Matchups We Would Love to See in the 2016 NCAA Tournament
I don't mean to alarm anyone, but we are now less than one month away from Selection Sunday for the 2016 NCAA tournament.
We're in the belly of the beast now. The real guts of conference play. And we're well within the range where bracketology and bubble talk and tournament dreams are all perfectly reasonable and natural things.
Big Dance seeds are still shifting and will continue to do so, but that shouldn't dampen our desire to speculate. For instance, what are the most intriguing potential matchups in this season's tournament?
Glad you asked. Here are the best potential matchups, ranked based on the performance of the teams, the existence or extent of a rivalry and the intrigue generated by the stylistic conflict their matchup presents.
These matchups could happen anywhere in the tournament. All teams are currently projected to appear in the tournament by ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi. All statistics are accurate as of Feb. 15 and provided by ESPN.com unless otherwise noted.
5. North Florida vs. Oklahoma
1 of 5
Oklahoma projected tournament seed: 1
North Florida projected tournament seed: 16
If you dig the long ball, you'll dig this matchup.
According to NCAA stats, the Ospreys and Sooners are first and fourth, respectively, in three-pointers made per game with 12.4 and 10.9. Between them, they hoist up 55 trifectas each contest, with a combined conversion rate of 43 percent.
If averages bore out, viewers would see 23 made threes in this game, or roughly one every other possession.
The best part is that this matchup could actually happen if these seed projections hold up. If there's a tastier 1-16 permutation out there this season, I have no idea what it is.
4. Valparaiso vs. Wichita State
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Valparaiso projected tournament seed: 12
Wichita State projected tournament seed: 8
After what seems like 20 or so seasons in Shockers uniforms, we've finally come to the last ride of Ron Baker and Fred VanVleet at Wichita State.
Outside of Butler, no other mid-major team has been more prominent on the recent college basketball landscape. The Shockers have had some struggles this season but are still 18-7, first in the Missouri Valley Conference and, seemingly, a comfortable lock for the dance. (Butler, meanwhile, is currently on the outside looking in, according to Lunardi.)
Behind celeb alum and head coach Bryce Drew, Valpo is ascendant in the mid-major conversation. The Crusaders are 21-5 and lead the Horizon League, thanks in large part to a suffocating defense that has them second overall in KenPom's national adjusted defensive efficiency ratings.
And oh, by the way, Wichita State sits third in that ranking.
One school from Kansas, the other from Indiana, both squarely in the heart of the Midwest's basketball belt. One school set for a final big run, the other shooting for its first in quite a while. What's not to love?
3. Texas A&M vs. Texas
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Texas projected tournament seed: 5
Texas A&M projected tournament seed: 4
This is a football rivalry.
Or at least it was. The Lone Star State got serious for Texas vs. Texas A&M, which happened each football season around Thanksgiving time. The last time they played was four years ago, with the Longhorns breaking Aggies hearts in College Station as Texas A&M prepared to depart the Big 12 for the SEC.
So there may be some pent-up aggression that could make for a fun hardwood battle. There's also the small matter that both teams are pretty good.
Texas A&M is flourishing under coach Billy Kennedy, even if it's in free fall of late this season (four straight losses and five defeats in the last six). Texas has been inconsistent but is looking more solid lately with its own head coach, first-year Longhorn and former VCU head man Shaka Smart, who's starting to jell with his players.
"We've just got to learn and get better," Smart told Ken Bikoff of Campus Insiders after Texas' close loss to Oklahoma recently. "But what we're not going to do is come out of here and drop our heads and feel sorry for ourselves, because in this conference, nobody cares if you feel sorry for yourself. No one's going to join you in that pity party."
Yes, the basketball teams have played before. They played earlier this season, in fact, with Texas A&M taking an 84-73 win in the Bahamas. But this would still be a fun rivalry to renew under the national spotlight.
2. Duke vs. West Virginia
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West Virginia projected tournament seed: 3
Duke projected tournament seed: 5
Look up "contrast of styles" and you get this matchup. All things considered, it might be the most interesting possible contrast in the nation this year.
Duke is nowhere near as dangerous as it was when it won the whole shebang last season. But the Blue Devils are still a picture of offensive efficiency, rating second in KenPom's adjusted offensive ratings and 13th nationally with 83.4 points scored, on average, each game.
West Virginia is all defense all the time, using a ferocious press to force 19 turnovers per game. That is the best in the nation, which is not surprising, since it is also crazy. The Mountaineers are also fifth nationally in scoring margin with an average gap of 15.2 points.
The Blue Devils have weaknesses (see: frontcourt), but taking care of the ball is not one of them. They only surrender 10.2 turnovers per game, 11th-best in the country.
Something has to give, and this is to say nothing of the obvious white-collar vs. blue-collar juxtaposition, with private school Duke and button-down Mike Krzyzewski at the helm.
"To the Duke Blue Devils faithful, Coach K is everything right about college basketball," Joseph Nardone at Today's U Sports wrote. "Put on a pedestal by ambassadors of the sport and fans, Krzyzewski does things 'the right way.' Moreover, he adapts as the times change, yet remains grounded in some sort of idealism of what Duke basketball was built off, and doesn't sacrifice what's right for wins."
That's the kind of rhetoric that people love to hate, and it sets up Coach K as the straight man to West Virginia native Bob Huggins, hero to Mountaineers and crewneck sweatshirt manufacturers everywhere.
1. Kansas vs. Oklahoma
5 of 5
Oklahoma projected tournament seed: 1
Kansas projected tournament seed: 1
Earlier this year, these two played the game of the season, that triple-OT thriller in Lawrence that saw the hometown Jayhawks overcome 46 points from Player of the Year candidate Buddy Hield to win 109-106.
Last weekend's rematch at Oklahoma picked up where the first left off, with Kansas again just edging the Sooners, 76-72, in a heavyweight slugfest.
Both teams are in the top 10 of KenPom's adjusted offense rankings and the top 35 of the defensive rankings. What's more, both teams have lived all season in the top 10 of that little rankings matrix known as the AP national poll.
If these two reached and met in the Final Four, that could be one for the ages.
