NCAA Bracket 2016: Highlighting Favorites and Cinderella Teams for March Madness

Printers are working overtime across the country after the selection committee unveiled the 68-team field for the 2016 NCAA tournament.

Picking a national champion is never easy, but the task is all the more difficult this year. No team is standing out as the unqualified best in the country. At the end of February, FiveThirtyEight's Neil Paine calculated Michigan State—then ranked No. 1 on KenPom.com—had a 10.4 percent chance of winning a national title. He then explained why that figure is unique:

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If Michigan State were as strong as the average top-rated team, it would win this year's tournament a shade less than 17 percent of the time, instead of little more than 10 percent. [...] In fact, the collective tournament win probability for Pomeroy's top 3 teams is about 14 percentage points lower than it would be in a typical season, simply because 2016 has so much parity — the best teams aren't as good as top teams normally are.

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In general, the gulf between the traditional powers and mid-major upstarts keeps shrinking with each season. It would be a stretch to say this is the year a mid-major team finally breaks the glass ceiling and wins a national title, but one or two could reach the Elite Eight or even the Final Four.

Here's a look at some of the top teams heading into the Big Dance, followed by two lower-seeded schools that should spring a surprise or two.

Tournament Favorites

Michigan State Spartans—No. 2 in Midwest Region

Few coaches have continually done more with less in the NCAA tournament than Tom Izzo. Even the most ardent Michigan State supporters couldn't have predicted the Spartans reaching the Final Four last year—a run that included wins over three of its region's top four seeds.

The national semifinals might be the minimum expectation with this year's Michigan State team, though. The Spartans may have ceded the regular-season Big Ten crown to Indiana, but they're one of the best teams in the country.

Senior guard Denzel Valentine is the kind of singular talent who can get hot and carry his team to a national title. He's averaging 19.6 points and 7.6 assists a game, and his shooting has gone from a major liability (28.1 three-point percentage as a freshman) to a major asset (44.5 percent three-point shooter as a senior).

Especially in such an unpredictable season, anything can happen in March. With that said, it would be a surprise if Michigan State was unable to at least reach the Elite Eight.

Virginia Cavaliers—No. 1 in Midwest Region

Steve Helber/Associated Press

Virginia wins games with a brutal efficiency. The Cavaliers are holding opposing teams to 59.7 points a game, and they rank dead last in KenPom.com's tempo metric. Balancing out their stifling defense is the fact that they're hitting 48.7 percent of their field-goal attempts (13th in the country).

The school hasn't quite translated its regular-season success into deep runs in the NCAA tournament, however. Virginia earned a No. 1 seed in 2014 but lost in the Sweet 16. As a No. 2 seed last year, it fell in the round of 32.

A potent offense is what separates this year's version of the Cavaliers from their predecessors. Here's a look at their basic scoring numbers, per ESPN.com, in addition to KenPom.com's Adjusted Offense from the last three seasons:

Season	PPG	FG%	3P%	Adjusted Offense
2013-14	65.8 (T292nd)	.453 (T121st)	.363 (T93rd)	114.4 (21st)
2014-15	65.3 (T225th)	.463 (T51st)	.361 (T90th)	111.9 (24th)
2015-16	70.4 (T246th)	.487 (T12th)	.405 (10th)	118.3 (9th)

Virginia won't be one of the prettier teams to watch this March, yet the Cavaliers' overall balance makes them one of the teams to beat. They could potentially face a massive hurdle in the quarterfinals, though.

The selection committee did neither Michigan State nor Virginia any favors by putting them in the same region. MLive.com's Brendan F. Quinn provided the perfect reaction for Cavaliers fans:

An MSU/UVA quarterfinal clash would be among the most intriguing games throughout the entire tournament.

Kentucky Wildcats—No. 4 in East Region

James Crisp/Associated Press

Purely in terms of talent, Kentucky is without equal in college basketball. Head coach John Calipari can count on five McDonald's All-Americans, while Toronto native Jamal Murray was the No. 1 shooting guard in the 2015 recruiting class, per 247Sports' composite ranking.

Of course, talent alone doesn't win games, as evidenced by the Wildcats' losses to UCLA, Ohio State, LSU and Auburn. The fact that they tie 82nd in scoring defense (68.0 PPG) is somewhat concerning as well.

Freshman big man Skal Labissiere is a major wild card. In UK's final two regular-season games, he scored 29 combined points after scoring 27 total points in his previous nine games. CBS Sports' Sam Vecenie joked it was all a part of Calipari's plan:

Under Calipari, Kentucky have reached at least the Elite Eight in each of their previous five NCAA tournament appearances. Considering how they've run hot and cold this year, the 2015-16 Wildcats could break that streak.

On its best day, though, Kentucky can match up with any team in the country.

Kansas Jayhawks—No. 1 in South Region

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

Nobody would put head coach Bill Self on the hot seat. At the same time, though, it's hard not to look back on his time with Kansas so far with some level of disappointment. The Jayhawks have won at least a share of the regular-season conference crown in 12 straight seasons but reached the Final Four just twice.

In the last two years, Kansas exited the Big Dance in the round of 32.

"You can't ever be perfect and it keeps us driving forward," junior forward Landen Lucas said, per Brian Hamilton for Campus Rush. "The last couple years, we've kind of settled as a team toward the [NCAA] tournament, but we haven't done as well as that team could have done. If there's been a year where he's definitely kept us pushing forward, it's been this year. You can see that."

In senior forward Perry Ellis and junior guards Frank Mason III and Wayne Selden Jr., Self has three players who can lead the Jayhawks to their fourth national title. The question is whether Kansas will run into the same issues that prematurely ended its tournament runs in the last two years.

The Jayhawks could be tested in a big way in the second round with the Connecticut Huskies lurking as a No. 9 seed. UConn has one of the better defenses in the country, so Kansas could answer many of its doubters with a commanding performance against the Huskies should the two teams meet.

Potential Cinderellas

UNC Wilmington—No. 13 in West Region

Nick Wass/Associated Press

The UNC Wilmington Seahawks' backcourt duo of juniors Chris Flemming and Denzel Ingram could give Duke serious headaches in the first round. Flemming is averaging 16.1 points per game, while Ingram is pouring in 12.5 points a night. Ingram also played 45 minutes in the Colonial Athletic Association championship game, scoring 17 points, grabbing four boards and dishing out six assists.

Senior guard Craig Ponder could also be an X-factor for UNC Wilmington to spring an upset in the first round. He's not a high-volume three-point shooter—he's never hit more than five in a game—but one or two timely buckets could turn the tide in favor of UNCW.

In the Seahawks' 25 wins this year, Ponder is shooting 40 percent from three-point range. Conversely, he shot just 20.8 percent from deep in their seven losses, per Sports-Reference.com.

In the event the Blue Devils neutralize one or both of Ingram and/or Flemming, the Seahawks will need somebody such as Ponder to step up.

South Dakota State—No. 12 in South Region

Steven Branscombe-USA TODAY Sports

Three years ago, South Dakota State was making its second of back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances. Led by dynamic scorer Nate Wolters, the Jackrabbits were unable to make it past the round of 64 on each occasion.

What South Dakota State lacks in an individual star such as Wolters, it makes up for with a trio of talented scorers—freshman forward Mike Daum and senior guards Deondre Parks and George Marshall. Combined, they're averaging 44.8 points a game, which accounts for nearly 59 percent of the team's average (76.3).

The Jackrabbits' reliance on Wolters was a double-edged sword. While he was capable of almost single-handedly lifting the team to victory, South Dakota State's two tournament games illustrated the down side of that dependence. Wolters missed five of his six three-point attempts in a 68-68 loss to Baylor in 2012 and then shot 3-of-14 in 71-56 defeat to Michigan in 2013.

Strength in depth could be the key for head coach Scott Nagy's group in 2016.

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Stats are courtesy of NCAA.com unless otherwise mentioned.