Category: March Madness

Why the Maryland Terrapins will win the 2020 NCAA Tournament

Why the Maryland Terrapins will win the 2020 NCAA Tournament.

Out of the hard-fought Big Ten battles from this winter emerges a beast from the East and a blast from the past. A perfect team – they are not. However, coming out of one of the best and most hotly contested leagues this season, the Maryland Terrapins (24-7) are worthy of a look to win the second NCAA Tournament championship in program history. The Terps’ 2002 title was the mantelpiece of a run that saw Maryland get to the Sweet 16 seven times in 10 years (1994-2003).

Here are three good reasons why the 11th-ranked (USA Today Sports Coaches Poll) Maryland Terrapins will win the 2020 NCAA Tournament.

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Battle-tested

Maryland went 14-6 over 20 regular-season Big Ten games. No less than five conference foes (Illinois, Iowa, Ohio State, Michigan State, Wisconsin) in the Coaches Poll were in the Terps’ way. Throw in Michigan, Penn State, Purdue and Rutgers as other worthy top 25s – all are well-placed on popular computer rankings heading into conference tournament play. Big road wins late in the season – at Minnesota, Michigan State and Illinois – are the kind that can roll a team into late March with a ton of confidence.

Youth led by a veteran guard

Senior G Anthony Cowan is a solid two-way player who can distribute and get to the foul line and score on offense, play exceptional defense, and give the Terrapins 35 minutes per game. The veteran guard leads a squad comprised of super sophs – Jalen Smith (15.5 points per game, 10.5 rebounds per game), Aaron Wiggins (10.4 PPG, 4.9 RPG), Eric Ayala (8.5 PPG), impact freshman – Donta Scott and a linchpin junior – Darryl Morsell – who complements Maryland’s efforts at both ends of the floor. The Terrapins are a young team that plays with high energy but at a tempo under their control.

Well-built for bracket play

The Terrapins’ game includes components well built a long bracket run. Maryland takes a lot of undefended 15-footers each game – the Terps rank second in the Big Ten, with 21.6 free-throw attempts per contest. Maryland hoists a lot of shots from beyond the three-point arc – they are better away from home in their success rate on those shots and have performed well in recent contests against top-20 foes. The Terps are also one of the top teams in the nation when it comes to finishing at the rim. They take care of the basketball, allowing fewer breakdown buckets off turnovers than most teams that will be in the tournament. It all makes for efficiency and variety on offense. On defense, Maryland has held opponents to a 38-percent mark from the floor. The Terrapins are exceptional at keeping foes from scoring near the rim. The 6-foot-10 Jalen Smith is a big factor in the paint. His 2.4 blocks per game will be among the highest averages for any player in the tournament, and it’s clear that he affects twice as many shots as he swats.

Maryland has made just one Sweet 16 in the last 15 years (2016), but the 2019-20 Terrapins are built to win different types of games and perhaps go all the way.

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Why the Seton Hall Pirates will win the 2020 NCAA Tournament

Three reasons why the Seton Hall Pirates will win the 2020 NCAA Tournament.

The Seton Hall Pirates (21-9) enter the Big East Conference Tournament ranked No. 15 in the USA TODAY Sports Men’s Basketball Coaches Poll, making them a lock to be invited to the Big Dance. This will be Seton Hall’s fifth straight season in the NCAA Tournament under head coach Kevin Willard, which is the longest streak in the school’s history, but they haven’t advanced past the second round.

Below are a few good reasons why the Seton Hall Pirates will finally have its One Shining Moment and win the 2020 NCAA Tournament.

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Battle-tested

Seton Hall played the 20th-most difficult strength of schedule in the country, and despite not getting the hype it did back in its glory days, the Big East Conference is still a conference of champions. Four of the National Champions the last decade were Big East teams—the Connecticut Huskies and Villanova Wildcats each claimed two titles—which was second behind the Atlantic Coast Conference’s five National Championship teams.

The Pirates went just 4-5 against their nine ranked opponents, and aside from the 17-point dusting they took at the hands of the No. 9 Creighton Bluejays in their last regular-season game, Seton Hall played all of them tough. The Pirates didn’t have a bad loss—four of them were by one possession and the other was a five-point loss to Creighton. Their season highlights included a 52-48 home win over then-No. 7 Maryland Terrapins on Dec. 19 and splitting the season series with perennial powerhouse No. 8 Villanova Wildcats.

Interior presence 

Seton Hall is a low-key big team as they are one of the few ranked teams with a legit seven-footer in their starting lineup. Starting C Romaro Gill—who leads the Big East in blocks per game—is listed at 7-foot-2, and starting PF Sandro Mamukelashvili is 6-foot-11. Their size could create headaches for opposing offenses in a win-or-go-home game. The novelty alone of going against bigs like the Pirates have could cause teams to force up ill-timed threes, dissuade foes from attack the basket and, in turn, opponents getting to less foul shots.

Experience

All five of Seton Hall’s starters are upperclassmen, including three seniors and four starters from last year’s NCAA Tournament team. Their two leading scorers are PG Quincy McKnight and SG Myles Powell, who is second in the Big East in points per game (21 PPG). One of the key attributes of the recent title-winning programs is to have upperclassmen guards to run the offense. Five of the previous seven national title winners had two upperclassmen guards in their starting lineup, with the previous two champions trotting out a three-guard starting lineup. Powell will start in his third consecutive NCAA Tournament, and McKnight his second, so their veteran leadership will be relied upon in the big moments of the tournament. Powell and Co. will have to play their best six games of their lives if they want to be this year’s Cinderella story.

These factors make it plausible the 2020 Seton Hall Pirates win the program’s first-ever national championship.

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Why Dayton will win the 2020 NCAA National Championship

The reasons why the Dayton Flyers will win the 2020 NCAA Tournament

A lot of March Madness fans are familiar with Dayton college basketball as the host of the midweek play-in games, which it has done every year since 2001. Then, before even the first Cinderella loses a slipper, the tournament is elsewhere, grinding out overlapping games on televisions, laptop screens, tablets and phones. And Dayton is relegated in memory as a pre-bracket before the real bracket.

Enter the 2019-20 Dayton Flyers (29-2) — a well-constructed, talented, versatile basketball team. One that may well put Dayton at the other end of the bracket this year. As the last team in that bracket — as national champion. Below, we lay out the key reasons Dayton will weave its way through the brackets and win the title.

Shooting

Dayton’s 80 points per game lead a talented Atlantic-10 which can boast five top-60 teams. Three of those teams — VCU, St. Louis, Rhode Island — are exceptional defensively. And the Flyers have averaged 76.5 PPG against them. The scoring comes from being the nation’s top shooting team. UD owns an effective field-goal accuracy mark (a shooting measure that equalizes 33.3% on 3-pointers with 50% on 2-pointers) of 59.7%.

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Defense

UD defends well: the Flyers rank 51st in the nation with a 46.6% eFG. Dayton is average in forcing turnovers and well above average in blocking shots. What the Flyers do best is the flip side of their shooting coin: they defend shots. Also notable in Dayton’s shooting and defense thereof is the broad base on both sides. Offensively, UD is proficient in the paint, on mid-range jumpers and on 3s. On defense, the Flyers put a stop sign on the same shot types.

Flexibility

Dayton sports a deep rotation with a near-perfect mix of seniors, juniors, and sophomores … of 6-foot-1, 6-5, 6-7, and 6-9 athletes. It all equates to balance on both sides of the floor and makes for a variety and flexibility that can be tough to match up against.

Star power

When all of the above works in a fluid team environment, all is well. But when that breaks down, it’s nice to have some elite talent on which to lean. Enter 6-9 sophomore forward Obi Toppin, a tremendously athletic go-to player in the running for national player of the year. Toppin is averaging 20 points and 7.5 rebounds per game. He’s shooting 63.3% from the floor and 39% from 3-point-land. Jalen Crutcher, a 6-1 junior guard, is averaging 15.1 points and 4.9 assists per contest. Crutcher is the lead distributor on an unselfish team that passes the ball with purpose and fluidity.

Intangibles

Peripheral analytics reveal a high level, well-coached basketball team that plays well away from home and puts together consistent performances without big peaks and valleys. The Flyers are remarkably efficient on offense, adequately efficient on defense, and above-all-others efficient in establishing, building upon and protecting leads in basketball games.

All of this is what they’re going to want to do six times in a row in the NCAA Tournament.

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Why the Kansas Jayhawks will win the NCAA Tournament

Thre reasons why the Kansas Jayhawks will win the 2020 NCAA Tournament

The Kansas Jayhawks (28-3) are one of the blueblood programs in college basketball. They haven’t won a national title since 2008 despite winning or sharing the Big 12 regular-season crown in 15 of the last 16 seasons. But here they are again, No. 1 in the USA TODAY Sports Men’s Basketball Coaches Poll after the regular season.

Here are three good reasons why the Kansas Jayhawks will win the 2020 NCAA Tournament.

The six-pack challenge

The Jayhawks have the players to make a long run in the tournament, facing the task of beating six teams that will present different styles and personnel. After dropping its season opener to Duke, Kansas rattled off nine consecutive wins before losing to Villanova and Baylor four games later. Since then, the Jayhawks have strung together 16 straight wins (eight by double digits), including a “payback” victory at then-No. 1 Baylor Feb. 22.

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Sharing the wealth

Kansas has seven players who average more than 10 minutes a game, five that average more than 24.5 minutes and three – G Devon Dotson, G Ochai Agbaji and G Marcus Garrett – who average more than 32 minutes. Four Jayhawks played in all 31 games, while three others played 30 and one played 29. The team is a well-oiled machine with tons of experience – the starting five has two seniors, two sophomores and a junior. Seven different players have been the leading scorer in games led by Dotson (13 times) and C Udoka Azubuike (8 times). The Jayhawks’ balance is such that Dotson (18.1 PPG) is the only player who has averaged 14 or more points. They are unselfish and go with the hot hand. Few teams have the kind of balance the Jayhawks do, which allows them to survive when a key player or two gets in foul trouble.

Home cookin’

The NCAA has a special affinity (an unfair affinity in some minds) that consistently leaves Kansas playing close to home, not forcing fans to travel far. Even when Kansas hasn’t been a No. 1 seed, it somehow ends up with a decent home-court advantage. It has happened too often to be denied and, with a first-/second-round site in St. Louis this year, one can probably bet Kansas will end up there. For more than 40 years, the NCAA was headquartered in Kansas City and it still seems to favor the Jayhawks every Selection Sunday.

It’s been more than a decade since Kansas won it all, but this could be the best team it has to bring the championship back to Lawrence in years.

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Gannett may earn revenue from audience referrals to betting services.  Newsrooms are independent of this relationship and there is no influence on news coverage.

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