Four double-digit seeds won games Thursday. Will more upsets follow Friday? Follow here for updates from around the country.
Getting to know Baylor Team in 16 words: Talented enough to reach the Final Four — especially if the defense can get a stop. Strengths: Scoring. Baylor ranks among the national leaders in 3-point shooting (39.4 percent) and inside the arc (53.3 percent), and they’re also among the top 20 teams in getting to the free-throw line. And when the Bears miss? They grab 35 percent of their misses, 24th in the country. Weaknesses: The Bears show flashes of defense, especially when freshman big man Yves Missi is active in the middle. But when he’s off the court (and even when he’s on) they’re soft in the middle, and rarely force any turnovers. Outlook: If you’re looking for a dark-horse champion, Baylor is it. Half of the Bears’ losses were either in overtime or by a single possession. They feature two future NBA lottery picks in Missi and Ja’Kobe Walter; Jalen Bridges is an experienced, versatile forward with size; and Jayden Nunn might be the most underrated scorer in the Big 12. Plus, Scott Drew won it all just three years ago. The difference between that championship team and this one is that this year the Bears lack a lock-down defender. Otherwise, everything else is pretty much the same.
What to watch in the West bracket SPOKANE, Wash. — Good morning from the Spokane Arena, where we’re all getting an early start on madness. By 9 a.m. local time, they were already cranking Tom Petty Full Moon Fever-era tunes at David’s Pizza, in advance of today’s quartet of games. Is this the chaos pod in the chaos season for men’s basketball? Yes, as everyone knows, there was sufficient weirdness elsewhere on Thursday. But this is a site featuring two No. 4 vs. No. 13 games and two No. 5 vs. No. 12 games. These are the O.G. upset setups, basically. And three of the four lower-seeded teams were ranked inside the KenPom.com top 100 as of Thursday. The possibility of competitive, tension-filled games is strong to quite strong. Even the one team outside of that range, UAB, finds itself in a bit of a mirror-image matchup with San Diego State to kickstart the day, which could mean that the margin stays close enough to make things interesting. “Everybody on the floor is dangerous offensively, which is rare,” Aztecs coach Brian Dutcher said Thursday. “Usually, there’s one or two guys you key on. If you don’t pay attention to everyone out there, anyone on that floor is capable of putting up 20, 25 points. They’re the No. 22 ranked offensive rebounding team in the country. Everybody knows we’ve struggled sometimes rebounding the ball, and so we have to make sure we play defense at a high level and finish with a rebound.” Here’s guessing the most entertaining game of the day here is Alabama-Charleston, though, with both sides happy to rev the tempo and play turnstile defense. “Offensively, they’re one of the better teams in the country,” Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats said Thursday. “They play fast, they shoot a lot of 3s, they run a lot of five-out stuff, got very talented players. So we’re going to be ready to go.”
Getting to know Florida Atlantic Team in 16 words: Last season’s Cinderella story brought just about everyone back, but were up and down this season. Coach: Dusty May (4-1 in NCAA Tournament, 1 Final Four) Player to watch: Johnell Davis (AAC Player of the Year) Strengths: The Owls brought just about everyone back from a team that went to the Final Four a year ago, so they have a level of experience that no other squad can match. FAU also has one of the best guards in the country in Johnell Davis — who is capable of scoring with efficiency from all three levels. Big man Vlad Goldin has made strides and at times has been the team’s best player, and also a legit low-post scoring threat.
