7 Teams Built to Bust Brackets in the 2025 Men's NCAA Tournament
The men's NCAA tournament is all about matchups. Sometimes, you find the right one; other times, the wrong one finds you.
That's why the college basketball teams most likely to win it all aren't necessarily the ones with the greatest strengths, but rather the ones with the fewest and least troubling weaknesses.
Here, we're taking an early look at seven bubble-ish teams capable of exploiting a title contender's weaknesses and ruining brackets across the nation.
From turnover-forcing defenses to three-point assaults, unstoppable offenses, star players and everything in between, there are a wide variety of teams that could cause problems...provided they make into the dance.
All teams on this list are projected for no better than a No. 7 seed in the most recent (as of Tuesday afternoon) Bracket Matrix update. That means it would be take at least one sizable upset for them to make it to the Sweet 16.
With the right draw, though, they might be able to go even further than that.
Teams are presented in alphabetical order.
Connecticut Huskies
1 of 7
Current Matrix Seed: No. 8
Two rings, baldy.
Need we say more?
Though UConn does meet the single criterion for eligibility on this list—projected for a No. 7 seed or worse—it feels a bit ridiculous to include the Huskies here.
They're the twice-reigning champs, and they've won it all in six of the last 25 tournaments. Connecticut isn't sneaking up on anyone, and might actually be a bracket-buster because of an early loss that ruins the hopes and dreams of those picking them to make another Final Four run.
What's more, they're projected for a No. 7 seed or worse because they took some lumps without their best player.
While Liam McNeeley recovered from his high ankle sprain, the Huskies lost at Villanova, at Xavier and vs. Creighton by a combined margin of 11 points. Good chance they win all three of those games if their freshman stud was healthy and doing his thing, in which case they'd be looking more like a No. 3 seed than a No. 9 seed.
As is, they're 4-1 vs. Quad 1A, which is the second-best winning percentage among teams that have played at least five such games, trailing only Auburn's 9-2 mark in that department. Basically, they've slipped up more than usual with eight losses outside of that top tier, but the Huskies can still bring the noise against the toughest competition they face.
If they're healthy and if Alex Karaban is feeling more Dr. Jekyll than Mr. Hyde, they could definitely go on a tear. And if they get matched up with Duke or Auburn in the second round, buckle up for a possible championship-caliber showdown.
Gonzaga Bulldogs
2 of 7
Current Matrix Seed: No. 9
Anyone else getting déjà vu from last year here?
In this same article at the end of last February, we wrote, "Whether Gonzaga will even make the NCAA tournament is still entirely up in the air." And that's true today, as a loss at San Francisco in the regular season finale on Saturday would leave the Zags with a very questionable resume.
From there, an early exit in the WCC tournament—usually a laughable proposition, but who knows this year—could mean the end of their streak of 25 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances.
If the Zags do get into the dance, though, it immediately becomes a question of how many games they could win.
That's partially simply because this is Gonzaga we're talking about. This program has not only competed in 25 straight tournaments, but it has made it at least as far as the Sweet 16 in each of the past nine, winning a combined total of 27 March Madness games dating back to 2015. That's six more than Villanova's 21, and the Wildcats had two titles and a third Final Four appearance during that time.
But it's mostly because this is just a damn good team that is lacking in marquee wins—similar to that Alabama team that finally put it all together and went on a Final Four run last spring.
All the predictive metrics paint Gonzaga as a top 15 team, with a point guard averaging nearly 10 assists per game and a better than 4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio (Ryan Nembhard) and an enviable situation at center where the starter (Graham Ike) and backup (Braden Huff) combine for nearly 30 points a night.
Their defense isn't great, but it's passable. And they've shown they can score at will against just about everyone other than Saint Mary's, and neither part of that statement is any different from previous years.
We'll see where they land, though. An 8/9 seed Gonzaga is pretty unlikely to knock off Auburn or Duke in the second round. But a 10 seed Gonzaga could run away from a team like Texas A&M or Tennessee.
Illinois Fighting Illini
3 of 7
Current Matrix Seed: No. 8
Every year, there's at least one tournament team with what is just a wildly wide range of possible outcomes; a team that is just as likely to beat Kentucky in the Final Four as it to lose to Northern/Eastern/Western Kentucky in the first round.
And long before the 43-point loss to Duke this past Saturday, pretty sure everyone who follows college basketball had Illinois in mind as the team at the top of this year's list.
At their apex, the Illini demolished Oregon in Eugene, beat both Missouri and Arkansas on neutral floors and picked up an impressive home win over Wisconsin—all of that surrounding a two-point loss to Tennessee in which neither team led by more than six at any juncture in the final 36 minutes.
At their nadir, though, they've had some seriously troubling performances, losing six games by double digits, barely engaged on defense and jacking up threes like perimeter shots are the air they need in order to breathe.
Granted, when they shoot at least 27 percent from three-point range, the Illini are 14-2 this season. But when "over 27 percent" only describes 16 of your 28 games played, averaging more than 30 attempts per game makes you inevitably mercurial.
They've got the pieces to make a run, though. Kasparas Jakucionis is going to be a high lottery pick. Tomislav Ivisic and Will Riley could both be first-rounders, too. Morez Johnson is recovering from a fractured wrist, but he's an elite rebounder. Kylan Boswell is a great veteran running mate alongside Jakucionis.
Truly, it's frustrating that Illinois hasn't been more consistently great, because it should be. And maybe the Illini will finally hit their stride when it matters the most.
Louisville Cardinals
4 of 7
Current Matrix Seed: No. 7
Because of how bad the ACC has been this season, it's tough to gauge just how good Louisville actually is. The Cardinals entered Tuesday's game against Virginia Tech having won 15 of their last 16, but without a single Quad 1A win on the season to show for it.
Here's what we do know, though:
A) They love to shoot threes. Nearly half of their field-goal attempts are from beyond the arc. Five Cardinals have averaged at least one made triple per game, led by Reyne Smith's nearly four makes per contest. That's always an X-factor in March.
B) They're super old, fifth in the nation in average experience, per KenPom. And while Louisville doesn't have recent NCAA tournament experience, the only regular in the rotation who didn't play in the 2024 NCAA tournament is freshman Khani Rooths. Surely it's no accident that Pat Kelsey put together basically an entire roster of guys who were key pieces on teams that won 21+ games last season.
C) They win the games within the game. For the year, Louisville has a +137 rebound margin, a +50 turnover margin and has almost made more free throws (420) than its opponents have attempted (424). There's a reason they're able to consistently win in spite of relying heavily upon a team-wide 32.8 three-point percentage.
D) Pat Kelsey is a great coach. Though he has not yet had any success in the NCAA tournament in his career, he consistently won at Winthrop before consistently winning at Charleston. We could be one multiple-weekend run in this year's dance away from starting to talk about Kelsey as one of the 15-20 best in the business.
Add it all up and you've got a dangerous potential bracket buster.
Memphis Tigers
5 of 7
Current Matrix Seed: No. 7
Hey, remember these guys?
Played one of the toughest nonconference schedules in the country, going 10-3 with wins over Michigan State, Missouri, Clemson and Connecticut?
Got one of the best lead guards in the country in PJ Haggerty?
Turns out they're still playing and winning most of those games.
Who knew?
That's a joke, of course. We knew. In fact, watching just about the entirety of Memphis games every Sunday while waiting on the last few data points before the next bracketology refresh has been a near-weekly staple over the past two months.
However, Memphis hasn't faced a KenPom top-100 opponent since beating North Texas on Jan. 5. The Tigers are languishing in an AAC where quality wins are just about impossible to come by, and where their only results of any needle-moving note are the losses.
As such, there might actually be people out there who have kind of forgotten about this team that has been hovering in the 30-50 range on KenPom for just about the entire season.
But that's because Memphis incessantly plays to the level of its competition, for better or worse. The Tigers have those great wins mentioned above, but also problematic losses to Wichita State, Temple and Arkansas State, as well as close calls against the likes of Rice and East Carolina.
While Gonzaga has great predictive metrics and questionable resume metrics, Memphis' profile is split the opposite way, winning at a top-20 level despite often performing at more of a top-50 level.
The Tigers could be the only No. 7 seed that loses in the first round, or they might be the darn near annual case of a No. 7 seed that at least reaches the Sweet 16. (There have been exactly 10 over the past 10 tournaments.)
New Mexico Lobos
6 of 7
Current Matrix Seed: No. 9
As a whole, the Mountain West hasn't gotten anywhere near as much national attention as it did en route to six NCAA tournament bids last year.
However, the ceiling for the teams that do get in might be even higher. San Diego State beat both Houston and Creighton in the Players Era Festival. Utah State won at Saint Mary's and has 11 total wins against the KenPom top 100.
The league's most dangerous team, though, is probably New Mexico.
Led by Donovan Dent's roughly 20 points and six assists per game, the Lobos play offense at a breakneck pace. Among likely tournament teams, only Alabama plays at (or frankly anywhere close to) New Mexico's tempo.
There was an eight-minute stretch of their win at Utah State earlier this month where they turned a nine-point deficit into an 11-point lead in what felt like a heartbeat.
It's the art of turning defense into offense where they really shine. They average nine steals and better than five blocks per game, and instantly turning those demoralizers into four-point or five-point swings with a bucket five seconds later is just about their favorite thing to do.
In fact, they've yet to lose a game in which they tallied at least 10 steals or at least six blocks.
Granted, this isn't much different from last year, when New Mexico ranked top-10 in tempo, averaged about nine steals and five blocks per game...and immediately got trounced 77-56 by Clemson in the first round of the dance.
However, that was a perfect storm of Dent having a brutal night while the rest of the team shot 3-for-23 from three-point range against a veteran team that caught fire at the right time. Things could play out much differently this time around.
Texas Longhorns
7 of 7
Current Matrix Seed: No. 11 (fifth-to-last in)
At four games below .500 in SEC play after doing a whole lot of nothing in the nonconference, Texas' case for an at-large bid has gotten extremely questionable in a hurry. And with three of their four remaining games coming against fellow SEC bubble teams (at Arkansas, vs. Georgia and vs. Oklahoma), the Longhorns have become pretty much the singular bubble team du jour to keep an eye on over these final couple of weeks before Selection Sunday.
Somewhat obscured by a sub-.500 stretch of play that most recently featured a 15-point loss to South Carolina is the fact that Tre Johnson just might be the best "Kemba Walker candidate" in the entire country.
Y'all remember how Kemba's legacy began, right?
Bubble team that couldn't quite finish in the top half of one of the best conferences in CBB history?
Entered the Big East tournament looking a bit iffy for a bid before going on an 11-game winning streak for the ages, fueled by a lead guard who couldn't be guarded?
Dating back to the Jan. 25 game against Texas A&M when it felt like Johnson finally looked around the locker room at halftime and realized he needed to be the savior for this team, he has averaged 24.4 PPG, 4.0 RPG and 3.6 APG. That's not quite as well-rounded as Walker's miracle season (23.5 PPG, 5.4 RPG, 4.5 APG, 1.9 SPG), but it does feel like Johnson—like Walker 14 years ago—can go out and get 30 points, as needed.
The big question for Texas is if Johnson is Kemba, who is the Jeremy Lamb to score at least a dozen points in each tournament game? Because in that loss to South Carolina, Johnson put up 29 and didn't have a single teammate reach double figures.
It's most likely Arthur Kaluma, who had 34 earlier this season against Auburn, as well as 20 in the December loss to Connecticut, but who hasn't scored 15 in a game since early January. If he starts showing up in a big way again as the second fiddle to Johnson's now well-established star, Texas might mess around and join 2011 VCU and 2021 UCLA on the list of teams who have gone First Four to Final Four.
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