March is here, which means it’s time for Bracket Breakers to shine. For nearly 20 years, we have been using analytics to predict NCAA Tournament upsets — in ESPN’s Giant Killers series from 2006 to 2017, and here since 2021 with our statistical model Slingshot, developed with the help of the Furman University mathematics department. We study matchups from the past to isolate the factors crucial to longshot wins, then identify emerging underdogs that carry those traits.
As we approach the NCAA Tournament, we will have more to say about exactly how Slingshot works and what discoveries and updates we have made since last year. But if you care about March Madness upsets, you need to start spotting potential Cinderellas now, and we’re here to help. With conference tournaments starting this week, this is the time to scout around the country to see who’s jockeying for tickets to the Big Dance, and who might be wearing glass slippers if they arrive.
We have argued many times that conference tournaments shouldn’t be so important to the national championship. Smaller conferences think they need to put automatic bids on the line for their tournaments to appeal to TV and streaming audiences. All too often that means they send an accidental winner rather than their best representative to the tournament. Year after year, we watch viable underdogs like Stony Brook in 2013 (14-2 in the America East) or Murray State in 2015 (16-0 in the Ohio Valley) or Texas State in 2021 (12-3 in the Sun Belt) build exciting records, only to get clipped before Selection Sunday. By our calculations, 10 conferences sent a team that wasn’t their strongest to the NCAA Tournament last year.
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Bracket Breakers: How conference tournaments continue to rob us of more upsets and Cinderellas
This year, among non-majors, it looks like only the Atlantic 10, Mountain West and West Coast Conference are good bets to get multiple bids to the NCAA Tournament. The 22 smallest conferences may fill exactly 22 slots in the bracket, and teams in any of them will have to earn automatic bids to make the field of 68.
Which of them should you root for now if you want to see as many upsets as possible in the tourney? We will start with the 16 conferences that begin their tournaments this week. And we’ll assess teams by their Underdog Rating, which is the percentage chance that Slingshot gives a squad of beating an average tournament opponent that’s at least five seeds higher.
The longshot leagues
For starters, there are seven conferences where our model says no team has even a 5 percent chance of pulling off a deep upset: the America East, Atlantic Sun, Big South, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Patriot and Summit League. Or, rather, we should say that no eligible team has such a chance. St. Thomas, a program based in St. Paul, Minn., and coached by a psychology professor named Johnny Tauer, popped up in our spreadsheets for the first time this year. The Tommies’ non-conference schedule included the likes of Idaho State and Wisconsin River Falls. But they play at nearly the slowest pace in the NCAA, take a ton of threes and can force turnovers. So Slingshot sees them as the best longshot in the Summit League (Underdog Rating: 5.3). Unfortunately, St. Thomas moved up to D-I from D-III in 2022, which means it is in the middle of an absurd five-year waiting period imposed by the NCAA before it is eligible for the national tournament.
Upset-capable league leaders
There are also four conferences where Slingshot says the best NCAA underdog is in first place: McNeese State (Underdog Rating: 33.5) in the Southland, Samford (21.4) in the Southern, Louisiana Tech (Underdog Rating: 13.3) in Conference USA and Oakland (7.9) in the Horizon. If you want NCAA brackets busted, you want these teams to just keep on trucking through their conference tournaments, especially McNeese and Samford. Those two are among our favorite potential tournament underdogs in the country.
That leaves five conferences where would-be Cinderellas still have work to do. In order of their Underdog Ratings, these are the teams you want to root for to pull upsets in their tournaments so they can keep firing their slingshots after Selection Sunday:
West Coast Conference
Underdog Rating: 30.8
Wait, is it finally over? We’re talking about the mass weirdness affecting bracketologists for months now, where experts regularly called Gonzaga an 11-seed or a play-in or even a bubble team. Look, we understand that Chet Holmgren is gone, but the “narrative” of failure this season was always a bit overwrought and has turned from stale to moldy in the three weeks since Gonzaga beat Kentucky. Heading into last weekend, our model pegged the Zags as the No. 22 team in the country — and they were top 20 in KenPom and NET, too. They’d be a fearsome NCAA Tournament underdog, not because they are particularly good at the kind of high-risk/high-reward ball that Slingshot loves, but just because they’re particularly good overall. Of course, Gonzaga beat regular-season WCC champ Saint Mary’s by 13 points on Saturday and has finally bumped up at least a little in most brackets.
The question now is whether there’s a third WCC team that can make the NCAA Tournament. Beyond the Gaels, the highest Underdog Rating in the conference belongs to San Francisco. The Dons surround big man Jonathan Mogbo, who’s shooting 64 percent from the field, with a flotilla of guards and wings who hoist threes on offense and force turnovers on defense. They take just under 40 percent of their shots from behind the arc (ranking 114th in the country) and nab steals on 12.4 percent of opponent possessions (20th). Slingshot estimates their highly variable style of play would boost their NCAA Tournament performance by a whopping 6.3 points per 100 possessions.
The Dons run into trouble when they can’t generate enough possessions to compensate for missing too many threes, which is how they lost close games to Boise State and Utah State early this season. But their biggest problem is that Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s, the two teams blocking them in the WCC standings, each rank among the top dozen in the country at stifling 2-point shooting. And by cutting off everyone other than Mogbo inside, both the Zags and Gaels have forced USF into taking loads of off-kilter shots. San Francisco is a combined 0-4 against Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s this season. In those four games, Dons starters other than Mogbo have shot just 42 percent (36 for 85) on 2-point attempts and only 29.9 percent (29 for 97) on threes. USF is a fun team to root for, but to live up to its Underdog Rating in the WCC Tournament and beyond, it will need effective spacing and multiple scoring options.
Bradley Braves
Missouri Valley Conference
Underdog Rating: 22
We’ve been sounding the Indiana State alarm as a potential Bracket Breaker for weeks. But would you believe the Sycamores aren’t the best potential upset-team in the MVC? That honor falls to Bradley. The Braves’ 22 Underdog Rating beats out Indiana State’s 15.8 mark.
The Sycamores are a phenomenal offensive team, leading the country in effective field goal percentage and taking threes at the fifth-highest rate in the nation (49.7 percent of shots). But they play faster than you want from an underdog and are terrible at both offensive rebounding (23.6 percent, 327th in the nation) and forcing turnovers (15.7 percent of opponents’ possessions, 272nd).
Bradley offers a more diversified portfolio. The Braves take plenty of threes — 42 percent of shots — and make 37.3 percent of them. But they also rank 66th in the nation in steals (10.8 percent of opponents’ possessions), hold their own on the glass and play at a slow pace, ranking 257th in tempo. The Braves might not be as strong of a team as Indiana State — they lost both head-to-head games — but they might be better equipped to take on a high seed because of their style of play.
James Madison Dukes
Sun Belt Conference
Underdog Rating: 17.8
The Dukes registered the first massive upset of the season, knocking off Michigan State in their opening game. That was just the start of a dream season that has seen them pile up a 28-3 record. There’s just one problem: Two of those losses came against Appalachian State. As a result, the Mountaineers finished first in the conference at 16-2, with the Dukes a game behind.
But James Madison has a stronger Underdog Rating than Appalachian State (3.9). In fact, Slingshot says the Mountaineers are only the fourth-best underdog in the Sun Belt. App State has all the markings of a classic Schoolyard Bully: They don’t shoot many threes (less than a third of their attempts) and rank 308th in forcing turnovers. It’s surprising, given their profile, that the Mountaineers upset Auburn back in December.
James Madison plays the possession game much more effectively. The Dukes force turnovers on defense (20.1 percent of opponents’ possessions, 38th in the country) and prevent them on offense (14.7 percent, 46th). Led by T.J. Bickerstaff, they are an above-average rebounding team at both ends, and they own a huge advantage beyond the arc: JMU makes 36 percent of its threes and holds foes to 28.5 percent shooting. Other than their brisk pace (57th in tempo), the Dukes are about as well-rounded an underdog as you’ll find. But before they can break anyone’s bracket, they’ll have to make their way past the Mountaineers in the Sun Belt tournament.
Big Sky Conference
Underdog Rating: 8.1
An 8.1 Underdog Rating doesn’t exactly conjure images of George Mason or VCU, but the Wildcats check in as the best potential underdog in the Big Sky, ahead of first-place Eastern Washington (3.5). The Wildcats boast an unusual profile that includes a mix of conservative and aggressive tactics. They eschew transition offense to take care of their defensive backboards and sacrifice offensive rebounding to prevent fast breaks. The result: They rank 291st in pace, 329th in offensive rebound rate and 13th on the defensive boards. Dillon Jones is second in the entire country with a 31.8 percent defensive rebounding rate.
But within the half-court, the Wildcats take more risks. They launch 39.2 of their shots from 3-point range, and they force turnovers on 18.3 percent of opponents’ possessions. That latter skill played a huge role in a November upset of Saint Mary’s. They forced 15 Gaels turnovers in a four-point win in which they trailed 47-31 with 13:48 left.
Eastern Washington’s 14-3 conference record easily surpassed the Wildcats’ 11-6 mark. But the Eagles rank 250th or worse nationally in offensive turnover percentage, defensive turnover percentage and offensive rebounding, while sporting a defense that gives up an adjusted 110.3 points per 100 possessions (247th). Power conference teams should be lining up for the chance to face the Eagles in the first round of the NCAA tourney.
Coastal Athletic Association
Underdog Rating: 7.0
Speaking of failing to conjure images of George Mason or VCU, both of those programs’ legendary teams shot out of the CAA, but the conference (now renamed “Coastal” instead of “Colonial”) hasn’t seen a member win an NCAA Tournament game since the Rams beat Wichita State in 2012. Kevin Keatts’ Wilmington squads came close in 2016 and 2017, when the Seahawks won a combined 54 games and two CAA titles and kept things competitive in first-round losses to Duke and Virginia.
Takayo Siddle, an assistant to Keatts on those teams, is rebuilding UNCW in that image: forcing opponents to play very slowly while maintaining outstanding ball security and taking lots of threes. But the 2024 Seahawks just don’t disrupt their foes: opponents are coughing up the ball on just 16.8 percent of possessions (ranking 196th in the NCAA) and shooting 50.8 percent from inside (199th) and 35.4 percent from outside (280th). Further, UNCW hits on just 33.4 percent of its bombs (ranking 204th) — and when the Seahawks’ shooting is off, their porous defense can quickly lead to ugly games against tough opponents. This team beat Kentucky but gave up 106 points to Arkansas and lost by 30 to Appalachian State. Even for our model, that’s suspicious variability.
By narrow margins, Slingshot sees Wilmington as a better team and tournament underdog than Charleston, which finished three games ahead of the Seahawks in the CAA standings. And you can see how UNCW, which beat Charleston twice in the regular season, can hassle an overdog. Just don’t get your hopes all that high.
(Photo credits: Bob Kupbens / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images; John Fisher / Getty Images; Tommy Martino / University of Montana/Getty Images)
