Sleeper Rankings for the 2023 Men's NCAA Tournament
After opening the season as projected No. 1 seeds, men's college basketball blue bloods Kentucky and North Carolina have plummeted all the way to a pair of spots on the bubble. They now rank among the top sleepers to pull off a few upsets.
Just so we're clear on the definitions here, "sleeper" and "Cinderella" are two different things. A "Cinderella" is a team with little to no NCAA tournament history from a traditionally one-bid league. Cinderellas are almost always No. 12 seeds or worse. A "sleeper" is any likely at-large team seeded No. 7 or lower who could go on a multiple-weekend run.
Florida Gulf Coast, Oral Roberts and Saint Peter's are prime examples of past Cinderellas, while UCLA making the Final Four as a No. 11 seed in 2021 or North Carolina reaching the championship game as a No. 8 seed last year were major sleeper stories.
Technically, all Cinderellas are also sleepers, but not all sleepers are Cinderellas. We're only focused on the non-Cinderella sleepers here. (If you're looking for Cinderellas, I ranked those candidates a few weeks ago, and I still like Kent State as a viable Sweet 16 crasher.)
Sleepers are ranked in ascending order of how comfortable we would be picking them to reach the Sweet 16, without knowing which opponents they might draw on Selection Sunday.
All references to current projected seed are based on the most recent Bracket Matrix refresh.
8. Penn State Nittany Lions
1 of 8
Current Projected Seed: Sixth Team Out
Penn State's first hurdle is actually getting into the NCAA tournament.
Prior to Sunday's loss at Nebraska, the Nittany Lions were either just barely in or just barely out of the field, depending on your preference in bracketologist. (They would have been my First Team Out had they won that game.) But now they have a fair amount of work to do over their final eight regular-season games to get back into the mix.
If they win their four remaining home games (Wisconsin, Illinois, Rutgers and Maryland) and win the road game against Minnesota, that might be enough to sneak in. If they do, they could be dangerous.
Point guard Jalen Pickett is arguably the most valuable player in the entire country. He averages roughly 17 points, eight rebounds and seven assists per game, he hardly ever turns the ball over, and he's the rare point guard with a strong post-up game. That opens up the perimeter, where Penn State is one of the best and most frequent three-point shooting teams, averaging nearly 11 made triples per game.
When they're on, the Nittany Lions have proved capable of blowing out good teams. They won by 15 at Illinois and beat Indiana by 19 and Michigan by 22 at home.
However, they have no big men of note, so they routinely get destroyed in the paint by teams who do have a strong post presence. Purdue's Zach Edey torched them twice. Wisconsin's Steven Crowl, Rutgers' Clifford Omoruyi and Michigan State's Joey Hauser each went for double-doubles in victories over Penn State too.
Not only do the Nittany Lions still need to get into the Big Dance, but they need a somewhat favorable draw in which they don't immediately get matched up with a frontcourt star. If they manage that, winning at least one tournament game for the first time since 2001 is a realistic proposition.
7. New Mexico Lobos
2 of 8
Current Projected Seed: No. 9
As a rule of thumb, you shouldn't back Mountain West teams in your bracket. The league has never produced an Elite Eight team, and things have gone especially poorly as of late, with an overall record of 0-8 across the past three NCAA tournaments.
If any of this year's five at-large candidates from the MWC is equipped to buck that trend, it's probably New Mexico.
The Lobos started out 14-0 and were the last remaining unbeaten when they took their first L on Jan. 3. While most of those first 14 games were against forgettable competition, they did score what now stands as an incredible road win over Saint Mary's. They also won at San Diego State in mid-January and picked up solid home wins over Boise State, Oral Roberts and Iona.
Not a bad list of accomplishments for this veteran-heavy rotation loaded with former transfers. Jamal Mashburn Jr., Jaelen House and Morris Udeze are each averaging better than 15 points per game, while House runs the show on both ends of the floor with 4.7 assists and 2.8 steals per game.
The Lobos also have Josiah Allick providing around eight points and eight rebounds per game, plus glue guy Javonté Johnson rounding out a starting five full of juniors and seniors. Throw in senior KJ Jenkins off the bench for good on-ball defense and perimeter shooting, and there's nothing not to like.
Though the Lobos don't shoot many threes, they can score in bunches, even against considerably above-average defenses.
6. Iowa Hawkeyes
3 of 8
Current Projected Seed: No. 7
Given the way the Hawkeyes have been playing as of late, they have to be on this list.
On offense, they are about as efficient as it gets. The gap between Purdue at No. 1 and Gonzaga at No. 7 is minuscule, but Iowa checks in at No. 2 in adjusted offensive efficiency, per KenPom. That includes a few duds during the 2022 portion of the season.
Dating back to New Year's Day, the Hawkeyes have scored a combined total of 818 points in 698 possessions, or 1.17 points per possession. They've played some rock-solid defenses along the way, including a pair of games against Rutgers, which boasts one of the nation's most efficient defenses.
That didn't matter. The Hawkeyes scored 93 against the Scarlet Knights 10 days ago, before also scoring at will in wins over Northwestern and Illinois.
The problem is their defense. The Hawkeyes sit just outside of the top 150 nationally. They've scored 818 points in their last 10 games, but they've also allowed 775.
The "elite offense, average-at-best on defense" teams almost always flame out before the Elite Eight.
But if the Hawkeyes keep winning and knock off Purdue on Thursday or win at Indiana on the final day of February, feel free to insert the Tobias Fünke "But it might work for us" meme here. It would be difficult to convince anyone that this team is incapable of a deep run.
.png?w=256 "NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Championship")
5. USC Trojans
4 of 8
Current Projected Seed: No. 10
For all the talk of the Pac-12 just being Arizona, UCLA and a bunch of cannon fodder, USC is surging as a legitimate contender to do some damage.
When USC hosted UCLA on Jan. 26 and rallied from a 13-point second-half deficit to win by 13, Boogie Ellis catching fire was the story. The senior combo guard finished with 31 points, six assists and no turnovers in the game of his college career.
That game was a sign of a Trojans team finally starting to hit its stride.
7'1" freshman Vincent Iwuchukwu missed the first 16 games of the season after suffering cardiac arrest over the summer, but the 5-star recruit was cleared to play in mid-January and has made a real impact over the past few weeks. His arrival took what was already one of the biggest and best shot-blocking teams in the country and added an even bigger shot-blocker to the mix.
Unfortunately, fellow big man Joshua Morgan suffered an ankle injury last week and is out indefinitely, so we'll see if USC ever actually gets to full strength before the tournament begins. But if the Trojans have that one-two punch at center, plus the veteran scoring and distributing one-two punch of Ellis and Drew Peterson, they could be a serious problem.
The Trojans also have freshman Tre White, who is blossoming into the type of impact player that Brandon Ashley was for the mid-2010s Arizona Wildcats. White scored a career-high 22 with eight rebounds and four assists in USC's last game against Washington.
USC is generally not a good three-point shooting team, and it does allow a lot of second-chance opportunities on defense. But the Trojans are already jelling and should continue to do so against a favorable remaining schedule.
4. North Carolina Tar Heels
5 of 8
Current Projected Seed: No. 9
Mid-February with no wins over a surefire NCAA tournament team? Yeah, we've seen that before from the Tar Heels.
One year removed from making it to the national championship as a No. 8 seed, North Carolina is on a similar trajectory this season. But will this team—with four of the same five starters from yesteryear—once again flip a switch down the stretch and prove it belongs in the Big Dance?
As things currently stand, the Tar Heels don't look like much of a threat to reach the Sweet 16, let alone the Final Four.
Armando Bacot has played at an All-American level in the paint, and RJ Davis has done well in a more assertive role on offense. But Pete Nance is not Brady Manek, and Caleb Love is not the same player that he was over the final six weeks of last year's run.
They need some sort of spark.
Maybe it's Nance starting to regularly deliver at a high level. Perhaps more minutes for Puff Johnson, who isn't much of a scoring threat but does play with his hair on fire.
If that spark comes, maybe muscle memory takes over from there and the Tar Heels will go on another tear through March.
3. Kentucky Wildcats
6 of 8
Current Projected Seed: No. 11
Kentucky hasn't lived up to the hype as one of the top preseason candidates to win it all. But come on. It's Kentucky.
Since getting embarrassed at home by South Carolina and subsequently putting a healthy CJ Fredrick back in the starting lineup, they've turned a corner. Prior to Tuesday night's loss to Arkansas, the Wildcats had won six of their last seven games, with a competitive loss to the reigning national champions serving as the exception to the rule.
Simply put, they're making winning plays now. Drawing charges. Diving for loose balls. Generally showing heart on defense.
Though they're still settling for way too many low-percentage mid-range jumpers, there's at least a fluidity to the offense now.
This has all the makings of a team hitting its stride, but Kentucky might need to win out to get its resume up to snuff for a top-five seed in the dance.
That's OK, though. The lone time under John Calipari that they made the NCAA tournament as something worse than a No. 5 seed, the Wildcats made it all the way to the championship game as a No. 8 seed in 2014.
They aren't necessarily destined to do it again, but it wouldn't be a first.
2. West Virginia Mountaineers
7 of 8
Current Projected Seed: No. 10
West Virginia has been given every opportunity to prove it can win a marquee game. And while none of them were blowout losses, the Mountaineers have gone 0-8 against the top half of Quadrant 1.
That's a tough pill to swallow when suggesting that a team destined for something in the Nos. 8-11 seed range is a threat to reach the second weekend of the NCAA tournament. Unless it benefits from a massive first-round upset, West Virginia would need to beat a No. 1-3 seed in the second round to reach the Sweet 16.
The predictive metrics love the Mountaineers, though. They're all the way up to No. 14 on KenPom.
The predictive metrics loved WVU even before its 93-61 win over Oklahoma this past Saturday, too. That margin of victory juiced the numbers a bit, but they were already juiced by the 29-point win over Florida, the 25-point win at Pittsburgh and the 15-point win at Texas Tech.
What's wild is that those blowout wins came in completely different ways. Against Florida, West Virginia was plus-21 on the glass. At Texas Tech, the 'Eers committed 19 turnovers but lived at the free-throw line. Against Pitt, they shot 61 percent inside the arc and forced 19 turnovers. And against Oklahoma, they just could not miss in the first half.
When this team heats up, starts forcing turnovers and extending possessions with offensive rebounds, it's like an avalanche that breaks the opposing team's will.
The Mountaineers haven't won a big one yet, but it's coming. And once they get that feather in their cap, they'll feel like a more legitimate threat to win multiple tournament games.
1. Creighton Bluejays
8 of 8
Current Projected Seed: No. 7
At 15-8 with only two Quadrant 1 wins and three losses to teams projected to miss the Big Dance, the results portion of Creighton's resume isn't anything special. If the Bluejays go 4-4 over their final eight regular-season games, they would potentially miss the tournament.
But as far as the predictive metrics are concerned, Creighton is a bona fide title contender. The Bluejays are in the top 20 in each of NET, BPI, KenPom and Sagarin, and they have been throughout the current six-game winning streak that includes an 84-67 drubbing of a very good Xavier squad.
The Bluejays had a few poor defensive performances back in December when Ryan Kalkbrenner was out sick for three games, but they have been much improved on that end of the floor since getting their big man back in action. That has been critical, because they haven't shot well during their winning streak, sitting at 31.0 percent from three-point range.
When threes weren't falling earlier in the year, they were screwed. They couldn't buy a long-range bucket in the losses to Texas, Nebraska and Marquette, shooting a combined 18-of-87 (20.7 percent) and averaging 59.3 points.
But they've figured out how to manufacture offense and stay in games via defense.
There's almost always one game during a title run where the team needs to just gut one out on a poor shooting night. Kansas vs. Providence in last year's Sweet 16. Baylor vs. Villanova in the 2021 Sweet 16. Virginia vs. Oregon in the 2019 Sweet 16. It's not always the Sweet 16, but you get the idea.
Creighton can win those types of games.
.png?w=480 "NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Championship")
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
