Top seed outlook: Could No. 1 Virginia exorcise the past year’s allies now that the team is currently at full strength? Our model thinks so. The Cavaliers have a 49 percent probability of cracking the Final Four and a 31 percent probability of reaching what would be the program’s first national title game.
Together with De’Andre Hunter, who wasn’t on the court last year during UVA’s historical loss to No. 16 Maryland Baltimore County, the Cavaliers were dominant on both ends — the only team standing in the top five in Pomeroy’s adjusted offense and defense metrics. Yet again, Tony Bennett’s pack line defense is suffocating most every offensive chance and successfully turning games into rock fights. But this year’s group is better on the offensive end and should breeze into the Elite Eight, in which it might meet Tennessee. Thanks to Grant Williams along with the superbly appointed Admiral Schofield, the No. 2 Volunteers are playing their very best basketball in program history. We provide them a 22 percent likelihood of reaching the Final Four.
Sneaky Final Four pick: No. 6 Villanova. Can it be”sneaky” to select the team that has won two of the past three national titles? Not. But this has not been the same team that coach Jay Wright advised to these championships. After losing a ton of its best players from last year’s title-winning team, 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 past week, capping off a season in which they won the Big East regular-season and conference-tournament titles — and still had one of the 20 best offenses in the nation according to KenPom (powered by an absurd amount of 3-pointers). Our power ratings think they’re the fourth-best team in the South despite being the No. 6 seed, and they have a 5% chance of earning it back into the Final Four for a third time in four seasons.
Don’t bet on: No. 4 Kansas State. Coach Bruce Weber’s Wildcats almost made the Final Four final season, however they might find it harder this time around. K-State has an elite defense (it ranks fourth in the nation according to Pomeroy’s ratings), but its crime is more prone to struggles — and may be down its second-leading scorer, forward Dean Wade, who missed the team’s Big 12 championship loss to Iowa State with a foot injury. A barbarous draw that provides the Wildcats tough No. 13 seed UC Irvine in the first round, then puts them opposite the Wisconsin-Oregon winner at Round 2, could limit their potential to progress deep into a second consecutive tournament.
Cinderella see: No. 12 Oregon. In accordance with our model, the Ducks have the very best Sweet 16 odds (24 percent) of any double-digit seed in the tournament, over double that of some other candidate. Oregon struggled to string together wins for the majority of the regular season, and its own odds seemed sunk following 7-foot-2 phenom Bol Bol was lost for the season with a foot injury in January. But the Ducks have rallied to win eight consecutive games heading into the championship, including a convincing victory in Saturday’s Pac-12 championship. Oregon fits a similar mould as K-State — great defense using a defendant crime — but that’s telling, given that the Ducks are a 12-seed and the Wildcats are a No. 4. If they meet in the Round of 32, we give Oregon a 47 percent chance at the upset.
Player to watch: Grant Williams, Tennessee
The junior has come a very long way from being”a fat boy with some ability.” Williams, the de facto leader of Rick Barnes’s Volunteers, has bullied the SEC over the previous two seasons, collecting two successive conference player of the year honors.
The Vols might just feature the best offense of Barnes’s training career — and we’re talking about a guy who coached Kevin Durant! Much of that offensive potency could be tracked to Williams, the team’s top scorer and rebounder, that ranks in the 97th percentile in scoring efficiency, based on data courtesy of Synergy Sports.
Williams possesses an old-man game you might find at a local YMCA, a back-to-the-basket, footwork-proficient offensive assault that manifests mostly in post-ups, where he positions in the 98th percentile in scoring efficacy and shoots a adjusted field-goal percentage of 56.1. He can get the Volunteers buckets from the waning minutes of matches, too, as he positions from the 96th percentile in isolation scoring efficacy.
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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