NCAA Tournament: Day 2 of NCAA Tournament

Who to watch, what to watch for and your day 2 NCAA Tournament primer

By GopherNation Mar 20, 2021, 11:20am CDT

Friday was fun, eh? Let’s do this again.

Here are some of the highlights to look for in today’s slate of round 1 games.

9-St. Bonaventure vs. 8-LSU - Not just because these seeds are so close, but this should be a fun game to watch. The Bonnies are good and balanced. They have 5 guys who score in double figures and really only play 6 guys. The Tigers are not a great defensive team and I suspect this SEC team goes home early.
11-UCLA vs. 6-BYU - I suspect an upset here for the Bruins. Should be an entertaining game.

14-Abilene Christian vs. 3-Texas Longhorns - First of all, Texas is not playing at the elite level they were playing in the first half of the year. A KenPom ranking in the top 10 through January and they have fallen to currently be ranked 26th. But bigger than that, the Longhorns have trouble turning the ball over, the rank 236th nationally. AND the Wildcats of Abilene Christian rank #1 in the country in force turnovers. They also rank 21st nationally in 3pt%. Teams that force turnovers and hit threes are almost the ideal upset profile team.

I really don’t see this as a big upset day. Maryland over UConn and VCU over Oregon. But 10-seeds are not really upsets.

Jalen Suggs - Gonzaga - Should be fun to watch the Minnehaha kid play on this stage.
Evan Mobley - USC - The big man from USC is probably a top-3 pick in the draft. An elite shot-blocker and I’m very excited to see him dominate the paint against XXX
McKinley Wright - Colorado - The biggest mistake of the Pitino era at Minnesota was not getting Wright to be a Gopher (because they chose Isaiah Washington). This guy is a leader on the floor and a rock defensively for the Buffs.
Isaiah Miller - UNC Greensboro - This guy lights it up and is the Spartan’s offense. Watch him give the Seminoles some trouble.

Again, from Jeremy Thiel on Twitter.

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