Can Purdue reach a Final Four?
All-America center Zach Edey was 22 years from being born the last time the Boilermakers made it to college basketball’s ultimate stage. This is their second consecutive year as a No. 1 seed, and last year they became the second team ever to blow that seed on a first-round loss to a No. 16.
They’ve lost since by a single point on a day Gene Keady gave a memorable press conference over officials’ calls he disputed (second round 1990, Texas), on buzzer-beating putbacks (second round 1995, Memphis), to league rivals (Elite Eight 2000, Wisconsin) and in overtime when the opposition hit a last-second basket after a mad scramble on a deflected rebound (Elite Eight 2019, Virginia).
Can March at last provide an enduring memory of triumph for Purdue?
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All-Midwest Region team
C – Zach Edey, Purdue
F – Dalton Knecht, Tennessee
F – Baylor Scheierman, Creighton
F – Great Osobor, Utah State
G – Kevin McCullar, Kansas
Best Midwest Region first-round game
No. 6 South Carolina vs. No. 11 Oregon.
Somehow, South Carolina had a great season without ever truly asserting itself as a great team. Its only significant non-league game was against in-state rival Clemson. The Gamecocks lost. Inside the Southeastern Conference, they managed to blow out Kentucky in a home game and win on the road at Tennessee, but every opportunity to present themselves as special wound up a disappointment.
They visited Auburn with a 9-2 conference record and a shot at establishing themselves as a formidable contender for the SEC title. They lost by 40. They got Tennessee at home four games from the end, with a chance to erase the sting of that Auburn defeat, and they could not protect home court. After losing the SEC by a single game, they entered the league tournament in Nashville and met Auburn in the quarterfinals. This time, the Gamecocks lost by 31.
South Carolina is running out of chances. Winning a game or two in this tournament, though, is the loudest statement a college basketball team can make.
EXPERT PICKS: DeCourcy (UConn) | Bender (UConn) | Iyer (UConn) | Yanchulis (South Carolina women)
Seeded too high
No. 5 Gonzaga.
Had the Zags won the West Coast Conference tournament by taking down Saint Mary’s a second time, their exceptional performance metrics might have merited one of the top 20 seeds in this year’s tournament. But they didn’t.
They wound up just 3-6 in Quad 1 games. Half of their victories were earned against Quad 4 opponents, considered by the committee to be the least challenging available. They were only 7-7 against teams from the top two quadrants. Seeded No. 6, BYU and Clemson both were 10-10. The committee put Mountain West champion Utah State in an 8/9 game though the Aggies were 8-6.
Gonzaga lost at home to top-5 seeds San Diego State and Saint Mary’s. Their best wins were on the road against No. 3 seed Kentucky and No. 5 Saint Mary’s. But they dropped two of three against the Gaels. The Zags were only 2-5 against what is called the “at-large field” – teams that would have been included regardless of winning an automatic bid.
What was the committee thinking?
HISTORY OF UPSETS BY SEED:
16 vs. 1 | 15 vs. 2 | 14 vs. 3 | 13 vs. 4 | 12 vs. 5
Seeded too low
No. 8 Utah State.
You want to say the Aggies did not play a difficult enough non-conference schedule? Have at it. But it still was rated the No. 198 non-league schedule using the NCAA’s own NET rankings as the measurement. That’s a smidge better than the No. 324 schedule taken on by No. 2 seed Iowa State, or the No. 293 schedule played by No. 6 seed BYU.
League record is not something the committee claims to consider, but a regular-season championship is supposed to be honored. That didn’t happen, at all, with Utah State.
The committee might have used the Aggies’ poor predictive metrics against them – an average ranking of 59th – but South Carolina’s average of 53 did not prevent the Gamecocks from earning a No. 6 seed.
Upset special
No. 11 Oregon over No. 6 South Carolina
It should be no surprise to see the Gamecocks installed as only a 1.5-point favorite, even though Oregon would not have earned a position in the tournament without winning the final Pac-12 Tournament.
The Ducks are led by 25-year-old guard Jermaine Cousinard, who actually began his college career back in 2019 with the Gamecocks. They closed their season with four consecutive victories, three of them in the Pac-12 Tournament, to become one of the infamous “bid-stealers” of 2024. They did not dominate in any of those games, winning by an average of 5 points, but they upset regular-season champ Arizona and Colorado in the semis and finals. They will be a dangerous opponent for South Carolina.
MORE: Bracket busters to watch in 2024 March Madness
Best potential game
No. 1 Purdue vs. No. 2 Tennessee, possible Elite Eight.
The last time these two opposed one another in the NCAAs, it became one of the most entertaining games in March Madness history. In the 2019 Sweet 16 at Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center, Purdue’s Ryan Cline and Carsen Edwards combined to make 12-of-24 from 3-point range while the Vols had four players contribute to their team’s 12-of-24 performance. The final score was 99-94 in overtime, in favor of Purdue.
Who wouldn’t want to see that again? These are different teams now, but there is a first-team All-America selection on each roster: Purdue’s Zach Edey and Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht. Each is hungry for a Final Four appearance. Purdue has not been there since 1980. The Vols never have made it, going only so far as the Elite Eight in 2010.
But these two have to make it through three rounds for the game to happen.
PRINTABLE: Download a 2024 March Madness bracket here
Best potential player matchup
Zach Edey, Purdue vs. Hunter Dickinson, Kansas, possible Sweet 16
These two faced each other plenty the previous three years, when Dickinson was an immediate smash at Michigan starting in 2020-21 and Edey gradually was working his way into prominence at the same time.
They could have played at this year’s Maui Invitational, but KU lost in the semis to Marquette while Purdue was beating Tennessee. All the better, so we don’t know exactly what we’ll see now that Dickinson has found a new home and Edey has become the reigning superstar of (men’s) college basketball.
But they’ve really only met once since Edey became a full-time starter in 2022-23 and soon became the unanimous national player of the year. That was a game won by the Boilers, 75-70, at Michigan’s Crisler Arena. Edey had 19 points, 9 rebounds and 2 blocks in that game, shooting 9-of-16 from the floor. Dickinson scored 21 on 6-of-14 shooting and grabbed 7 rebounds.
So if we get this game, the big man showdown should be good.
SN AWARDS: Men's 2024 All-America teams | Player of the Year | Coach of the Year
Get to know
TCU guard Jameer Nelson Jr.
Yes, young Jameer is here to make all of us feel old – at least all of us who remember the original Jameer Nelson leaving Saint Joseph’s to an undefeated regular season in 2004 and winning all the major college basketball Player of the Year awards.
Jameer Jr. began his career at George Washington transferred to Delaware and helped the Blue Hens into the 2022 NCAA Tournament, where they lost in the first round to his dad’s old Philly rival, Villanova. After averaging 20.6 points on a sub-.500 team last year, he chose to spend his extra year of eligibility at TCU and is averaging 11.3 points and 3.3 assists. He hit a deep 3-pointer in a road game at Kansas State that might have been essential to TCU reaching the NCAA field.
Don’t be surprised if …
No. 3 seed Creighton finds its way to the Final Four for the first time. The Bluejays were a single (iffy) foul call away from making it last year, falling to San Diego State in the final seconds of their Elite Eight game.
There are some significant revisions to this Creighton team, necessitated by the transfer departures of two starters, but the changes have made this an even better shooting team, and a more active one. They are seventh in the nation in terms of the percentage of their shots that come from long range. They’ll beat you three points at a time.
MORE: Watch the 2024 NCAA Tournament with Sling TV
Sleeper team
No. 8 Utah State.
The composure the Aggies displayed in a home game against New Mexico they had to have to win the Mountain West was impressive. They won, 87-85, on a late 3-pointer from guard Darius Brown II that was launched without hesitation despite an ominous close-out challenge from UNM’s Jaelen House.
This is anything but a great defensive team, and that’ll get the Aggies eventually. It might even get them in the first round. But this can be a dangerous group.
Midwest Region Final Four pick
No. 2 seed Tennessee.
There are many concerned about the history of Tennessee coach Rick Barnes relative to the NCAA Tournament. He’s won 27 tournament games in 27 appearances. That’s obviously not Mike Krzyzewski-level, but there are those who lose more than they win, too.
The most important element of Tennessee’s recent struggles has been – with the exception of the 2019 team that featured Grant Williams – insufficient offenses. Barnes always has been more oriented toward defense, and his teams rarely have exceeded the sum of their parts when they have the ball.
But what if they just reach the sum of their parts. When one of those parts is Dalton Knecht, that can work. UT was No. 29 in offensive efficiency, according to KenPom.com, this season. A year ago, it was 64th. The year before, it was 35th. And in 2020-21, it was 85th. You can see the trend, and the solution.
Knecht has put everyone from Tennessee into their proper roles on offense. They still can get bogged down, as happened against Mississippi State in the SEC Tournament. But there’s enough here to win big.
