NCAA Tournament Bracket 2015: Analyzing Friday's Likeliest Potential Upsets

Roughly two hours into the 2015 NCAA tournament, a large swath of sports fans across the country watched as their brackets blew up in spectacular fashion.

A lot of people were extremely high on the Iowa State Cyclones, and some—myself included—had them going to the Final Four. The Cyclones only fell four rounds short of the mark, losing to the No. 14 seed UAB Blazers on Thursday.

Say this for Iowa State: The Cyclones didn't waste time getting their fans' hopes up before imploding. If you're not going to win a national title, you might as well exit as earlier as possible, right?

The upsets are part of what makes the Big Dance so glorious, and while reaching an ISU-level surprise might be unrealistic, it's almost a guarantee that Friday's games will feature a small handful of lower seeds upending their higher-seeded brethren.

Everybody expects a No. 11 seed to beat a No. 6 seed, and there's a 5-12 upset every year. The two games below have the most potential to completely wreck brackets.

No. 4 Maryland vs. No. 13 Valparaiso

The Valparaiso Crusaders are responsible for one of the most memorable moments in NCAA tournament history, with Bryce Drew's buzzer-beater against the Ole Miss Rebels in 1998. Every college basketball fan in America has seen a replay of that shot.

This year, the Crusaders occupy the same seed they held in 1998, and their head coach is the same guy who nailed that game-winner.

Can Valpo weave the same kind of magic Friday?

The Maryland Terrapins will be the betting favorite. They finished second in the Big Ten during the regular season, and many were surprised the Terps earned only a No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament.

However, the team doesn't exactly have a glittering postseason résumé after capturing the national title in 2002. Maryland advanced to the Sweet 16 the following season, but the team exited in the second round in the Terps' ensuing four trips.

In addition, head coach Mark Turgeon isn't exactly a titan of March, with one trip to the Sweet 16 in his career.

The Maryland players aren't letting any of the school's past failures weigh on their psyche, according to Daniel Martin of CSNWashington.com:

Neil Greenberg of The Washington Post called attention to the fact that Maryland is one of the luckiest teams in the country, according to KenPom.com. The Terps sit second to Wofford in the "Luck" category.

Greenberg noted how the luckiest team in the NCAA tournament lost in either the first or second round in each of the last 13 seasons. He also looked at the luckiest team among the top four seeds from each year. While the results were slightly better, seven of the 13 teams lost in either the first or second round, and no team ranked higher in "Luck" than the Terps.

The trouble with relying on luck is that it runs out sooner or later.

In Alec Peters, Valpo has a dynamic scorer who can take a game over. The sophomore forward is averaging 16.7 points a game and is shooting a healthy 46.2 percent from behind the arc.

Throw him in with a defense that KenPom.com ranks 29th in the country, and you've got a potentially lethal combo for Maryland.

No. 2 Virginia vs. No. 15 Belmont

Mark Humphrey/Associated Press

If there's going to be a UAB-type shock Friday, then the Belmont Bruins might be the team to deliver it.

Head coach Rick Byrd has taken the Bruins to the NCAA tournament on six different occasions, but he has yet to pick up his first tournament win. The closest Belmont got to advancing was a one-point loss to the Duke Blue Devils in 2008.

Although his record isn't entirely encouraging, Byrd won't be overawed by the occasion, and he'll know how to prepare his players for a gargantuan task ahead.

Two factors could conspire to send the Virginia Cavaliers home early.

For one, their slow pace might allow Belmont to stay in the game—think UVA's slim wins over Virginia Tech and Wake Forest. The longer the Bruins are hanging around, the more their confidence and belief will build.

The Cyclones and the Baylor Bears, in particular, illustrated the risk in failing to truly put an underdog away.

Another potential problem for Virginia is Justin Anderson. The Cavaliers junior guard returned during the ACC tournament, but he played 26 total minutes and shot 0-of 6 from the floor.

Mike Barber of the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that Anderson spoke about how he's planning on playing more in the NCAA tournament:

"

Coach (Tony Bennett) told me that going into the (ACC) tournament, he told me that I was going to play short stints, just to get a feel, to get my timing back. It felt great to be back out there and give it everything that I had. That was the way we talked about it, and we’ve talked about something different for the NCAA tournament.

"

Even if he plays more, Anderson might not be back to his best against Belmont. As College Basketball Talk's Rob Dauster noted during the ACC tournament, Anderson was clearly not yet back to his best:

Virginia has done well without its second-leading scorer this year, but the NCAA tournament is a different beast. If Anderson is not hitting his shots and Malcolm Brogdon isn't compensating, the Cavaliers might struggle to find points.

Of course, it wasn't that long ago that Virginia held the Harvard Crimson to 27 points over an entire game. The Cavaliers are so good when they're hitting on all cylinders, but between Anderson's injury and the unpredictability of March Madness, Belmont might just be able to pull off the biggest win in school history.