NCAA Tournament Bracket 2017: Predictions for Biggest Upsets of 1st Round

The NCAA tournament has featured some of the most memorable upsets in American sports history. Will this year's version of March Madness offer some games that will live in infamy?

The prediction here is that the chalk holds and we see fewer upsets than previous years, but the first round won't go upset free.

Here's a look at two lower seeds that will beat higher seeds this year.

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No. 11 Rhode Island over No. 6 Creighton

The reasoning for this upset is pretty simple: The Rams are on fire right now, while the Bluejays have struggled down the stretch.

The Rams have won their last eight games, including the Atlantic-10 tournament championship. URI also beat Cincinnati this year and gave Duke a good run, losing 75-65 to the Blue Devils.

The Bluejays started 18-1 but lost eight of their last 15 games. In fairness, they did make the Big East title game after beating Providence and Xavier. 

Jeff Eisenberg of Yahoo Sports wrote more about the Bluejays' second-half struggles:

"

Drawing Creighton is a break for Rhode Island because the Bluejays aren’t the same team as they were the first half of the season before Maurice Watson, the nation’s assists leader, tore an ACL. Marcus Foster is an elite scoring wing, Justin Patton is an emerging NBA prospect at center and Khyri Thomas has blossomed, but Creighton doesn’t really have anyone adept at creating shots for others.

"

Another reason for a URI win: Rams junior guard E.C. Matthews, who has averaged 19 points in his last four games (for the season, he posts 14.9 a night to lead the team).

He returned this year from a torn ACL and is now playing as well as he ever had in his collegiate career.

Take the Rams to beat the Bluejays and face Oregon in the second round.

No. 11 Kansas State over No. 6 Cincinnati

Admittedly, this pick is based off recency bias following K-State's First Four win, but the Wildcats were absolutely fantastic on offense against Wake Forest.

The Wildcats scored 55 in the second half en route to a 95-88 win over Wake Forest. They shot 66 percent (not a typo) from the field and 75 percent from the free-throw line.

Pete Thamel of Sports Illustrated also noted their proficiency on two-pointers:

The remarkable part of Kansas State's effort is that much of the scoring was not via the three-pointer, as the Wildcats only shot 6-of-16 from beyond the arc (sophomore Kamau Stokes made five of those triples).

Kansas State had a brutal 10-game stretch in the middle of Big 12 play, going 2-8, but the Wildcats closed by winning three straight games (including an upset victory over Baylor in the Big 12 tournament quarterfinals) and nearly beat the tough West Virginia Mountaineers in the semifinals, losing by just one, 51-50.

Cincinnati rolled through its schedule, finishing with 29 wins and an appearance in the American Athletic Conference title game. The Bearcats' most notable wins include victories over SMU, Xavier and Iowa State.

Six players on the Bearcats average eight or more points per game. They also have the ninth-best defense in Division I, per the Ken Pomeroy Ratings.

But Cincinnati might be rolling into a buzzsaw right now, just like the Big Ten ran into a buzzsaw in Michigan, who won the conference tournament as a No. 8 seed. Sometimes, a team's confidence grows, and it gets hot at the right time.

Expect that to happen here as K-State takes down Cincinnati.