsets or further I can reasonably see would be Kentucky (or Santa Clara) over Iowa State. I don't think either 8/9 has a game for Michigan. Beyond that...maybe a Texas Tech or Tennessee Elite Eight run, but doubtful on both.