The structure of the NCAA Tournament bid process makes for a tantalizing week for nearly every team in the field. You can count on one hand, maybe two, the number of teams greatly disappointed in their performance in their conference tournament who are now alive in the NCAA Tournament.
In fact, most are riding their biggest momentum of the season. They cut down the nets as conference tourney champs! Surely that level of play is here to stay!
As we know, that's not always the case. The 2021 Georgetown team that miraculously won the Big East Tournament is the perfect test case. Patrick Ewing won the Big East at the Garden and was sure to carry momentum into the madness … until Georgetown got run off the floor by Colorado.
The opposite happens too, of course. Sometimes team do find a new gear with their season constantly on the line.
Let’s sort through some of the teams that went on runs this past week and gauge where they stand entering NCAA Tournament play.
March Madness Teams That Can Stay Hot
No. 12 Akron Zips
Those who follow the MAC or mid-major hoops know this one isn't particularly sneaky, but with so many casual fans jumping into college basketball just in time for the tournament, let me explain.
Miami (OH) was the story of the year in the MAC, going 31-0 in regular season play. Miami wasn't, however, the best team in the MAC.
That would be Akron, which finished 17-1 in conference play and had just five losses on the season. Akron lost to Purdue (2-seed), Troy (tournament team), Miami (undefeated regular season), Yale (Ivy regular season champ) and Murray State (the Racers shot 18-of-32 from deep to blitz Akron).
The Zips were incredibly solid otherwise, yet solid doesn’t always cut it in March. Those five teams were five of Akron’s six best opponents by KenPom, meaning the Zips’ best win was Toledo (twice).
Still, this is a top-70 team now facing a Texas Tech team without its best player, injured star JT Toppin.
Akron is absolutely a threat to advance.
No. 13 Hofstra Pride
The Pride were the third best team in the CAA this season before racing to the conference tournament title.
Unlike Akron, Hofstra has shown tons of variance.
Hofstra lost to UCF by four points, beat Penn by 17 points and upset both Pitt and Syracuse on the road.
The Pride also lost five straight CAA games, including losses to Elon, Stony Brook and North Carolina A&T.
When you’re looking for giant killers, that’s the formula: Make a ton of 3s, battle defensively and escape with a win.
No. 12 Northern Iowa Panthers
The Panthers were massively undervalued entering Arch Madness, the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.
Northern Iowa’s seed said six, but its play said otherwise.
KenPom has Northern Iowa as the second-best team in the MVC, with a top 25-ranked defense.
Northern Iowa slipped down the MVC standings despite decent play due to losses in close games. The Panthers were 4-8 in games decided by six points or fewer, including three single possession losses and an overtime defeat.
KenPom’s luck metric accounts for record in close games and has Northern Iowa as the second-unluckiest team in the field (after Texas).
Playing at a bottom-five tempo in the country, with a gritty defense, can put Northern Iowa in any game. The small sample sizes of a slow tempo game are very much the friend of a potential Cinderella.
NCAA Tournament Teams Set to Cool Off
No. 4 Arkansas Razorbacks
Tons of factors are weighing down these Hogs.
First, there’s a real chance of fatigue. Arkansas won three games in three days to capture the SEC Tournament, finishing on Selection Sunday. The Razorbacks have played four overtime periods in their last nine games. Since the start of February, Darius Acuff Jr. is averaging north of 38 minutes per game.
That team now needs to fly across the country to play in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday at 1:25 p.m. local time.
Beyond that, Arkansas is well overdue for some shooting regression. The Hogs hit 63% from deep in the SEC title game, the exclamation point on a hot shooting streak. Over the last five games, Arkansas has made 49% from long range. That’s far better than the 37% Arkansas made in conference play.
Slow legs and cold shooting isn't a combo you want to see this month.
No. 14 Penn Quakers
The Quakers became the lowest seed to ever win Ivy Madness and needed overtime in both games to do so. On top of that, the Quakers caught Harvard on a cold night in the Ivy League semifinals (5-of-31 from deep), and then Penn had its best 3-point shooting night of the season in the title game (14-of-28 from outside).
Penn did all of this without its leading scorer on the floor, after Ethan Roberts suffered a concussion in practice. His availability for the opening round is still unconfirmed.
Against teams outside Ivy, it’s hard to see the Quakers finding the same magic, especially without Roberts. Penn played three top-100 teams in the non-conference. Hofstra beat Penn by 17, Providence beat Penn by 25 and Villanova beat Penn by 27.
Unless something has radically changed during Penn’s hot streak since the start of February, it’s hard to see the Quakers competing with Illinois.
