March Madness gets going on Thursday with the First Four, but before then let’s dive into a few teams that could get farther than expected. The NCAA men’s bracket was released on Sunday afternoon and there are many people who are picking Gonzaga or another top seed like Baylor to win the tournament, but what about the lower seeds? Here are a few teams that could be dancing longer than many think they should.
LSU (Eight Seed-East Region)
The LSU Tigers finished the regular season with an 18-9 record and will get a first-round matchup with St. Bonaventure. LSU is favored to win this matchup and assuming that they do, they would face Michigan. While the Wolverines seem like a bad draw because they won the Big Ten regular-season title, they are the weakest of the four one seeds and just lost their star senior Isaiah Livers to a foot injury in the tournament. The Wolverines weren’t the same team without Livers in the semifinals against Ohio State, losing to the Buckeyes by one.
LSU, on the other hand, is going to be hungry coming into the tournament after barely losing to Alabama in the SEC title game so this could be a potential upset in the Round of 32. Then the Tigers would likely play Florida State, a team that was unable to beat nine-seeded Georgia Tech in the ACC title game on Saturday night. Michigan and Florida State would be two tough games but the Wolverines aren’t the team they used to be a couple of weeks ago and LSU has already beaten a top-three seed recently (Arkansas).
San Diego State (Sixth Seed-Midwest Region)
The Aztecs won the Mountain West regular-season and conference titles this year and are currently on a 14-game win streak, the longest streak in division one, excluding the perfect Gonzaga Bulldogs. Syracuse is a tough first-round matchup but the Aztecs can match up with Jim Boeheim‘s offense because they have a few stars themselves. Matt Mitchell is going to play in the NBA, Jordan Schakel is averaging 14.3 points per game, and Nathan Mensah leads the team in blocks.
The Aztecs would likely play West Virginia in the second round, which might seem like a tough game but they’ve proven they can grind out wins against good teams, as they’ve beaten Arizona State, UCLA, and Utah State this season. While the Mountaineers have gotten to the Sweet 16 each of their last two NCAA Tournament appearances, they got soft matchups in the Round of 32 (Marshall in 2018 and Notre Dame in 2017). Many people are sleeping on SDSU because they are in the same region as Illinois and West Virginia, but they have a path to a Sweet 16 matchup with Houston.
Michigan State (First Four Team: Eleventh Seed-East Region)
In a normal year, Michigan State wouldn’t be a sleeper. In fact, they would be one of the favorites after probably ending the season in the top 25. But this season wasn’t a normal season (just ask Duke and Kentucky). A young Spartans program struggled due to the lack of practice time due to Covid-19, as they lost to Northwestern, Minnesota, and Wisconsin in the first half of the season but just like the old phrase goes, it’s not how you start but how you finish.
The Spartans finished strong, as they had wins against Illinois (a one seed), Ohio State (a two seed), and Michigan (another one seed). If they can beat those three programs, then they can beat UCLA in the play-in game, BYU (from the West Coast Conference), and Texas to at least get into the Sweet 16.
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