Best seed outlook: Could No. 1 Virginia exorcise the past year’s allies now that the group is currently at full strength? Our model believes. The Cavaliers have a 49 percent probability of cracking the Final Four and a 31 percent likelihood of reaching what is the program’s first national title game.
With De’Andre Hunter, that was not on the court this past year through UVA’s historical loss to No. 16 Maryland Baltimore County, the Cavaliers have been dominant on both ends — the sole team standing in the top five in Pomeroy’s adjusted offense and defense metrics. Once again, Tony Bennett’s pack line shield is suffocating most every offensive opportunity and successfully turning games into rock fights. However, this year’s group is better on the offensive end and should breeze into the Elite Eight, where it might meet Tennessee. Due to Grant Williams and the superbly appointed Admiral Schofield, the No. 2 Volunteers are enjoying their best basketball in program history. We provide them a 22 percent probability of reaching the Final Four.
Sneaky Final Four pick: No. 6 Villanova. Is it”sneaky” to select the team that’s won two of the past three national titles? Maybe not. But this hasn’t been the same group that coach Jay Wright guided to those championships. After losing a ton of its best players from last year’s title-winning group, the Wildcats had an up-and-down year and dropped five of the final eight regular-season Big East games. But they also got hot over the last week, capping off a year in which they still won the Big East regular-season and conference-tournament titles — and had among the 20 greatest offenses in the nation based on KenPom (powered through an absurd amount of 3-pointers). Our power ratings think that they’re the fourth-best team in the South despite being the No. 6 seed, and they have a 5% chance of making it back to the Final Four for a third time in four seasons.
Do not wager on: No. 4 Kansas State. Coach Bruce Weber’s Wildcats nearly made the Final Four final season, however they may find it tougher this time around. K-State comes with an elite defense (it ranks fourth in the country according to Pomeroy’s ratings), but its offense is prone to battles — and could be down its second-leading scorer, forward Dean Wade, who missed the team’s Big 12 tournament loss to Iowa State with a foot injury. A brutal draw that provides the Wildcats tough No. 13 seed UC Irvine in the first round, then places them contrary to the Wisconsin-Oregon winner at Round two, could restrict their potential to advance deep into another consecutive tournament.
Cinderella see: No. 12 Oregon. According to our model, the Ducks have the very best Sweet 16 chances (24 percent) of almost any double-digit seed at the tournament, over twice that of some other candidate. Oregon struggled to string together wins for most of the regular season, and its odds seemed sunk after 7-foot-2 phenom Bol Bol was missing for the year with a foot injury in January. But the Ducks have rallied to win eight consecutive games going into the championship, such as a convincing victory in Saturday’s Pac-12 championship. Oregon matches a similar mold as K-State — excellent defense with a suspect offense — but that is telling, given that the Ducks are a 12-seed and the Wildcats are a No. 4. If they fulfill in the Round of 32, we provide Oregon a 47 percent chance at the upset.
Player to watch: Grant Williams, Tennessee
The junior has come a very long way from being”just a fat boy with some ability.” Williams, the de facto leader of Rick Barnes’s Volunteers, has bullied the SEC over the past two seasons, amassing two successive conference player of the year honors.
The Vols might just feature the best crime of Barnes’s training career — and we are talking about a man who coached Kevin Durant! Much of that offensive potency can be traced to Williams, the team’s top scorer and rebounder, that positions in the 97th percentile in scoring efficacy, based on data courtesy of Synergy Sports.
Williams possesses an old-man game you may find at a regional YMCA, a back-to-the-basket, footwork-proficient offensive assault that manifests primarily in post-ups, where he positions in the 98th percentile in scoring efficacy and shoots an adjusted field-goal proportion of 56.1. He can get the Volunteers buckets from the waning minutes of games, too, as he positions in the 96th percentile in isolation scoring efficiency.
Likeliest first-round upsets: No. 9 Oklahoma over No. 8 Ole Miss (53 percent); No. 12 Oregon over No. 5 Wisconsin (45 percent); No. 10 Iowa over No. 7 Cincinnati (34 percent)
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