Simple concept. Four 5-12 seeds I Love. Four top 16 seeds I hate. One from Each Bracket. March Madness games start Thursday at noon. Pick wisely.
by Jordan Beckley
It’s simply the best week of the year. Why?
Because it’s the only week where we have a NCAA Tournament Bracket to fill out.
Instead of making difficult decisions on how to increase shareholder value, we get to focus on more important things like which no.12 over no. 5 seed upset we are going to pick.
And this article is my attempt to help you with that decision. I consume an unhealthy amount of College Basketball every year and am way too familiar with websites like Kenpom, sports reference, and NET rankings. If everybody has a thing, then my thing is College Basketball.
Each year I’ve had this website I’ve posted a Love/Hate list for March Madness. The concept is simple, I pick one no.1-no.4 seed from each region that I HATE and one no.5 or greater seed that I LOVE with the goal of weeding out high seeds who will miss the Sweet Sixteen and prophesying which low seeds upset their way to the Sweet 16.
How have I done?
In year one I was HOT! I correctly picked three early exits in my four hate teams and I was a perfect 4/4 on my Love teams making the Sweet Sixteen including the Miami team who went to the Final Four. Last year had a return to the mean, as I went 50% on my Hate Teams (RIP Kentucky to Oakland and Baylor to Clemson) but whiffed on all four of my Love teams.
Now, this isn’t an exact science. Last year only four teams not ranked no.1-no.4 made the Sweet Sixteen compared to the seven opportunities I had to be correct in the 2023 bracket. Sometimes chalk wins out. That’s why it’s harder to trust the Love teams as much as it is to pray on the downfall of the Hate teams.
So here we go starting in the Top Left of the bracket and working our way down then over.
SOUTH BRACKET
HATE: Texas A&M
At a certain point you are going to have to decide if you are going to ride with the greatest ever conference season in the SEC or fade them. If you have to pick one of the top teams to fade then the Aggies are your best pick.
A&M has the right building blocks of a team who can make a run in march: good experienced guards, great defense, excellent rebounders. But just because you have all the ingredients to make a cake doesn’t mean you will get the measurements right to make it delicious.
Buzz Williams’ team leans heavily on senior guards Wade Taylor and Zhuric Phelps to create the offense. When they don’t, the Aggies depend on their country leading 16 offensive rebounds a game to keep their head above water. Once you get to the tournament everybody is better at everything defense, rebounding, offense, etc. The Aggies need Phelps and Taylor to resemble Kemba to make a run with an offense in the 40s of KenPom.
The defense is great (Top 10 in KenPom) but that can only cover so much distance for a team who averages more turnovers than assists and shoots only 0.5% better than the Michigan State team who’s been killed all season for their poor three point shooting.
Looking at the bracket, A&M should have the athletes to outmuscle Yale, but the Ivy League champ seems to regularly pull off first round upsets and are always the less athletic team. But, what likely waits for them in the second round…
LOVE: Michigan
I know a ton of people are going to have UC San Diego upset the Wolverines here.
It’s true Michigan turns the ball over a lot and the Tritons are the best team in the tournament at forcing turnovers, but also UCSD hasn’t played a power conference opponent let alone beaten one. UCSD will only beat Michigan if they hit 15+ threes because the country’s 305th 2-point offense will struggle even more trying to score in the paint against Vlad Goldin and Danny Wolf.
And that’s really why I love Michigan; the twin towers down low. Nobody in the country can seemingly stop the Big-on-big pick and roll and the ultra efficient play lead to Michigan going 12-1 in Big Ten play in close games (decided by 5pts or less).
Dusty May is one of the sports best head coaches and while Michigan ended the Big Ten regular season losing 4 of 6 including their final three games, the Wolverines winning three games in three days against Purdue (no.4 seed), Maryland (no.4 seed) and Wisconsin (no.3 seed) you are reminded of what May can do in a tournament setting.
Michigan with it’s two 7-footers, especially one as skilled with the ball in his hands as Wolf and the best finishing Big man in CBB in Goldin, are impossible to prepare for in a quick turnaround. The Wolverines neutralize A&M’s best skill (rebounding) and will be just too much muscle and brawn for UCSD who taps out at 6’8″.
WEST BRACKET
HATE: St. John’s
A month or so ago some stat guy pulled out this bad boy:
While this is quite the angle to sell that Rick Pitino is some mastermind at coaching teams who suck on offense… the better way to read it is that no team who has shot below 33% from 3 has made the Final Four since this three point revolution took effect from Steph Curry and the Warriors around 2014.
At this point you HAVE to be able to shoot threes to win in March and St. John’s can’t do that.
The Red Storm won the Big East easily going 18-2 with the nation’s 3rd best defense and Big East POY RJ Luis, but yet are ranked behind a 10-loss Purdue team in KenPom in overall rating.
Why? Well, because the Big East sucks this year and no one will say it. I would have a HATE list of all Big East teams if any of them besides St. Johns were going to get a Top 16 seed. The ACC righfully got a ton of publicity for being awful, but the Big East didn’t get enough.
In NET Rankings, St. Johns is #13. The second team, Marquette, is #26 followed up by UConn at #32 and the Big East runner up, Creighton, is at #38 smack dab between Utah State and Texas. Despite being a no.7 seed Kansas is in the low 20s in NET/KenPom team rankings and could absolutely redeem a disappointing season by making a surprise Sweet Sixteen Run.
Yes, St. John’s won the Big East by three games and are coached by the great Rick Pitino, but they would be much closer to Texas A&M’s record if they were in the SEC or even Big Ten. The Johnnies are easily the worst team of the no.1 or no.2 seeds.
St. John’s is good at beating bad teams (that’s all they did this year) so maybe I am jumping the gun by picking them to exit before the Sweet Sixteen, but I beg you do not put them in your Final Four!!!!
LOVE: Memphis
Let me start my argument for the Tigers by arguing against them.
Memphis just lost star Texas-transfer Tyrese Hunter to injury in the American semifinal and he was in a boot for the Championship game. The Tigers are 50th in NET (one behind Cincinnati) and 51st in KenPom (one behind Boise State). Penny Hardaway has just one tournament win in his previous six seasons. And Memphis’ first round opponent is one of the hottest teams in the nation in Colorado State who has won ten straight games on its way to a Mountain West Championship.
Okay, ready for the reasons to believe in them?
Penny Hardaway and Memphis are due. They’ve been one of the winningest programs of the past couple of years to not have a tournament run. You can make an argument that PJ Haggerty is one of the 5 best players in the country. Tyrese Hunter is not nearly as important as Haggerty has been. In the same way these data websites are broken in favor of Houston, they are broken against a team like Memphis.
The Tigers are 6-1 against Quad 1 opponents with wins over Clemson, Ole Miss, Missouri, UConn and even Michigan State. Their only loss? No.1 overall seed Auburn. Memphis has been unfairly punished for their conferences weakness not theirs. The Tigers can’t move up data sites playing 18 conference games against Q2 or lower teams, but they can go lower when they inevitably lose a true road game. But the committee saw thru this and put the American champ as a no.5 seed (!) when most bracketologists had them in the no.8 vs no. 9 game.
On their first round enemy, I would be wary of a Coach who’s already locked in his next destination (Niko Medved to Minnesota is supposedly done) especially in the portal era. I also like Grand Canyon a lot against Maryland so Memphis after being underseeded in the 8/9 matchup the past two tourneys could have to play two double digit seeds to make the Sweet Sixteen.
EAST BRACKET
HATE: Wisconsin
I am so sorry Badger fans.
Truthfully, I really like this Wisconsin team. I just don’t really have a HATE team in this bracket.
I feel comfortable in Duke making the Sweet 16 even with Cooper Flagg on ice. I think this Alabama is a no.1 seed in 90% of CBB season’s and has a slew of low scoring teams to obliterate to make the second weekend. The Badgers boast one of the best offenses in the country and are Big Ten Tourney runner-ups for the 2nd straight season. Finally, Arizona (who always loses early) is arguably the best no.4 seed with the worst no.5 seed in Oregon.
I’m sorry John Tonje! I hate other teams in other brackets more! I would rather double up on Maryland or Iowa State or even Tennessee than pick you.
If you’re putting a gun to my head and saying that I have to pick a no.1 -4 seed in this region to not make the Sweet 16 I am picking Wisconsin. The Badgers face a Montana team that they should put down by nearly twenty points but I am much more concerned with who they could meet in the 2nd round.
Either of BYU or VCU could present problems for the Badgers. Montana is the 157th KenPom team and just as high up there in NET. VCU and BYU are both in the Top 31 teams in KenPom and NET a stark jump up in quality from the Griz.
In a change of pace, Wisconsin is winning this year behind an elite offense, but BYU could outscore them as they are two spots above the Badgers in adj offense on KenPom. VCU meanwhile is totally disrespected as a no.11 seed and is basically Top-40 in offense and defense which isn’t easy to do given their schedule.
The Badgers went .500 (8-8) against Quad 1 opponents and were dominant (18-1) against the rest. But if they are a coinflip against a good team and it’s guaranteed to be a good team in round 2, for this bracket I will (lowercase) hate Wisconsin.
LOVE: BYU
Despite my lack of hate for teams in this bracket, this is the one I am drawn to for upset picks.
UC San Diego, Colorado State, McNeese, High Point will all be popular cinderellas. However, I am drawn to teams like Liberty or Akron who have had good success under Ritchie McKay and John Groce without having their tournament moment. However, I think that those teams have a good shot of winning one game, but a extremely low chance of winning two.
Because of my hate pick in this bracket being Wisconsin, it really comes down to my pick between A-10 Champs VCU and Big 12’s third place finisher BYU. VCU is kind of like Illinois where they chuck threes, barely shoot twos (but when they do they make them) and they also play better defense than the Illini. The Rams are also just like BYU though who does that same playstyle but they are much better at both outside and inside the arc but also worse defensively.
I think VCU gets caught up in the tournament, they hit a few threes, start to think they can outscore BYU, and they get sped up and all of a sudden BYU is up big after VCU misses a few. Ditto against Wisconsin and all of a sudden you are looking at a HOT Cougars team meeting a Bama team who may not have Grant Nelson (or at least not a 100% healthy version) and who knows!
Midwest Bracket
HATE: Purdue
No one can ever say I am biased!
This doesn’t have to be complicated. Purdue is a flawed team. It’s a team who lost their starting center 2 games into the year and have either played small small or kind of small with two true power forwards all season. No matter what lineup they put out there the Boilermakers have no rim protection at all. Purdue is 360th out of 364 D1 Teams in blocks per game and are 355th in opposing 2-point FG%. Purdue is also a miserable rebounding team because of it.
Their first round opponent is a High Point team who is capable of putting up points from all places on the floor. The pros for Matt Painter’s team are the fact they have two borderline All-Americans in 1st Teamer and Big Ten POY Braden Smith and Honorable Mention Trey Kaufman Renn. However, the team is extremely limited beyond that.
High Point will be a popular pick because of Purdue’s past losses to lower seeds and the reputation that has come with that. Purdue will score 75 points against High Point… the question will be can High Point go 60%+ from 2, 40%+ from 3 and simply outscore Purdue and their suboptimal defense. If they don’t Clemson or McNeese seem like just as capable challengers.
Purdue has been a Top-4 seed in eight straight tournaments now. In the seven before this, the Boilers went to five Sweet 16s, lost to St. Peter’s in one of them, lost to no.13 seed North Texas in OT, and of course lost to Fairleigh Dickinson as a no.1 seed.
Is this a season where Matt Painter is just so good a underequipped Purdue team goes to the Sweet Sixteen (and promptly exits to Houston) or is it a year where the rigidly regimented Boiler system struggles to adapt to the dire stakes of the NCAA Tournament?
LOVE: McNeese State
I kind of have a belief about that March Madness run doesn’t happen for the bell-of-the-ball coaches when you think it will happen. Cinderella’s happen when it’s a surprise not when people are slotting you in most brackets.
We all thought it would happen for Will Wade last year. McNeese was murdered by a solid Gonzaga team. After the stench of that blowout, enough people are out on McNeese and are doing the “they don’t have the athletes” bit to upset Clemson.
The Cinderella always has the less athletic team! When has that stopped the Ivy league champ from always upsetting the better athlete school. No, you have to be smarter and better coached and Will Wade hopefully learned from last year.
Will Wade will be head coach at another school next season and I am contradicting my don’t trust the guy with the foot out the door, but this is the contradiction team this year.
McNeese is my vibes team. Purdue and Clemson both made their big run last year. I like UCLA to survive a thunderdome against Tennessee. Gonzaga is an intriguing threat to a Houston team in the Round of 32, but no I don’t have the guaranteed double digit seed into the Sweet 16 and who better than Wade and McNeese?
I don’t have a magic KenPom number or a stat they are top 1% in the country for or anything to justify it besides coaches who get crowned usually have a Cinderella run first.
This year’s tournament really should be one of the best. A few of the top seeds will fall, but also we should see a healthy amount make the later rounds and have a ton of heavyweight fights.
My official Final Four picks are Auburn, Alabama, Florida, and Houston. I have Auburn waking up and winning the National Championship over Houston with Bruce Pearl getting his first ring instead of Kelvin Sampson (or John Scheyer, Nate Oats, Todd Golden, etc.).
Good luck with your bracket and remember no one cares if you inaccurately picked the no.7 vs no.10 seed and you no longer have a perfect one. Enjoy the tournament and rip up the bracket once it’s beyond repair.