This is March.
Welcome to the very best time of the year — for both diehard college hoops fans and also the surprising number of office coworkers who prefer to fill out their brackets based on mascot preferences. We don’t have much time between Selection Sunday and the start of the first round of the men’s NCAA Tournament, so I want to share my initial thoughts on the 2025 field to help you and yours as you fill out your bracket(s). And I’ll share my picks as well.
My biggest takeaways from the bracket reveal and thoughts ahead of the madness:
– The story of Selection Sunday was the SEC. Fourteen Southeastern Conference teams made the men’s NCAA Tournament, shattering the previous record of participants from one conference in the same tournament (11 teams, set by the old Big East in 2011). It’s an incredible accomplishment for a league that we typically associate with football. But SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and his schools have made a concerted effort to improve their men’s basketball product — investing more in resources, hiring better coaches and improving scheduling across the board — and it has been rewarded with 14 of the SEC’s 16 teams making the big dance.
– Everyone’s up in arms about North Carolina. And it’s not a great look for the selection committee, to be honest. The Tar Heels were the last team into the NCAA Tournament and will play San Diego State in the First Four despite a 1-12 record vs. Quad 1 opponents. In the last bracket matrix (which combines predictions from 111 different bracketologists), all 111 bracketologists had West Virginia in the field; the Mountaineers were the first team out. Only 27 bracketologists put UNC into their fields. So, yeah, it was a pretty shocking selection, and it doesn’t help matters that North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham was the chair of the selection committee. Of course, protocol dictates that he leaves the room when his school is discussed, but it’s still not a great look. The conspiracy theorists will be out in force.
– There are a ton of mid-major teams with upset potential. One of the cruelest parts of March is when a team that’s dominated its league all season gets upset in its conference tournament and misses out on March Madness because it’s a one-bid league. We didn’t see a ton of upsets this year, which means some of the best mid-major teams all season will be the ones that we’ll see in action this week. Keep an eye on UC San Diego, High Point and McNeese State. I also like No. 10 Utah State over No. 7 UCLA.
– But the Cinderella story of the tournament will be Drake. After winning four Division II national championships at Northwest Missouri State, Ben McCollum jumped up to Division I and promptly started winning basketball games at this level. Drake won both the MVC regular season title and the conference championship in McCollum’s first season. This is a team that rebounds extremely well on both ends while forcing a lot of turnovers, which means the Bulldogs typically get significantly more scoring opportunities than their opponents.
And they rank dead-last in the nation in tempo, maximizing possessions even more by playing at such a slow pace — they have more chances to score than their opponent, and their opponent feels more pressure because it won’t have many chances to make up for empty possessions. That’s a winning combo, and, as I like to say in March, styles make fights.
As for the top seeds:
Duke is still really, really good. You should consider picking them to win it all, like I am. Assuming Cooper Flagg is healthy — and that is the expectation — this is still the best team in the country. And the Blue Devils comfortably handled Louisville in the ACC championship game without Flagg or Maliq Brown. Sure, the level of competition in the ACC wasn’t great. But that doesn’t mean Jon Scheyer‘s crew isn’t the best of the best.
Florida has a brutal draw. The Gators are red-hot and playing as well as anybody in the country coming into the NCAA Tournament. But they also drew St. John’s as the No. 2 seed in their region, Texas Tech as the No. 3 and Maryland as the No. 4. Those are all teams I thought I’d consider picking to reach the Final Four ahead of the Selection Sunday show. That might be too treacherous a path for Florida to survive to get to San Antonio, especially after a treacherous regular season in the SEC.
Houston is a No. 1 seed, yet somehow, underrated. It doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, either. But this is Kelvin Sampson‘s best (and healthiest) team yet at Houston, and the Cougars’ style of play is exhausting to face — and nearly impossible to score against. I’ve got Houston reaching the Final Four in my bracket for that reason. That’s not a team that would be easy to prepare for on the two-day turnaround.
I’m torn on Auburn. The Tigers lost three of four games heading into Selection Sunday. I still trust Bruce Pearl and this super-veteran team, led by one of the best players in the country. But I thought they were a bit more bulletproof than they seemed to be over the past week or two. I’m taking Tom Izzo and his Michigan State Spartans to knock Auburn out in the Elite Eight. Izzo has taken eight teams to the Final Four over the course of his Hall of Fame career, and this team has that kind of DNA, too.
Players I’m most excited to watch:
– Cooper Flagg: This is self-explanatory, assuming he’s healthy. Flagg is projected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. He’s unbelievably entertaining to watch, which is why his injury during the ACC Tournament was such a bummer. Thankfully, he’s expected to play in March Madness — and here’s hoping he’s close to 100 percent, so we get to see if one of the best teams in the nation all year ends up being the best team in this tournament.
– Johni Broome: Auburn’s best player may be the nation’s best player. It’s Flagg vs. Broome for all the National Player of the Year awards, and rightfully so. The old-school vet and walking double-double has led the Tigers all season long, and he’ll try to carry this team all the way to a national championship over the coming weeks. Despite losing three of its last four games, Auburn remains poised for a deep March run because of its age and experience, led by Broome.
– Zuby Ejiofor: The St. John’s center has had some massive performances when the Johnnies needed him most — most recently with a career-high 33 points in the semifinal of the Big East conference tournament and the buzzer-beater against Marquette in the team’s regular-season finale. “I have been coaching for fifty years. There are very few Zubys to come along,” St. John’s coach Rick Pitino said this weekend. Pitino himself will be one of the biggest storylines of March Madness, which means we’ll all get to learn more about this team and its many tough, dynamic playmakers.
– Derik Queen: Maryland is something of a sleeper pick to make it to the Final Four, and the play of the Big Ten’s Freshman of the Year is a huge reason why. The 6-10, 246-pound center averaged nearly a double-double over the course of the regular season — and had an astonishing 20 points-20 rebounds stat line in his collegiate debut. He’s a matchup nightmare for opponents because he creates and takes advantage of his own mismatches.
– Kyler Filewich, Wofford’s granny-style free-throw shooter: Need I say more? Any player who attempts underhanded free throws is automatic must-see TV for me. Over the first 23 games of the season when he shot free throws conventionally, he shot just 29.6 percent from the line. (That was nearly twice as bad as Shaq shot ‘em over the course of his NBA career.) A Wofford assistant coach arranged to fly in Hall of Famer Rick Barry to teach Filewich the art of the underhanded shot. His free throws are still far from automatic — he made three of seven in the SoCon championship game — but I still deeply respect the effort from an integral part of Wofford’s success on the floor. I’ll be rooting for him.
Final Four picks, national champion, and full bracket:
– Final Four: Michigan State, Duke, Houston and Florida
– National champion: Duke. Assuming Cooper Flagg is and stays healthy, the best team in the country will be the one that cuts down the nets.
And finally, here’s my full bracket:
