Spreading good trouble in the NCAA tournament
There aren't really "upsets" anymore, but ambitious underogs are eager to introduce themselves.
They really aren’t “upsets” anymore. Not when a 16th-seeded team has beaten a top-seeded team twice in the past six NCAA men’s basketball tournaments. Not when the 2023-24 season featured a record number of unranked teams beating ranked teams. Not when every team, Connecticut included, had at least one game that made the coaches burn the tape.
Is it parity or mediocrity? Certainly it’s inconsistency, bred by rosters that are put together on the fly, and grueling 20-game conference schedules that are necessitated by league bloat. This will get worse, not better, as the SEC and Big Ten loom like the Central Powers in the late 1910s.
But the unexpected win, with the unknown coach and the no-name players all dogpiling at midcourt while the favored, losing coach walks glumly to the locker room in hopes of avoiding his athletic director, is still the plasma of the tournament. It isn’t going anywhere. College basketball hopes to become even more elitist, with all this talk about a 90-team tournament field that will protect more mediocre, big-conference teams. Even the NIT, which last year showcased North Texas, UAB and Utah Valley, is an endangered species, and regular-season conference champs no longer get automatic invitations.
Out of sight and earshot, strange teams with hungry, vagabond players are busy planning their assault, with Selection Sunday a week away. They will gather to ask two questions: When is our game televised, and do we get to play Purdue?
The following is a list, and by no means a complete one, of the teams and coaches that are preparing for the big closeup:
McNeese State (28-3)
Coach: Will Wade.
Best Wins: VCU, 76-65 on Nov. 6. Michigan, 87-76 on Dec. 29.
Worst Loss: Southeastern Louisiana, 77-74 on Feb. 3.
Best Players: Shahada Wells scores 17.2 points and gets 4.7 assists per game. Christian Shumate averages 12.0 points, 9.7 rebounds.
Rankings: 58th in NET, 66th in KenPom.com. 74th in offensive efficiency and 65th on defense (KenPom.com).
Famous sports alumnus: Joe Dumars.
Famous alumni: Fiddler/singer Doug Kershaw, author Andre Dubus.
Overview: Cowboys play slower than almost anyone else in the country but have the sixth-best rate in forcing turnovers. They’re familiar with big-name competition, with players who have served at Utah, Cincinnati, Boston College, Florida, TCU, Mississippi and Tulsa. Wade, who was fired at LSU after it found recruiting violations (remember those?), said at his initial press conference last spring that his goal was to turn McNeese State from a 23-loss to a 23-win team. He was shortchanging the Cowboys by five wins.
Outlook: McNeese State hasn’t played a Quad 1 team all year, but Michigan is the last team to score more than 75 points on the Cowboys. Their success has sparked a kind of mania in Lake Charles, La., which is still recuperating from two hurricanes that arrived four years ago. They snugly fit the profile of a March mischief-maker.
UC Irvine (24-8)
Coach: Russell Turner.
Best Wins: USC 70-60 on Nov. 14. Toledo, 77-71 on Nov. 22.
Worst Losses: San Jose State, 72-64 on Nov. 7. UC Riverside, 88-78 on Feb. 10.
Best Players: Justin Hohn averages 12.5 points. Devin Tillis averages 6.3 rebounds. Pierre Crockrell II averages 6.3 assists.
Rankings: 74th in NET, 73rd in KenPom.com, 122nd in offensive efficiency, 35th in defense (KenPom.com).
Famous sports alumni: Greg Louganis, Mike Powell, Steve Scott, Scott Brooks.
Famous alumni: Comedian Jon Lovitz, authors Michael Chabon, T. Jefferson Parker, Richard Ford.
Overview: A typically synched-up UCI team, with steadfast defense and rebounding. Crockrell II is an old-time distributor at point guard. The Anteaters have lots of size and, therefore, lots of fouls to give. Opponents only shoot 44 percent from 2-point land, the 10th-lowest in Division I, and UCI takes only 28 percent of its own shots from three. The Big West Conference tournament has been unkind to the Anteaters in Turner’s tenure, but, if they get through, they’ll be a first-round factor.
Grand Canyon (27-4)
Coach: Bryce Drew.
Best Wins: San Diego State, 79-73 on Dec. 5. San Francisco, 76-72 on Nov. 17.
Worst Loss: Abilene Christian, 79-73 on Feb. 24.
Best Players: Tyon Grant-Foster averages 19.4 points. Gabe McGlothan averages 7..2 rebounds and shoots 49.8 percent from 3-point.
Rankings: 53rd in NET, 56th in KenPom.com, 63rd in offensive efficiency, 56th on defense (KenPom.com).
Famous sports alumni: Tim Salmon, Chicago Bears CEO Kevin Warren.
Famous alumni: Comedian Bill Engvall.
Overview: Grand Canyon only became eligible for Division I in 2017. Its transfer game is very good: McGlothan played at Southeast Missouri State, Grant-Foster was at both Kansas and DePaul, and shot-blocker Lok Wur, whose parents are from South Sudan, played at Oregon. GCU is sixth nationally in 3-point percentage, seventh in free throw rate, and third in percentage of minutes played by reserves. Famous for its boisterous student section, GCU can lure more eyeballs with a win or two in the NCAAs — provided it can bully their way through the WAC tournament.
Appalachian State (27-5)
Coach: Dustin Kerns.
Best Wins: Auburn, 69-64, Dec. 3, Toledo, 109-104, Feb. 10, James Madison twice, 59-55 and 82-76, Jan. 13 and 27.
Worst Losses: Northern Illinois, 91-78, Nov. 11, Texas State, 63-56, Feb. 7.
Best Players: Donovan Gregory averages 13.3 points and Tre’Von Spillers 13.0. Spillers averages nine rebounds, and Justin Abson averages almost three blocks.
Rankings: 69th in NET, 75th in KenPom.com. 138th in offensive efficiency and 29th in defense (KenPom.com).
Famous sports alumni: Longtime NBA coach Alvin Gentry, former NFL scout and current NFL Network commentator Daniel Jeremiah.
Famous alumni: Evangelist Franklin Graham, singer Eric Church.
Overview: The Mountaineers have blocked 223 shots in 32 games and they have held opponents to 38.5 percent shooting overall, 30.8 percent from deep. Kerns has only one transfer on his roster. Opponents shoot 43.5 percent from 2-point range, the fifth-worst number in Division I. Appalachian ranks 310th in 3-point shot ratio, launching only 31.4 percent of the time. It all bodes well if the Mountaineers can survive the Sun Belt tournament and notch the third NCAA bid in their history.
Samford (27-5)
Coach: Bucky McMillan.
Best Wins: Western Carolina, 75-71 and 88-62, Jan. 16 and Feb. 14.
Worst Loss: Mercer, 88-84, Feb. 17.
Best Players: Achor Achor scores 15.1 points a game and hits 44.4 percent of his threes. He also leads the team with 5.7 rebounds per. Rylan Jones averages 4.8 assists.
Rankings: 75th in NET, 79th in KenPom. 57th in offensive efficiency, 129th in defense (KenPom.com).
Famous sports alumni: Football coaches Bobby Bowden and Jimbo Fisher, both of whom won national championships at Florida State.
Famous alumni: Former Alabama Senator Doug Jones, former Secretary of State Cordell Hull.
Overview: The 6-foot-9 Achor, from Australia, could be a major first-round problem, and Jones is a veteran who ran offenses at Utah and Utah State. McMillan has taken the Bulldogs from six wins to 27 in four years. They are the fourth highest-scoring team in Division I and rank 15th in tempo, and they are 10th in steals and 15th in forcing turnovers (per possession). Beyond that, they shoot the three at a 39.8 clip, sixth in Division I, which is the kind of thing that SportsCenter loves, especially in March.
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