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The Guide to Filling Out Your March Madness Bracket for Non-College Basketball Fans

Sascha Paruk

By Sascha Paruk in College Basketball

Updated: March 20, 2019 at 7:23 am EDT

Published:

Gonzaga forward Rui Hachimura backs down a defender.
WCC Player of the Year Rui Hachimura leads the Gonzaga Bulldogs into the NCAA tournament as a no. 1 seed. Photo by Twitter user @AndyVermaut.
  • All 68 teams in the 2019 March Madness field have at least some redeeming quality
  • But each one also has its flaws
  • Get a quick tutorial on why you should pick each team in the NCAA Tournament, but also why you shouldn’t

Note: the teams are grouped by seeds, below. Within each seed, they are ordered alphabetically, not by the Selection Committee’s official ranking.

No. 1 Seeds

Duke Blue Devils

Pick them to win because: They’re the only team to beat Virginia, which they did twice, and they only lost one game all year (89-87 vs Gonzaga) when at full strength.

Pick them to lose because: They are only 3-3 without Zion Williamson and there’s no telling when he’ll tweak his knee again. Also, they suck at shooting threes, hitting at a woeful 30.2% clip from beyond the arc.

Gonzaga Bulldogs

Pick them to win because: They’re the only team that beat Duke at full strength.

Pick them to lose because: Only one team from outside the “Power Six” conferences has won the title since 1990 (UConn, 2014).

North Carolina Tar Heels

Pick them to win because: They won 15 of 17 games after a brutal home loss to Louisville in January. That includes two wins over Duke (albeit sans Zion) and a heartbreaking one-point loss to the full-strength Blue Devils in the ACC Tournament.

YouTube video

Pick them to lose because: They are just 1-3 in neutral-site games against top-100 teams (beat Louisville; lost to Texas, Kentucky, and Duke).

Virginia Cavaliers

Pick them to win because: They are the only team in the nation that’s top five in both offensive and defensive efficiency. And they have the second-highest overall efficiency rating in the history of KenPom.

Pick them to lose because: This is largely the same team that became the first #1 seed to lose to a #16 seed last year. Think they might tighten up a bit if they find themselves in a close game with a low seed?

YouTube video

No. 2 Seeds

Kentucky Wildcats

Pick them to win because: They have a mix of soon-to-be lottery-pick freshmen and veteran talent, and they posted wins over UNC, Tennessee, Kansas, and Auburn.

Pick them to lose because: They get relatively little production from the point guard position. Ashton Hagans (7.7 PPG, 4.5 APG, 1. 8 SPG) does a bit of everything, but doesn’t profile like the majority of successful NCAA Tournament point guards.

Michigan State Spartans

Pick them to win because: Cassius Winston might be the best point guard in America, and point guards are crucial in the NCAA Tournament.

Pick them to lose because: Injuries! Joshua Langford (15.0 PPG) is out for the year; Nick Ward (14.0 PPG, 6.2 RPG) is still recovering from a broken hand; and Kyle Ahrens (4.7 PPG, 2.5 RPG) went down with a gruesome ankle in injury in the Big Ten final.

Michigan Wolverines

Pick them to win because: They have the potential to obliterate top-ten teams; they beat Villanova by 27, North Carolina by 17, and Purdue by 19 this year.

Pick them to lose because: They have a sketchy offense that blew three second-half leads to MSU. Opponents basically don’t have to guard three players in their starting five.

Tennessee Volunteers

Pick them to win because: They beat Kentucky twice and Gonzaga on a neutral. Their six leading scorers are all juniors and seniors. Upperclassmen have a long history of success in March Madness.

Pick them to lose because: Coach Rick Barnes hasn’t reached the Sweet 16 in over a decade.

No. 3 Seeds

Houston Cougars

Pick them to win because: They have a top-20 offense, a top-20 defense, and are tied for the fewest losses in the nation (3). To paraphrase DJ Khaled, “All [they] do is win.”

Pick them to lose because: They have not played a single top-ten team all season, or a single top-30 KenPom team away from home.

LSU Tigers

Pick them to win because: They won the SEC regular-season title, going 2-0 against Tennessee and Kentucky, plus a perfect 9-0 on the road.

Pick them to lose because: The schools is embroiled in a recruiting scandal and coach Will Wade has been suspended indefinitely.


Purdue Boilermakers

Pick them to win because: Carsen Edwards (23.0 PPG, 3.0 APG, 3.5 RPG, 84.3 FT%) is the type of point guard that can lead a team to great heights.

Pick them to lose because: Carsen Edwards gets very little help from anyone else on the roster.

Texas Tech Red Raiders

Pick them to win because: They have the best defense in the nation, even better than vaunted Virginia.

Pick them to lose because: Their offense is in the mid-30s in efficiency. Their profile is eerily similar to the Virginia team that lost as a #1 seed last year. And they just lost to a brutal West Virginia team in the Big 12 quarters.

No. 4 Seeds

Florida State Seminoles

Pick them to win because: This is mostly the same team that went to the Elite Eight last year. They closed the regular season on a 13-1 run and then beat Virginia in the ACC Tournament

Pick them to lose because: They’re 249th in the country in three-point percentage (33%) and lost to both Pitt and Boston College, accounting for a full 25% of those teams’ wins in the ACC.

Kansas Jayhawks

Pick them to win because: They went 20-1 in home and neutral-site games.

Pick them to lose because: This is Bill Self’s worst Kansas team ever. It broke the Jayhawks’ incredible 14-year run of regular-season Big 12 titles.

Kansas State Wildcats

Pick them to win because: Like FSU, this is basically the same team that made a deep run last year, getting to the Elite Eight.

Pick them to lose because: Their offense is 102nd in adjusted efficiency. No other team seeed 5th or better is worse than 52nd (Wisconsin). Plus, second-leading scorer Dean Wade might be out. 

Virginia Tech Hokies

Pick them to win because: They’re well coached and balanced. Their offense is 8th in efficiency and their defense can hold top-25 teams to 24 points in 40 minutes!

Pick them to lose because: Leading scorer Justin Robinson is just returning from a foot injury. They went just 6-4 without him. If he’s less than 100%, the ceiling for Va-Tech is not terribly high.

No. 5 Seeds

Auburn Tigers

Pick them to win because: They shoot a ton of threes and are almost unbeatable when they’re hot; see 20-point win over Tennessee in the SEC title game.

YouTube video

Pick them to lose because: The three-point happy Tigers will lose to inferior teams when their outside shots aren’t falling; see multiple setbacks to Ole Miss and another to South Carolina.

Marquette Golden Eagles

Pick them to win because: Markus Howard might be the most dynamic scorer in the country. He had 45 when Marquette smoked K-State (83-71) and Buffalo (103-85), and a mere 38 when they edged Villanova (66-65).

Pick them to lose because: They blew sizable second-half leads in five of their last six games, raising serious questions about this team’s ability to close.

YouTube video

Mississippi State Bulldogs

Pick them to win because: Of their ten losses, seven came by five points or fewer. That type of “bad luck” tends to regress to the mean.

Pick them to lose because: They went just 1-5 against ranked teams and were blown out by Kentucky (76-55) and Tennessee (71-54). They’re a good team, but not a great one.

Wisconsin Badgers

Pick them to win because: They have a smothering defense that’s held 14 opponents to under 60 points.

Pick them to lose because: They are the second-worst free-throw shooting team in the field. Their best player, Ethan Happ, shoots 46.8% from the line. Hack-a-Happ could bring this team down at a moment’s notice.

No. 6 Seeds

Buffalo Bulls

Pick them to win because: They’re tied for the most wins/fewest losses (31-3), and all three losses came in true road games (at Marquette, Northern Illinois, and Bowling Green).

Pick them to lose because: Like Houston, they’re untested. The best team they played this year, Marquette, beat them by 18 (103-85).

Iowa State Cyclones

Pick them to win because: They dominate quality teams when they’re hot (like TTU, K-State, and Kansas). Their run to the Big 12 tournament title indicates they’re hot at the right time.

Pick them to lose because: They lose to terrible teams (like West Virginia by 15) when they’re cold. They’ve been cold a lot, possibly because the players hate each other.

“As talented as [the Cyclones] are … I just don’t know if they actually like each other.” — Rob Dauster, NBC’s College Basketball Talk podcast, March 12, 2019

Maryland Terrapins

Pick them to win because: Thanks to future first-round pick Bruno Fernando and point guard Anthony Cowan, they will rarely be overmatched in the frontcourt or backcourt.

Pick them to lose because: No depth! The Terps are 10-0 when Cowan or Fernando hits the 20 point-mark. They are 9-7 when neither reaches 19.

Villanova Wildcats

Pick them to win because: Nova has won two of the last three national championships and their two leading scorers (Phil Booth, Eric Paschall) were double-digit scorers on last year’s title winner.

Pick them to lose because: More depth issues. When Booth and Paschall weren’t at their best, Nova lost at home to Michigan by 27 and Furman by eight.

No. 7 Seeds

Cincinnati Bearcats

Pick them to win because: The Bearcats just showed their ceiling to be sky high in the AAC title game, crushing top-seed Houston 69-57.

Pick them to lose because: When guard Jarron Cumberland isn’t scoring the ball (18.8 PPG), no one is. Backing an offense that is this easy to plan for is a dangerous proposition in March.

Louisville Cardinals

Pick them to win because: When they play their best, they beat UNC by 21 on the road.

Pick them to lose because: When they play their worst, they blow 21-point second half leads to Duke at home.

Nevada Wolf Pack

Pick them to win because:The two-words Wolf Pack were one point away from the Elite Eight last year and return basically the same team.

YouTube video

Pick them to lose because: They are getting worse. They were ranked 4th at KenPom in early December and finished the year 25th. 

Wofford Terriers

Pick them to win because: They own the nation’s longest win streak at 20 games and shoot the three better than anyone (1st in three-pointers made; 2nd in three-point percentage).

Pick them to lose because: They were 0-4 against the four best teams they played: UNC, Kansas, Mississippi State, and Oklahoma.

No. 8 Seeds

Ole Miss Rebels

Pick them to win because: Between Breein Tyree (18.2 PPG) and Terence Davis (15.1 PPG), they have the strong guard play that tends to succeed in March.

Pick them to lose because: The Rebels regressed after a blazing 13-2 start, going 7-10 the rest of the way. They were picked to finish last in the SEC in the preseason and played closer to expectations since the calendar flipped.

Syracuse Orange

Pick them to win because: All Jim Boeheim and his zone defense do is win in March. Equally unheralded Syracuse teams made trips to the Final Four in 2016 and Sweet Sixteen in 2018.

Pick them to lose because: Leading scorer Tyus Battle (17.2 PPG) is suffering from a hip injury that kept him out of the ACC Tournament.

Utah State Aggies

Pick them to win because: This is just a quality basketball team with an efficient offense (32nd), underrated defense (47th), and a great coach (Craig Smith). They’ve won 17 of 18 and haven’t laid an egg since early January.

Pick them to lose because: They went just 2-3 against their quality non-conference competition: Arizona State, BYU, Houston, St. Mary’s, and UC Irvine.

VCU Rams

Pick them to win because: This defense gets after it, allowing a shade over 60 points per game. They held Texas to 53, Hofstra to 67 (in OT), and Dayton to 68 in three quality wins.

Pick them to lose because: They can’t score. They have the 172nd-ranked offense and leading scorer Marcus Evans was hobbled in a loss to 141st-ranked Rhode Island in the A10 Tournament.

No. 9 Seeds

Baylor Bears

Pick them to win because: They have the second-best offensive rebounding rate in the country and head coach Scott Drew has a respectable 10-6 tournament record.

Pick them to lose because: This team was picked to finish last in the Big 12 and looked the part later in the year, winning just four of its final 11 games.

Central Florida Knights

Pick them to win because: They are the team that ended Houston’s 33-game home-court win streak.


Pick them to lose because: They shoot a woeful 64.7% from the free-throw line, 330th of 353 Division I teams.

Oklahoma Sooners

Pick them to win because: Their better games have produced exceptional results, including wins over Florida, Creighton,  TCU, and Wofford.

Pick them to lose because: Like Baylor, the Sooners crashed to earth after a hot start. They began 11-1 and are well under .500 since then (8-12), including to Ls to Big 12 basement-dwellers West Virginia.

Washington Huskies

Pick them to win because: Head coach Mike Hopkins, a former Syracuse assistant, brought Jim Boeheim’s zone to Seattle. That zone has proved very effective in the tourney.

Pick them to lose because: The Huskies are sputtering, going 7-4 after a 10-0 start in Pac-12 play. Deficiencies on offense are getting more pronounced. Oregon held them under 50 in two of the last four games.

No. 10 Seeds

Florida Gators

Pick them to win because: The Gators lost a lot of close games and rate as the unluckiest team in the tournament. As mentioned above, luck tends to regress to the mean.

Pick them to lose because: They have a terrible draw, facing No. 7 Nevada. The Wolf Pack made a run last year and returned all their key pieces.

Iowa Hawkeyes

Pick them to win because: The Hawkeyes score in bunches. They’ve hit 90 points seven times this year.

Pick them to lose because: Their defense is literally the worst of any team seeded 10th or better, and they’ve only won two of their last seven games because of it.

Minnesota Golden Gophers

Pick them to win because: The Gophers were surprisingly good in neutral-site games (6-1 with wins over Washington and Purdue) given how bad they were in true road games (3-9).

Pick them to lose because: They don’t do anything particularly well, apart from Jordan Murphy dominating the glass. Their 32.1 3P% is going to bite them big-time if/when they fall behind in the tournament.

Seton Hall Pirates

Pick them to win because: Guard Myles Powell (22.9 PPG, 2.9 APG, 2.0 SPG) is an absolute killer who excels late in close games.

Pick them to lose because: They have a tendency to dig themselves holes, and their Powell’s magical comeback powers are destined to run out.

No. 11 Seeds

Arizona State Sun Devils

Pick them to win because: This might be the best team from the Pac-12. It’s the only one that has a top-100 offense and defense.

Pick them to lose because: This might be the best team from the Pac-12. The west coast’s “power conference” ranked lower than the AAC this year in terms of overall strength. It was barely ahead of the WCC.

Belmont Bruins

Pick them to win because: Dylan Windler (21.4 PPG) is a future pro and he’s flanked by two other prolific scorers in Nick Muszynski (16.3 PPG) and Kevin McClain (16.3 PPG). It took a 36-point game from soon-to-be lottery pick Ja Morant for Murray State to end Belmont’s 14-game winning streak in the OVC title game.

Pick them to lose because: The Bruins have only played three games against NCAA Tournament teams all year (two vs Murray State, one vs Purdue) and they lost two by double digits.

Ohio State Buckeyes

Pick them to win because: Their win over Cincinnati (64-56) in a true road game showed the heights this roster can reach when intact.

Pick them to lose because: That win over Cincinnati came in the first game of the season. Even at full strength, these Buckeyes couldn’t hang the good teams in the Big Ten (combined 0-8 vs Maryland, Michigan, MSU, Purdue, and Wisconsin).

Temple Owls

Pick them to win because: They were a solid road team this year, going 8-5 in true road games and 3-2 in neutral-site games.

Pick them to lose because: They struggle on the glass (47.8 rebounding percentage) and from the three-point line (33.1%), leading to bad Ls versus 131st-ranked Tulsa and 130th-ranked Penn.

Saint John’s Red Storm

Pick them to win because: This is a tough one. At least one team from the First Four has advanced to the Round of 32 each season it’s been in effect? This year, that includes Temple, Arizona State, Belmont, and St. John’s.

Pick them to lose because: Outside of the handful of games when Shamorie Ponds went off, this was a bad basketball team. They’re 9-12 since Dec. 29th and just took a 32-point loss to Marquette at MSG.

Saint Mary’s Gaels

Pick them to win because: They earned their tournament berth with one of the most impressive wins by any team all year, holding Gonzaga’ top-ranked offense to a season low 47 points in the WCC final.

Pick them to lose because: Prior to the Gonzaga win, they hadn’t beaten a team ranked higher than 58th at KenPom all year (New Mexico St).

No. 12 Seeds

Liberty Flames

Pick them to win because: The A-Sun Conference has a history of upsets. Remember 2013 Florida Gulf Coast (aka Dunk City) and that 2014 Mercer team that beat Duke as a no. 14 seed? A-Sun champs, both!

Pick them to lose because: They haven’t played a single team ranked in the top 25 of either the AP or Coaches Poll.

Murray State Racers

Pick them to win because: Point guard Ja Morant is going to be a top-three pick in the 2019 NBA Draft and can single-handedly dominate any team the Racers face.


Pick them to lose because: The OVC champions are zero for their last six in March Madness and haven’t reached the Sweet 16 since 1973!

New Mexico State Aggies

Pick them to win because: They haven’t lost since Jan. 3rd (19 straight wins) and they proved in a 63-60 neutral-court loss to Kansas that they will not be intimidated by marquee names and power-conference teams.

Pick them to lose because: They got an extremely tough draw against surging Auburn.

Oregon Ducks

Pick them to win because: They won eight straight to close the regular season and claim the Pac-12 title. While the Pac-12 is terrible, Oregon has made their recent opponents look even worse than they are, winning six of eight by double-digits.

Pick them to lose because: Their schedule didn’t prepare them for the tournament. First-round opponent Wisconsin sits 23 spots higher at KenPom (12th) than the best team the Ducks have beaten (Syracuse, 35th).

No. 13 Seeds

Northeastern Huskies

Pick them to win because: They are 5th in the country in effective field-goal percentage and they’ve only gotten better as the year went along, winning 12 of their last 13 and scoring at least 70 points in each of those games.

Pick them to lose because: The school has never won a tournament game since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

Saint Louis Billikens

Pick them to win because: They were pegged as the best team in the A10 in the preseason and finally started meeting expectations  in the conference tournament, winning four games in four days by an average of 9.3 PPG.

Pick them to lose because: They have the 205th-ranked in offensive in the country and are the worst free-throw shooters of all 68 teams (59%!). When they beat St. Bonaventure in the A10 title game (55-53), they scored a grand total of three points in the final five minutes of the game.

Vermont Catamounts

Pick them to win because: Anthony Lamb (21.4 PPG) is a future pro who will give the Catamounts a chance to hang with more athletic power-conference teams.

Pick them to lose because: They got throttled by almost every good team they played. They lost to Louisville by 8, Kansas by 16, and Lipscomb by 25. (Yes, Lipscomb was a good team.)

UC Irvine Anteaters

Pick them to win because: They’re the top-ranked no. 13 team in most metrics and they haven’t lost since mid-January (16 straight wins).

Pick them to lose because: They have been playing cupcake competition since New Year’s. None of their opponents in the Big West Conference is rated higher than 170th.

No. 14 Seeds

Georgia State Panthers

Pick them to win because: Coach Ron Hunter has been here before and gotten the job done. He returns with a team that knocked off a half-decent power-conference team (Alabama, 83-80) in non-conference play.

YouTube video

Pick them to lose because: Their first-round opponent, Houston, is a hell of a lot better than any team they’ve played, let alone beaten.

Northern Kentucky Norse

Pick them to win because: Senior forward Drew McDonald is one of the most underrated big men in America, averaging 19.1 points, 9.5 rebounds, and 2.9 assists per game, while shooting 41% from three.

Pick them to lose because: The Norse beat the teams they should and lose to everyone else. They only faced two top-100 teams (UCF, Cincinnati) and lost to both by 13.

Old Dominion Monarchs

Pick them to win because: They beat VCU, one of the best initialized teams in the country! (Ranked 37th at KenPom.)

Pick them to lose because: They lost to FAU, UTSA, and UAB, some of the worst initialized teams in the country (159th, 151st, and 148th at KenPom, respectively).

Yale Bulldogs

Pick them to win because: The consistent Bulldogs will be facing an LSU team in turmoil. (See No. 3 seeds, above.)

Pick them to lose because: The consistent Bulldogs will be overmatched in four of five spots on the court, i.e. everywhere Miye Oni (17.6 PPG, 2.5 APG) isn’t.

No. 15 Seeds

Abilene Christian Wildcats

Pick them to win because: They force a lot of turnovers, sitting 8th in turnover percentage nationwide.

Pick them to lose because: They have played one top-100 team this year: Texas Tech. They lost by 34 points. They face Kentucky in the first round.

Bradley Braves

Pick them to win because: There is zero quit in this team. They trailed by as many as 18 points in the OVC Tournament final vs Northern Iowa. They erupted for 42 points in the second of an epic 57-54 comeback win.

YouTube video

Pick them to lose because: Apart from tenacity, they don’t really do anything well. They’re particularly bad on offense, ranking 246th nationally. They were held to 37 by Missouri State in late January.

Colgate Raiders

Pick them to win because: Momentum. The Raiders have won 11 straight games by an average of 11.5 PPG, including all three Patriot League Tournament games by double digits.

Pick them to lose because: No team from the Patriot League has won a tournament game since 2012, when no. 15 Lehigh pulled off a massive upset over no. 2 Duke.

Montana Grizzlies

Pick them to win because: Despite sitting 115th in offensive efficiency, they are 6th in effective field-goal percentage because they make threes at an extremely high rate (38%, 26th in DI).

Pick them to lose because: This is another team with a gaudy W/L record that ain’t played nobody. They faced one top-50 team (Creighton) and lost by 26.

No. 16 Seeds

Fairleigh Dickinson Knights

Pick them to win because: The Knights shoot the three-ball better than almost any team in the nation, sitting 5th overall in 3P% at 40.4%. If you look back at the teams that have pulled huge upsets in the tournament, they almost all rained fire from beyond the arc.

Pick them to lose because: They have arguably the worst loss among any of the teams in the field, falling 103-96 at home in double-OT to 319th ranked Central Connecticut.

Gardner Webb Runnin’ Bulldogs

Pick them to win because: They are trending way up. Their two best wins came in the semifinals and finals of the Big South Tournament (vs no. 2 seed Campbell and no. 1 seed Radford). Radford beat both Notre Dame and Texas.

Pick them to lose because: Not only has GW never won a tournament game, it’s never even made the tournament before.

Iona Gaels

Pick them to win because: The Gaels are just one of nine teams to carry a 10-plus-game win streak into the tournament, and they are 39th out of 353 DI teams in points per shot (1.33).

Pick them to lose because: They haven’t beaten a team ranked higher than 189th all year. They managed to get through the MAAC tournament without playing a team seeded higher than 5th.

2019 MAAC Tournament bracket
2019 MAAC Tournament bracket

North Dakota State Bison

Pick them to win because: Hrm. This is getting tough. Because they play very slowly? The Bison are ranked 311th in the nation in tempo; reducing the number of possessions in a game can help huge underdogs pull upsets.

Pick them to lose because: They are ranked 202nd at KenPom. No team ranked lower than 183rd (Norfolk State, 2012) has ever advanced past the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

North Carolina Central Eagles

Pick them to win because: Your guess is as good as mine.

Pick them to lose because: They are the only team ranked lower than 300th at KenPom (303rd). There are 353 teams in DI, for the record.

Prairie View A&M Panthers

Pick them to win because: They lost 11 of their first 12 games, but just one after that. Seriously, I don’t care who you’re playing, a 21-1 stretch in DI basketball is impressive.

Pick them to lose because: All 21 of those wins were against teams ranked 214th or worse.

SBD’s Regional Previews

SBD’s Other March Madness Coverage

Sascha Paruk
Sascha Paruk

Managing Editor

Sascha has been working in the sports-betting industry since 2014, and quickly paired his strong writing skills with a burgeoning knowledge of probability and statistics. He holds an undergraduate degree in linguistics and a Juris Doctor from the University of British Columbia.

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