The tournament, from A to Z
Lettermen of all kinds come together, beginning this week
The 2025 NCAA men’s basketball tournament, from A to Z:
A is for Auburn’s Chad Baker-Mazara, whose versatility is only matched by his volatility. He was kicked out of last year’s NCAA loss to Yale, and out of a regular-season ending loss to Alabama, for overly hard fouls. “I’m a big piece of this team and I can help us big-time or hurt us big-time,” Baker-Mazara said.
B is for Braden Smith, Purdue’s Big Ten Player of the Year who picked the Boilermakers over Belmont, Toledo, Appalachian, Montana and North Texas. Former Purdue guard Tony Jones, who became a pilot, likens Smith to the A-10 Warthog: “It’s called a tank killer. It flies where all the conflict is going on.”
C is for Coen Carr, perhaps the most seismic dunker in college. The Michigan State forward has smoothed out the rest of his game as well. “He can be the best 6th man in basketball,” coach Tom Izzo said. “He’s not Michael Jordan, but he’s Michael Jordan-ish.”
D is for the Dominican Rodman, as Texas A&M coach Buzz Williams calls Andersson Garcia. He’s the most enthusiastic rebounder on the top offensive rebounding team in the country. Garcia also collects old shoes from his teammates and sends them to poor kids back home in the Dominican Republic.
E is for V.J. Edgecombe of Baylor. He’s a freshman but this will be his last NCAA tournament, since he’s all set for the draft lottery. Absurdly talented, Edgecombe nearly got the Bahamas past Spain in the finals of an Olympic qualifying tournament, averaging 16.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 3.8 assists in four games.
F is for Florida’s Micah Handlogten, whose return for the last 10 games makes the Gators even stronger inside. At 7 feet, he had 10 rebounds in 19 minutes against Alabama Saturday. But his mere presence is inspirational. In last year’s SEC tournament, on the same Nashville floor, Handlogten suffered a compound fracture of his leg. After the trainers sopped up the blood, they put him on a stretcher, and doctors implanted two rods and a screw in his leg. Handlogten could have used an injury redshirt year but insisted on coming back.
G is for Grand Canyon, led by Ray Harrison, who has played 103 games, scored nearly 1,500 points and won three WAC championships after he transferred from Presbyterian. Harrison’s dad Ray Sr. nicknamed him “Bigtime Ray” at birth, and accompanied his son on the recruiting visit to the plush campus in Phoenix. “I don’t know about you but I’m coming here,” he said.
H is for Alan Huss, the 6-foot-9 coach of High Point, winner of the Big South. In his first three years there, he was taller than everyone he coached.
I is for Interlopers, the 16 seeds who pulled upsets in their conference tournaments. St. Francis (Pa.) won 10 games over Division I teams before it won its three NEC tournament games with :02, :01 and :09 left. But the Red Flash beat Central Connecticut on its homecourt in the finals. Then there’s Mt. St. Mary’s, which took the MAAC crowd by stunning Iona. Miami coach Jim Larranaga reacted to a November loss to the Mountaineers by retiring. Out of 364 Division I teams, Mt. St. Mary ranks 356th in highest turnover percentage. It is 250th in the KenPom rankings. St. Francis is 311th.
J is for the Jewish Jokic, the underground nickname for Michigan center Danny Wolf. He was all-Ivy at Yale last year and was just as effective in Ann Arbor, averaging almost 14 points and 10 rebounds. Wolf brings the ball up, throws flashy passes and shoots 34 percent from three. For Israel’s Under-20 team in the European Championships two years ago, Wolf had 17 points and 16 rebounds in an overtime loss to France in the championship game.
K is for Kill Shots, which is what McNeese calls a scoring run of 10-0 or better. The Cowboys had 35 of them, leading Division I, and began five games with kills. Coach Will Wade is 57-10 in two years there, and LSU, which fired him because of recruiting allegations that have since become standard procedure, is 31-34.
L is for Louisville, which improved from 8-24 to 27-7 with first-year head coach Pat Kelsey and Wisconsin transfer Chucky Hepburn, who made first-team All-ACC and led the league in steals.
M is for Montana’s Money Williams, who scored 30 at Tennessee this season and became only the third player to do that to a Rick Barnes-coached team in Knoxville. Williams also lost his father and mother in a year’s time. When the Tennessee fans learned of that, they contributed $10,000 to his GoFundMe page.
N is for Nique Clifford of Colorado State, the only player in the tournament who averages 19 points and nine rebounds. The KenPom.com website ranks Cliford the sixth-best player in Division I. Coaches were impressed when Clifford, as a high schooler in Colorado Springs, took over his own recruiting process, sending a printed resume to each school and a cover letter.
O is for Josh Omofajo, the Canadian who leads Robert Morris in scoring and also led the Colonials to their first Horizon League title. Omofajo is comfortable with lost causes. He helped Division II Gannon turn it around from 3–23 to 32-4.
P is for Pilfer, which UC San Diego’s Hayden Gray does better than anyone in Division I (109 steals). But Gray also hit six 3-pointers and scored 22 in the Big West final win over UC Irvine. That was the Tritons’ 30th win of the season.
Q is for Quit Fouling certain players and teams, like Wisconsin, which leads Division I with an .828 free throw percentage. Individuals who want to get to the line as the clock runs out are Missouri’s Tamar Bates (.943), Gonzaga’s Khalif Battle (.929), Auburn’s Denver Jones (.920) and Duke’s Kon Knueppel (.914).
R is for Houston’s J’Wan Roberts, whose recovery from a sprained ankle could determine the Cougars’ title chances. Roberts grew up in St. Croix but moved to Killeen, Tex. to live with an aunt and learn more basketball. He is a pure post player who sums up Houston’s muscular style. “Offensive rebounding,” he said, “breaks people’s spirits.’
S is for the Spartans’ Jeremy Fears, who leads Michigan State with 177 assists. He was medically redshirted last year after he was shot in the leg at a friend’s house in Joliet, Ill. But he’s only part of the first family of point guards. Jeremiah Fears Jr., who reclassified so he could enter Oklahoma a year early, averaged 17 points as a freshman.
T is for the Transfer Portal,, which has funneled players to literally every Division I program over the past three years except Marquette. Coach Shaka Smart discourages players from hiring agents. So far it’s working. “He always tells us we won’t throw us back into the water like we’re fishing,” said David Joplin. “We appreciate that.”
U is for UNC Wilmington coach Takayo Siddle. As a player at Gardner Webb he contributed to win at Kentucky’s Rupp Arena, and as UNCW’s coach he supervised a 80-73 upset in 2013. He’s the first to win as a visiting player and coach at Rupp.
V is for VCU’s Jack Clark, a 6-foot-10 survivor of two ACL surgeries, a hip labrum tear and a sports hernia operation. He has played at LaSalle, Clemson and N.C. State before he got to Richmond, where he averages 9.4 points and 7.8 rebounds and makes the lane an inhospitable place.
W is for Wofford’s Kyler Filewich, a stocky center who has gone viral for his underhanded free throws. Rick Barry, the master of the motion, has even worked with Filewich, whose percentage is .318, including an 0-for-8 against VMI. But Filewich hit 3 for 7 in the Southern Conference final against Furman, and he leads the Terriers in assists while he scores 12 points a game with 9.4 rebounds.
X is for Xavier’s Ryan Conwell, who had only one scholarship offer from Indianapolis’ Pike High. That was from Indiana State. Conwell got better and got more interest, and he went to South Florida, but eventually drifted back to Terre Haute and led the Sycamores to last year’s NCAA tournament. When his coach left, he went to Xavier, and the Musketeers got hot late and made this tournament, too. Conwell shoots 41.8 percent from three and averages 16.8 points.
Y is the logo for BYU, a very watchable team which features Richie Saunders, among many other skilled players. Saunders is a descendant of the brother of the actual Brigham Young. More important, his grandfather Theodore Grigg and his brother founded Ore-Ida and, thus, invented the Tater Tot.
Z is for Zuby Ejiofor of St. John’s, the Big East champs. As Kansas was assembling a paper empire of transfers, Ejiofor left KU. where he wasn’t playing, and mushroomed into a major force for the Johnnies. He has 145 offensive rebounds, averages 14.6 points and has only shot 41 three-pointers, all of which fits Rick Pitino’s pressurized, old-school approach that has lost one game since New Year’s Eve.
Good piece. H should have been for Hosed. Louisville was hosed by being seeded eighth while a seemingly equal team they beat twice (Clemson) was fifth. The refs need to call that (flip) flop.