SI:AM | These Teams Could Bust Your Bracket
Get ready for a madder than usual March.
Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I guess I’ll still watch the NCAA tournament even though my alma mater got bounced in the A-10 semifinals.
In today’s SI:AM:
???? Analyzing the women’s bracket
✋ Five keys to knocking off South Carolina
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The men’s bracket is full of potential Cinderellas
Get ready for a madder than usual March.
This has been an unpredictable season in the upper rungs of men’s college basketball, as Pat Forde points out:
No teams from Power 6 conferences have lost fewer than five games; the AP No. 1 ranking changed hands seven times and 14 different teams have been ranked in the top five; only three teams among the top 12 seeds won both their regular-season and postseason championships (Alabama, Purdue and Marquette).
At the same time, the 68-team field is full of teams that dominated smaller conferences. There are 14 teams from one-bid conferences with at least 25 wins and three with at least 30. In a season when the sport’s biggest brand names have been fallible, a strong crop of potential Cinderellas could throw the tournament into disarray. “If ever we were set up for an attack of the mid-majors, this year would seem to be it,” Forde writes.
Forde likes a lot of double-digit seeds to potentially pull off upsets, but I’ll highlight just a few here.
No. 12 Oral Roberts
The Golden Eagles went 30–4 this season, with those four losses coming against quality opponents. Three of the teams that beat ORU this season are in the tournament (Houston, Saint Mary’s and Utah State) while the other (New Mexico) is NIT-bound after going 22–11.
ORU’s first game is against No. 5 Duke, the team everyone loves to see lose to a Cinderella. But let’s give first-year coach Jon Scheyer some credit: The Blue Devils haven’t lost in a month, cruising to an ACC tournament title over the weekend. The matchup projects to be one of the first round’s best, and, if Oral Roberts wins it, it could face No. 4 Tennessee in the second round. And the Vols are vulnerable after Zakai Zeigler’s season-ending injury.
Oral Roberts is two years removed from a run to the Sweet 16 as a 15-seed. Star guard Max Abmas, who averaged 26.7 points per game during that run, is still there and a major reason why the Golden Eagles were third in the nation this season with 84.2 points per game. He’s joined by 7'5" Arkansas and Cal transfer Connor Vanover, who’s second in the nation with 3.3 blocks per game. For more on Oral Roberts, Kevin Sweeney took a deeper look at the team last week.
No. 13 College of Charleston
The Cougars, who went 31–3 this season, rose as high as No. 18 in the AP poll before losing two straight games by a combined five points on Jan. 28 and Feb. 2. (Their only other loss came against North Carolina in their second game of the season.) They’ll face No. 5 San Diego State in the first round.
The thing that makes Charleston such a compelling upset candidate is its depth. It ranked 15th in the nation with 80.8 points per game, but leading scorer Dalton Bolon averaged just 12.3. The Cougars had five players average double digits in points.
No. 13 Iona
The Gaels have been a fixture in the NCAA tournament of late (this is their eighth appearance since 2012) but haven’t won a tournament game during that time. Hiring Rick Pitino as coach was a move that was supposed to change that fact and with Pitino now connected to a bunch of higher-profile jobs, this looks like it'll be the last chance for him to lead Iona to an upset. The Gaels’ first game will be against No. 4 UConn.
Iona had an unimpressive 13–7 start to the season but has run off 14 wins a row since then, with only three of those victories coming by fewer than 10 points.
The women’s tournament is less of a mystery
While there is the potential for upsets (Clare Brennan likes No. 12 Florida Gulf Coast and No. 11 Middle Tennessee as potential first-round spoilers), the end result of the women’s tournament seems like a foregone conclusion. No one has been able to beat South Carolina all season, and don’t count on that changing in the tournament. The Gamecocks will be heavy favorites to cut down the nets in Dallas, but beating them is not impossible. Emma Baccellieri compiled a list of the five things opponents need to do to knock off the defending champs. Suffice it to say it won’t be easy.
The other No. 1 seeds in the women’s bracket are Stanford, Virginia Tech and Indiana, but the team I’ll be keeping my eye on is No. 2 Iowa. The Hawkeyes, led by superstar Caitlin Clark, have the nation’s most explosive offense at 87.5 points per game (that’s tied with the Gonzaga men for the most points per game in all of Division I).
The best of Sports Illustrated
Daniel Bartel/USA Today Sports
- Albert Breer goes inside the Bears’ trade of the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft late Friday to the Panthers for a haul of top draft picks and wide receiver DJ Moore.
- With the NFL’s legal tampering period set to begin this afternoon, Breer looks at which free agents are set to cash in.
- Gilberto Manzano analyzes the Dolphins’ trade for star Rams cornerback Jalen Ramsey.
- North Carolina’s men’s team turned down an offer to go to the NIT, ending its disappointing season.
- Detroit Mercy won’t be going to the CBI, which means Antoine Davis won’t have an opportunity to break Pete Maravich’s career scoring record.
- Mexico scored a stunning 11–5 upset over Team USA in the World Baseball Classic.
- After a controversy that dominated headlines in England over the weekend, the BBC has reinstated “Match of the Day” cohost Gary Lineker.
- An 18-year-old won this weekend’s race on NASCAR’s secondary circuit.
The top five...
… things I saw yesterday:
5. Tom Hoge’s seat for his flight home after winning $1.5 million for finishing tied for third at the Players Championship. (Scottie Scheffler won the tournament, which Bob Harig writes could be a prelude to another Masters win next month.)
4. Anthony Davis’s block on R.J. Barrett.
3. UConn softball shortstop Jana Sanden’s diving catch.
2. Golden Knights rookie Pavel Dorofeyev’s first NHL goal—which he scored with his face.
1. The pandemonium in Miami after Anthony Santander’s home run for Venezuela.
SIQ
On this day in 1954, which Braves player broke his ankle in a spring training game, clearing the way for Henry Aaron to make the team?
- Eddie Mathews
- Joe Adcock
- Bobby Thomson
- Andy Pafko
Yesterday’s SIQ: On March 10, 1962, which MLB team left its spring training hotel after being told its players of color would be forced to stay elsewhere?
- Cubs
- Red Sox
- Mets
- Phillies
Answer: Phillies. The Jack Tar Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Fla., had been the team’s usual spring training home, but after general manager John Quinn was told that Philadelphia’s Black and Latino players would not be welcome, he pulled the team out.
The team went searching for another hotel that would accommodate all players and ended up at one 20 miles away on the other side of Tampa Bay called the Causeway Inn. But while the Causeway Inn would rent rooms to all the players, its restaurant was segregated, so the Phillies kept looking. They eventually landed at the Rocky Point Hotel, also across the bay from Clearwater.
“I was the player rep,” Phillies pitcher Dallas Green told The Trentonian in 2007. “They refused to give the guys breakfast and dinners and stuff. So, John Quinn took the whole team, moved the team, and that was a big move. The Jack Tar had first-class accommodations.”
Four months later, the Jack Tar announced that it would allow Black guests, but the president of the hotel chain was careful to note that not all Black travelers would be welcome.
“This does not mean we are integrating the hotel as far as the public is concerned,” Ed C. Leach told reporters. “Groups which have a small percentage of Negro delegates attending conventions will be accepted.”
The Phillies still train in Clearwater today, with 2023 marking their 77th consecutive year in the city.