MARCH MADNESS: Top storylines for the 2024 NCAA Tournament following Selection Sunday

The most magical time of the year on the sports calendar is upon us once again with the return of March Madness.

With a field of 68 teams, the sheer number of storylines at play can feel a bit overwhelming. There is a whole lot to talk about in both the lead up to the opening weekend of the tournament and well beyond until a national champion is crowned on April 8th, but here are just a handful of the top storylines in the aftermath of Selection Sunday.

Can Purdue or Tennessee make a March breakthrough?

One constant with the NCAA Tournament is discussion around programs/coaches who have reputations for coming up short in March. The two programs that best fit that characterization in this year’s field just happen to be a couple teams with Final Four and national championship aspirations.

Poor, poor Purdue. The Boilermakers were on the wrong side of history a year ago when they became just the second No. 1 seed in NCAA Tournament history to get bounced in the first round by crashing and burning against Fairleigh Dickinson. That marked the third consecutive year that Purdue was knocked out by a double-digit seed, following a Sweet 16 loss to No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s in 2022 and a first-round exit against No. 13 seed North Texas in 2021.

To Purdue’s credit, they only look better this year. The Boilermakers brought in transfer guard Lance Jones from Southern Illinois, and he’s made a major impact by doing all the little things. The backcourt duo of Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer each made meaningful jumps as sophomores after looking shaky on the March Madness stage as freshmen. Zach Edey remains college basketball’s most dominant force, but now the question is simple: Does Purdue have enough around Edey to get over the NCAA Tournament hump? 

Fair or not, the Boilermakers’ recent March flameouts combined with the fact that the program hasn’t been to the Final Four in 44 years means that anything less than playing on the final weekend will be viewed by most as a failure.

Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes seems like a lock to make the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame one day and this season he became the 15th coach in NCAA men’s basketball history to accrue 800 wins at the Division I level. In his nine seasons in Knoxville, he’s turned the Volunteers into one of the premier programs in the SEC. Yet when many fans think of Barnes, their first thought is his shortcomings in March.

Barnes owns a mediocre 27-27 career record in the NCAA Tournament, and his reputation as a March underachiever dates back to his time at Texas. A Barnes team hasn’t been to the Elite Eight since 2008 and his lone Final Four appearance came all the way back in 2003. His teams are almost always stout on the defensive end, but they’re prone to stalling out on offense. The possible remedy: SEC Player of the Year Dalton Knecht.

This Tennessee offense has its faults and is only rated as the 29th-most efficient offense in the country — good, not elite — but the presence of Knecht could be a game changer. He is the type of player who can provide instant offense in a variety of ways and end any scoring drought. If Knecht is at his sharpest in the weeks ahead, the Volunteers could very well be destined for the Final Four for the first time in school history.

With both Purdue and Tennessee in the Midwest Region, could each advance far enough to give us a perception-altering Elite Eight matchup?

UConn goes for rare repeat title

No team in men’s college basketball has managed to repeat as Division I national champions since the Florida Gators went back-to-back in 2006 and 2007. In fact, no defending champion since Florida repeated in 2007 has managed to advance further than the Sweet 16 the following year. But the Huskies enter the 2024 tournament as the top overall seed in the field and the favorites to cut down the nets on the final night of the season once again.

UConn lost a number of players from last year’s championship team, including leading scorer Adama Sanogo and a pair of NBA draft picks: Jordan Hawkins (No. 14 overall by the New Orleans Pelicans) and Andre Jackson Jr. (No. 36 overall by the Milwaukee Bucks).

The Huskies were still expected to be among the nation’s best this year — as evidenced by their No. 6 ranking in the preseason AP poll — but I don’t know that many expected them to be quite this good again. This version of UConn is led by a starting rotation featuring a pair of All-Big East first-team guards (Tristen Newton, Cam Spencer), two potential NBA draft lottery picks (Stephon Castle, Donovan Clingan) and sophomore forward Alex Karaban, who is averaging 13.9 points per game this season and, like Newton, started in last year’s national championship game.

On paper, there doesn’t seem like a better, more balanced team in the country than the UConn Huskies. But there’s a reason why it’s been so long since we’ve had a repeat national champion: winning six games in a row in this single-elimination format that breeds so much chaos is damn difficult, no matter how good you are.

Mountain West seeding disrespect

The dream of a six-bid Mountain West in this year’s NCAA Tournament became a reality on Selection Sunday, as San Diego State, Utah State, Nevada, Boise State, New Mexico and Colorado State all had their names called. 

Not only is that a record number of Mountain West teams in the NCAA Tournament, but it’s tied with the same amount as the Big Ten and behind only the Big 12 and the SEC, who are each sending eight teams to the Big Dance. That’s the good news. The bad news: bracketologist projections were more bullish on seeding for the Mountain West than the selection committee.

There’s a handy site called Bracket Matrix that serves as a bracketology aggregate. This year, a total of 226 bracketologists were featured in the matrix. That allows sickos like me and many others to keep tabs on how the NCAA Tournament picture is likely unfolding throughout the regular season.

Going into the Selection Sunday show, the final Bracket Matrix projection had six Mountain West teams in the field with the following seeds: San Diego State as a No. 5 seed, Utah State as a No. 6 seed, Nevada as a No. 7 seed, Boise State as a No. 8 seed and both New Mexico and Colorado State as No. 9 seeds.

Here’s how the selection committee actually seeded those MWC teams: San Diego State (No. 5 seed), Utah State (No. 8 seed), Nevada (No. 10 seed), Boise State (No. 10 seed), Colorado State (No. 10 seed) and New Mexico (No. 11 seed).

Bracket Matrix didn’t predict a single Mountain West team to end up as a double-digit seed. In reality, four of the conference’s six tournament teams wound up as double-digit seeds, with both Boise State and Colorado State relegated to the First Four to fight for a spot in the field of 64.

Much was made going into the 2023 tournament about the Mountain West’s lack of success in March. San Diego State represented the conference very well last year by advancing all the way to the national championship game, but those Aztecs are responsible for every tournament win by the Mountain West since 2019. Outside of that San Diego State run, the other 11 Mountain West teams to make it into the last four NCAA Tournaments have failed to register a single win.

Players and coaches love nothing more than finding disrespect to help give them that extra chip on their shoulders as motivation. The selection committee did the Mountain West no favors in terms of seeding this year, but maybe that will add a little extra fuel to the motivational fire as these six teams look to end a historic season for the conference with a strong collective showing in the tourney.

Bid thieves create more Selection Sunday chaos

There was more bid thievery than usual during this conference tournament season. NC State, Oregon, Duquesne and UAB all secured automatic bids in conferences where there were other NCAA Tournament locks. As it turned out, New Mexico needed to win its conference tournament to get in as well despite being a bubble team who some expected to earn an at-large spot regardless.

All that bid stealing dramatically shook up the bubble, leading to a few extra teams believing they’d been snubbed and causing a little extra Selection Sunday sweating for teams that suddenly might’ve not felt so safe.

The committee’s last four in were Boise State, Colorado, Virginia and Colorado State while the last four out were Oklahoma, Seton Hall, Indiana State and Pittsburgh. Virginia was probably the most controversial inclusion, as the Cavaliers are 54th in the NET rankings and a not-so-nice 69th in KenPom.

No conference felt more snubbed than the Big East, as bubble teams St. John’s, Seton Hall and Providence were all left on the outside looking in. As a result, the Big East is sending only three teams to the tournament for the first time since 1993.

Committee dings weak non-conference schedules

This is by no means a new storyline, but the trend of the selection committee punishing teams for having weak non-conference schedules continued this year.

For starters, let’s take a look at the non-conference strength of schedule rankings (according to NET) for some of the bubble teams that missed the cut: St. John’s (172nd), Indiana State (188th), Seton Hall (227th), Providence (230th), Oklahoma (274th), Pittsburgh (343rd).

And the non-conference SOS for some bubble teams that earned at-large berths: Texas A&M (21st), Boise State (32nd), Michigan State (44th), Florida Atlantic (51st), Colorado State (82nd).

Of course, non-conference strength of schedule is just one piece of the puzzle when evaluating résumés. Virginia (161st) and Colorado (262nd) each earned an at-large berth despite their non-conference SOS being weak. But it was undeniably an important factor. Of the teams that just missed the cut, none of them had a top-100 non-conference strength of schedule. Bubble teams like Texas A&M and Michigan State wound up being in more comfortably than some might’ve expected, and their strong non-conference SOS likely helped.

This talking point went beyond just bubble teams, too. Everyone knew UConn, Purdue and Houston were going to earn No. 1 seeds on Selection Sunday. The intrigue came with who would get that final spot on the No. 1 seed line.

Iowa State made a strong late push by crushing Houston 69-41 on Saturday to claim the Big 12 tournament title. The Cyclones went into Selection Sunday with a 27-7 record, including a 10-6 mark in Quad 1 games and a 6-1 mark against Quad 2 competition.

However, it was the North Carolina Tar Heels who wound up getting the final No. 1 seed. They owned an identical 27-7 record while going 9-3 in Quad 1 games and 7-4 in Quad 2 games. North Carolina’s non-conference strength of schedule ranking: 25th. Iowa State’s: 324th.

Welcome (back) to the Big Dance

One of the most fun things about conference tournament season is rooting for teams that have either never been to the NCAA Tournament or have lengthy active droughts. The excitement when one of those types of teams clinches an automatic bid is hard to beat.

In the 2024 NCAA Tournament field, we have two programs who are part of the Big Dance for the very first time: the Stetson Hatters and the Grambling State Tigers.

Stetson is a small private school in DeLand, Florida with an enrollment of around 3,500 students that first started playing Division I basketball all the way back in 1971. After over a half-century of waiting, the Hatters finally punched their first NCAA Tournament ticket by winning the Atlantic Sun tournament as part of a season that has seen them post a school-record 22 wins.

Grambling State is no stranger to athletic success, as the legendary coach Eddie Robinson won 408 games in his 55 seasons at the helm of the school’s football program. On the basketball court, the Tigers went 572-288 under Fred Hobdy’s three-decade tenure that lasted from 1957 to 1986 and included a 1961 NAIA national championship during the playing days of Willis Reed.

However, since the SWAC joined the Division I ranks during the 1977-78 season, Grambling State had never made the NCAA Tournament. That finally changed this year when the Tigers secured an automatic bid by winning the SWAC tournament in their fifth appearance in the conference championship game.

Other notable tournament droughts ending this season are Duquesne (first appearance since 1977), Samford (2000), McNeese (2002) and Wagner (2003).

The Nebraska Cornhuskers are back in the March Madness field for the first time in a decade, but that’s not the history they’re trying to make. Nebraska has the dubious distinction of being the only major conference team to have never won an NCAA Tournament game.