NCAA Tournament 2020: Top Sleeper Teams Heading into March Madness

The Cinderella sleeper is dangerous in any NCAA tournament, but it might prove especially pesky in this year's iteration.

Save for a select few elites, the top of men's college basketball feels as liquid as a waterbed. Conditions are perfect for an upset storm, in other words.

So, who might be doing the upsetting? That's the question we're out to answer with a look at the top sleeper teams—not projected as a top-three seed—heading into 2020 March Madness.

Butler Bulldogs

Anyone who follows this tournament surely has a level of respect for Butler.

The program made a living out of being a thorn in the side of blue bloods, and even if it hasn't matched the same success since Brad Stevens and Gordon Hayward bolted for the big league, the school still has five tournament wins to show for the past five seasons.

But this designation is about more than history. It's also a reflection of the fact this current Butler bunch is a really talented team.

The Bulldogs pair the country's 25th-best offense with its 40th-best defense, per KenPom.com. They have an elite closer in senior guard Kamar Baldwin, who most recently ripped Xavier for 36 points and five three-pointers.

They also get double-digit points and 39 percent three-point shooting out of senior forward Sean McDermott, while junior forward Bryce Nze flirts with double-doubles on a nightly basis (9.2 points, 6.6 rebounds).

Scoring depth can be hard to find, and high-octane offenses can hit a gear this club can't match. But overlooking the Bulldogs is almost always bad for your brackets, and this team could enjoy an extended stay in the tournament if Baldwin goes on a tear.

BYU Cougars

Were the Cougars exposed by Saint Mary's on Monday? We suppose it's possible.

More likely, though, BYU just slipped up against against a veteran team that's used to winning at this time of year. Considering this was the Cougars' first loss since Jan. 25—and it came by a single point—we'll give Mark Pope's club the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they'll even emerge from the experience better on the other side of it.

"I think that, at the end of the day, this is going to help us and it's going to make us better," senior forward Yoeli Childs told reporters. "Postseason basketball, you're allowed to play a lot more physical. I guess we just weren't ready for that tonight on the offensive end. We're going to take that, learn from it and prepare for the next one."

Consider the opposition warned. The way KenPom sees it, this is the country's seventh-best offense by adjusted efficiency. Childs is a walking double-double (22.2 points, 9.0 rebounds). Jake Toolson (15.2 points, 85 threes) and TJ Haws (14.0 points, 5.8 assists) are ideal complementary scorers and both have a perimeter splash rate north of 37 percent.

The Cougars can bury their counterparts under an avalanche of offense. They put up 91 points in a regulation win over Gonzaga just last month. If they bring the requisite physicality, they can knock off anyone.

Iowa Hawkeyes

It sounds strange to consider the impact of a single player in a 68-team tournament. But then you remember the individual moments of brilliance—like Kemba Walker at UConn, Stephen Curry at Davidson or Carmelo Anthony at Syracuse—and you see how potent of a weapon one elite player can be.

If anyone can carry his club in this tournament, it just might be Hawkeyes center Luka Garza, who holds the first or second spot on any reasonable national player of the year ballot.

The 21-year-old has spent the past several months taking a blow torch to the Big Ten, as he closed conference play with 16 consecutive games of 20-plus points.

"Luka's putting up ridiculous numbers, averaging 24 [points] and 10 [rebounds]," Iowa guard Connor McCaffery told ESPN's Adam Rittenberg. "It's stupid."

McCaffery didn't make up those numbers, by the way. Garza really is going for 23.9 points and 9.8 rebounds per night, all while averaging 1.8 blocks, shooting 54.2 percent from the field and splashing 1.3 triples per outing.

This offense has other options—specifically, Joe Wieskamp and CJ Fredrick—but Garza's fingerprints are by far the biggest on Iowa's fifth-place standing in adjusted offensive efficiency. If he's hot (and he usually is), he doesn't need a ton of help to lead this team to victory.