West Conference Title Dilemma Brewing for Marry Madness 2026!

The best event in sports is here and we will be as well, providing step-by-step previews of each region and breaking down what to watch for and who to keep an eye on during the basketball feast that is the NCAA Tournament. Who the metrics love: #9 Utah State The Aggies landed on the 9 line despite being top 30 in both Torvik and Kenpom, largely due to their non conference resume consisting entirely of wins over VCU and Illinois St. on neutral floors and the 10 point oopsie they had at home against UNLV, who went on to complete the sweep in Vegas.

In year two under potentially my new least favorite coach in college basketball, pending his response to Cincinnati’s overtures, Jerrod Calhoun, Utah State has maintained their excellent, free flowing offensive attack while also improving 105 spots from 150th to 45th on the defensive end. They have done this by forcing opponents to shoot 4% worse from inside the arc than last season which has surprisingly coniceded with a drop in their block rate. Who the metrics hate: #10 Missouri The Tigers were beneficiaries of the rest of the bubble vomiting in their own laps down the stretch and own the worst NET of any at large team that didn’t end up in the First Four.

They are ranked behind 5 of the 6 11 seeds in both KenPom and Torvik. Their offense is decent when they don’t turn the ball over, which they do at the 268th highest rate in the country, but their defense is good at almost nothing save for 2 point defense. The absolutely belong in the field after going 20-12 overall and 10-8 in the SEC, but they also lost their rivalry games against Kansas and Illinois be a combined total of 63 points and have some glaring defensive issues.

Easy to like: #15 Queens The Royals didn’t even field a basketball team until the 1989-90 season and are only in their fourth year at the Division I level. Furthermore, the school merging with Elon University and will be operated by Elon once the merger is complete, making the future of the athletic department somewhat murky. With all that as backdrop, they ran through the ASun Tournament as the three seed and dropped top seeded Central Arkansas in an overtime thriller to punch their ticket to the dance.