I think I had my first thousand-like tweet last night, which—wow, that was a lot of dopamine. Here it is:
I would like to issue a small correction.
I think the line would be 5.5.
Of course, it’s teams from five years apart, but compared to their respective Division I environments, 2018 UMBC would be favored by roughly 5.5 points over 2023 Fairleigh Dickinson. That might sound small, and it’s certainly within the range in which an upset would shock few. Penn State is a 5.5-point underdog right now against Texas today. Furman is a 5.5-point underdog against San Diego State. Neither of those teams winning would be stunning.
And yet.
What that 5.5-point spread tells us is that the favorite is clearly the better team. There is no universe in which they are not the better team. And so while Purdue fans and Virginia Tech fans tried to say UMBC’s upset was more impressive, because it came by a larger margin or because Virginia was a better team, the point I really wanted to make is that Fairleigh Dickinson is far and away the worst team, relative to its era, to ever make the NCAA Tournament’s Round of 32. At least since it expanded to anything like its current size. Which makes last night incredibly impressive.
The players were fearless, and Sean Moore came through like some modern-day Jimmy Chitwood. The gameplan from Tobin Anderson and his staff was incredible—FDU pestered Purdue enough to keep it close, then stepped up when Purdue broke mentally. Down the stretch, it looked like the only Boilermaker comfortable being on the court was Fletcher Loyer, the freshman from Fort Wayne who was definitely not Purdue’s best player this year but did at least need little coaxing to shoot. Zach Edey had the worst 21-point/15-rebound performance in basketball history, unable to hold onto the ball when it counted. Braden Smith turned the thing over seven times. Mason Gillis left announcers aghast at what basically were his yips. He and others were not willing to shoot the ball.
It was a terrible performance out of Purdue, just as that 2018 game was a terrible performance out of Virginia. But in terms of the win probability, this was wilder. FDU shouldn’t have made the tournament. FDU shouldn’t have beaten Texas Southern, the eighth-place team in the SWAC. As David Jablonski reported, FDU didn’t know its own fight song before Dayton—blessed Dayton—had the class to learn it ahead of Tuesday night’s game. This team is going to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, and Purdue and Arizona are not, in yet another reminder of the incredible breadth covered by “Division I.”
The comparison for Purdue will now be Virginia, and it’s a favorable comparison. Virginia came back and won the title in 2019. Could Purdue do the same? Absolutely. The likely National Player of the Year has eligibility remaining if he chooses to use it. Fletcher Loyer and Braden Smith might not be great, but they’re only freshmen. I believe the team had only one senior. It overachieved to get to this point, which adds a sense of unfairness to the defeat. Were they a 6-seed, the reasonable expectation at season’s outset, a loss would have stung much less. Were they a 6-seed, the pressure may have been low enough for them to win.
I don’t know how Matt Painter couldn’t get his guys’ confidence restored, but I also don’t know how he could have, once the situation became what it became. Purdue was a great basketball team this year. Purdue dominated a deep Big Ten. Purdue will mostly be remembered for this loss. It isn’t fair, but this is the postseason design fans crave, precisely because of things like this. You give a little guy a rock and a sling, and sometimes he takes down Goliath.
Pitt over Iowa State
We’ll go through the other fifteen games now, offering brief thoughts on each. We’ll start with Iowa State because I’m an Iowa State guy.
That sucked.
Hindsight, as we’ve said, is 59–41, and yes, maybe Iowa State should have taken the NCAA up on the offer for longer warm-ups after having to wait for the arena staff in Greensboro to level the rim. But Iowa State wasn’t missing all that close. As happened last year, the offense eventually beat the Cyclones, who really seemed to miss Caleb Grill, or at least missed his potential (it’s hard to say they missed him in total when they responded to his dismissal from the team by rolling off two straight impressive victories over Baylor). There’ll be a lot of turnover this offseason, but what a crew this was. What a tough, hard-working, tenacious crew. They saved Iowa State from a disaster scenario. This was a sad way for it to end, but what a team they were.
Michigan State over USC
Controlling your location in the NCAA Tournament matters. USC tipped at 9:15 AM PDT, or 8:15 AM PST, which it was in California a week ago. You can prepare all you want, but you can’t build that into your body clock. That’s a tough thing to do. USC played rather well considering this aspect, but they weren’t the better team and they were at a big disadvantage thanks to circadian rhythms. It showed.
I wonder a little, with this, if Utah State may have had a similar effect going on with Mizzou on Thursday. It was a later tip and Utah State is in Mountain Time and Mizzou is in Central Time, so it’s a stretch, but the Mountain West plays a lot of late night games, presumably to maximize TV opportunities. Could that be biting the league? Put it in the offseason study bucket.
Xavier over Kennesaw State
This one was sad, partially because Kennesaw State was good enough to hold that kind of lead. Kennesaw State was a lot worse than Xavier, but they were good enough to preserve a 13-point lead under the ten-minute mark. Incredible season, but that piece is going to sting.
Saint Mary’s over VCU
Hopefully Ace Baldwin’s ok. Saint Mary’s marches on, and theirs against UConn is one of the seven second-round matchups I’m most excited for. It’s probably higher than merely top-seven, but damn. There are some good games these next two days.
Baylor over UC Santa Barbara
Not a lot here, didn’t watch much of it. Baylor is what people think Creighton is, in terms of its offensive heft and defensive absence, so that’ll be fun.
Marquette over Vermont
Tyler Kolek hurt his thumb, which is bad news for Marquette. Marquette looked great, which is good news for Marquette. There are a lot of doubts around this team, and they answered those strongly, leaving themselves as possibly the mathematical East Region favorite. If Kolek can’t shoot or is otherwise limited, though, it’s going to be really put a limit on an offense that needs to be limitless. It’s his non-shooting hand, but it’s hard to play basketball with a lot of thumb pain.
Creighton over NC State
Mason Miller hurt his ankle, and I haven’t seen any prognosis, but he’s only played 23.4% of minutes for Creighton this year, per KenPom. It hurts to miss anyone, and he was a great piece as a shooter for the Jays, but this team is still full of studs, and if they play to their potential they’re capable of beating every single team on their side of the bracket. It wasn’t the prettiest against NCSU, but that’s not how they do it this year.
UConn over Iona
Is UConn going to win the national championship?
It’s the path that sucks for UConn. If everything goes chalk from here, they’ll have to play Saint Mary’s (12th in KenPom), Kansas (9th), UCLA (2nd), Houston (1st), and Alabama (3rd) in their next five games. No other serious title contender has that hard a route. They sure looked good against Iona, though, and Iona isn’t a bad team. Good luck to the Gaels in Albany.
Kentucky over Providence
Teams shot terribly in Greensboro all day, but this was the game—with even more rim leveling going on beforehand—where the story peaked. I wonder how much of it was psychological, and I wonder how much will continue into Sunday.
Miami over Drake
Oh, Drake. Oh, oh, Drake.
Drake, like Kennesaw State, had it. Different situation, because Drake was in a spot where they should have expected the game to be just that close, but heartbreaking for the Bulldogs, who shut Miami down but couldn’t get baskets from Tucker Devries, their go-to guy. Drake was a veteran team whose best player was an underclassman, and it was the underclassman who had the bad day at the bad time. That might hurt worse than it being a senior.
Gonzaga over Grand Canyon
Gonzaga hasn’t lost to a team seeded fifth or worse since Syracuse got them in the 2016 Sweet Sixteen. That is a remarkable run.
Kansas State over Montana State
The East is now full of huge storylines in all spots not filled by K-State: You’ve got FDU. You’ve got FAU, a fellow potential Cinderella. You’ve got Duke, Kentucky, and Michigan State. You’ve got Shaka Smart and Rick Barnes carrying tons and tons of March baggage. And then there’s K-State, a solid program having a great year. They’re super fun, they have tons of good storylines within them, but they just aren’t as nationally compelling as the other seven, which is funny because those other seven might be all among the twelve of fifteen most compelling draws left.
Florida Atlantic over Memphis
The best explanation I’ve seen on the Kendric Davis/Malcolm Dandridge situation came from Fox’s Jason McIntyre, who tweeted that Davis was asking his teammates to foul when he got hurt and was upset Dandridge didn’t. I don’t know if that’s what happened, but that’s what makes the most sense to me (if you missed it, Davis and Dandridge got into a little scuffle in their own huddle down the stretch).
This FAU team is fascinating. It is a really unusual team in its depth and its consistency. Perhaps this limits its ceiling, but it wants a high floor for this next round, now that it plays FDU instead of Purdue. I’m hoping it can make the Elite Eight so we, at the very least, can get a ton of big profiles on Dusty May and how he’s built this.
TCU over Arizona State
Was this…was this the best game of the first round? Others were more exhilarating in their finishes, others were better-played, but overall, was another game as good start to finish as this one was? It was the kind of game where you really did want nobody to lose. Two teams that are just so likable if you ignore that Bobby Hurley is coaching one of them.
Indiana over Kent State
Indiana, entering the year, was supposed to be the Big Ten’s best title shot.
Here we go.
**
We’ve got eight today, and they line up as follows. Again, one thought on each.
12:10 PM EDT: San Diego State vs. Furman (CBS)
EARLY TIP FOR A WEST COAST TEAM EARLY TIP FOR A WEST COAST TEAM EARLY TIP FOR A WEST COAST TEAM EARLY TIP FOR A WEST COAST TEAM EARLY TIP FOR A WEST COAST TEAM
2:40 PM EDT: Tennessee vs. Duke (CBS)
This spread is currently 6.5 points away from where KenPom has it, which, to circle back to the beginning………..is a lot. Zakai Zeigler is hurt, Tennessee has not been playing as well as they once did (they’ve lost seven of thirteen), Duke is playing the best it has all year…but 6.5 is a lot. I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m not saying to bet on Tennessee, I kind of think I won’t bet on either and will do a total if anything, but this is a weird game with weird teams.
Duke might be the favorite in the East Region, considering the draw from here.
5:15 PM EDT: Kansas vs. Arkansas (CBS)
This is another with an eye-catching line, but this time, KenPom’s right there with the books. KU by 3.5 or 4. What’s up? Arkansas’s really talented. More talented than Kansas, I would venture. Kansas is the better team, but Arkansas has more talent, and sometimes it really shows. Though oddly enough? Arkansas only went 2–6 against the current KenPom top 25, and one of those wins came back in November. Another strange team. They will try to rattle Kansas. Bill Self’s status remains unknown. This is likely to be a little bit ugly in terms of interpersonal things, and if it is, Arkansas is going to be the ones who started it.
6:10 PM EDT: Missouri vs. Princeton (TNT)
Tiger vs. Tiger.
Mizzou was quietly one of those very accomplished but not–that–good teams this year. They are worse, on paper, than all of Rutgers, Oregon, Oklahoma State, Michigan, UNC, North Texas, and Liberty, each of whom was invited to the NIT.
In other words, Princeton has a decent chance. Though damn is Mizzou fun.
7:10 PM EDT: Houston vs. Auburn (TBS)
Marcus Sasser’s groin, Jamal Shead’s knee. All eyes on ‘em. National championship in the balance. This is how things could open up for Indiana. Auburn’s solid, but they’re not that good. They’re probably worse than Memphis was.
7:45 PM EDT: Texas vs. Penn State (CBS)
Penn State was 56th in KenPom five weeks ago today. Now, they’re 34th. They have played excellent basketball down the stretch. But is regression coming? Even if it isn’t, Texas has also played excellent basketball down the stretch.
8:40 PM EDT: UCLA vs. Northwestern (TNT)
Is UCLA what they appeared to be in the first round, or did they just emphatically take care of business? Northwestern is feisty, but the closest thing they’ve seen to a team of this caliber is Purdue, and they saw them at home in the middle of the Big Ten schedule and it is Purdue, who was good but not that close—it turns out—to UCLA.
9:40 PM EDT: Alabama vs. Maryland (TBS)
Is Brandon Miller’s groin Thursday’s non-story? Or is it today’s biggest story in the tournament?
**
What a day we have in store.
