I was in elementary school when my dad took me to the Providence Civic Center for the first round of the 1989 NCAA Tournament. We watched the afternoon games, got dinner, and then he asked me if I wanted to go back for some of the night session. There were two games on tap, but only the very late one seemed like it would be any good. The earlier matchup was between a No. 1-seeded team and some hopeless No. 16-seed. It would be a boring blowout.
Tough luck, my dad told me, there was no way we were staying out until midnight. We could catch the first game and then go home or just leave right now. I remember it being a tough choice, but for whatever reason we stayed — and then got to witness a game that I am still telling people about almost four decades later, one that oh-so-nearly was (and should have been) " target="_blank"> among the most monumental upsets in sports history.
That’s when I came down with a full-blown case of March Madness, and it hasn’t let up since. I’m just one of the many fans who consider the next two days the absolute best two days on the annual sports calendar and the entire three-week tournament the single best of any sporting event. I claim no expertise (my national championship pick last year fell a little short), just undiminished enthusiasm and a weakness for the underdog.
With that in mind, here are just a few of the teams and storylines on my mind as the 2025 edition of the NCAA tournament gets underway.
Sleeper team that might make a run: BYU
This is a risky pick, since the No. 6-seeded Cougars face a trendy upset pick, VCU, in the first round. The game will be a clash of styles. Offensive-minded BYU scores more than 80 points a game, averages nearly 11 made 3-pointers, and boasts one of the highest effective field goal percentages in the country. VCU’s stifling defense, meanwhile, limits opponents to just 61.6 points per game and 37.8% shooting from the field. Something will have to give here and it would be no shocker if the Rams (whose coach, Ryan Odom, led No. 16-seed UMBC to an upset for the ages in the 2018 tournament) take down the Cougars.
But if BYU can get past this first-round landmine, they might just get on a roll. This is a confident team that closed the season with nine straight wins, including a 34-point dismantling of Kansas, road victories over Arizona and Iowa State and another win over the Cyclones in the Big 12 tournament. Only a title game loss to mighty Houston kept BYU from coming into the NCAA tournament on a 10-game win streak.
After VCU, the Cougars would likely face Wisconsin, which staggered toward the end of the year with one of their key players, Max Klesmit, banged up. The Badgers could be vulnerable. So too could Alabama, BYU’s most likely opponent if they make it to the Sweet 16. The Tide dropped three of their last five games and there are questions about the status of Grant Nelson and his injured leg.
For that matter, no one can be sure what to expect from the region’s top seed, Duke, with star Cooper Flagg returning from his own ankle issues. BYU hasn’t advanced to the second weekend since the glory days of Jimmer Fredette in 2011, but the way this current team is playing, that hardly seems out of reach.
First-round upset I’m eyeing: No. 12 Liberty over No. 5 Oregon
It’s true that 12-seed vs. 5-seed matchups have historically been upset-prone, but that’s not the reason this one is on my radar. What does get my attention, though, is this: Liberty can shoot the 3-pointer. The mid-major Flames rank sixth nationally (out of 355 teams) in 3-point shooting percentage. They have three players who hit at over a 40% clip, including Taelon Peter, Conference USA’s Sixth Man Player of the Year, who can come in and heat up fast. Lighting it up from outside can go a long way to leveling the playing field in a game like this. Nor is Liberty a slouch on the defensive end, ranking No. 10 nationally in points allowed.
Oregon is a tough draw. They’re on a roll, winners of eight out of their last nine, and figure to have plenty of support from fans with the game in Seattle. But in a one-game situation, the Flames’ potential to catch fire (see what I did there?) makes them an upset candidate.
If you like the tournament the way it is, you should probably hope lose these teams lose early: Oklahoma and Texas
Nothing against either one of these schools or states, but they both play in the now-enormous SEC and both posted the same conference record this season: 6-12. That’s the worst conference winning percentage (.333) for any team that’s received an at-large bid to the tournament since its expansion to 64 teams in 1985.
The committee’s decision to include the Sooners and Longhorns comes as the campaign for further expansion of the field — 76 teams now seems to be the consensus target — seems to be gaining steam. The pro-expansion argument is that more schools than ever now play at the Division I level, so more spots are needed for worthy participants. The reality, though, is that expansion may look more like this: Power conference teams that are short on actual wins slipping in because even picking off a few big fish in a power conference will produce some impressive-seeming metrics.
Plenty of fans are fine with this, no doubt. And success for the Sooners and Longhorns would offer validation for their view. But for those who like the tournament as it is and fear what adding even more teams would mean, it’s probably best if both teams make early exits.
With expectations sky high for UConn, is Dan Hurley under the most pressure in this year's NCAA tournament? Former NBA player and NCAA champion Rashad McCants weighs in.
Team my head thinks will win it all: Houston
The Cougars blitzed through the Big 12, winning 19 of 20 games and the regular season title, then went three-for-three in the conference tournament. Overall, they’re 30-4 and have lost only one time (by a single point, in overtime, to a strong Texas Tech team) since the first week of December. This is the third straight tournament that Houston has earned a No. 1 seed, but this edition stands out for two reasons: They’re experienced and used to playing together (more than 80% of last year’s scoring returned this season), both premiums in the transfer portal era; and they finally have an offense to match their perennially elite defense.
Previous Houston teams had to hope their suffocating defense would compensate for woeful shooting. But this one has three players who shoot over 40% from behind the 3-point line (they had none last year), and they rank fourth in the country as a team in 3-point percentage.
A concern is the status of big man J’Wan Roberts, who sprained his ankle last week. He’s expected to be available for the tournament, though he might not be 100% in the first two rounds. If they can get through the first weekend and emerge with a healthy Roberts, this will be the most complete of Houston’s recent tournament teams — and those teams were all title contenders.
Who my heart wants to win it all: St. John’s
And maybe they will! The fact that Rick Pitino, essentially blacklisted from college coaching at the age of 65, is now at 72 years old taking a 30-4 team ranked No. 5 in the country to the NCAA tournament is improbable enough. That he’s doing it with St. John’s, a powerhouse from an earlier era of the sport that until now has gone a quarter-century without a tournament win, makes this feel like a plot from a movie.
My heart wants them to win it all, but my head can’t quite get there. This is partly because my sentimental favorites almost never actually come in, but mostly because of the Johnnies’ (maybe) fatal flaw: Shooting. More specifically, they’re abysmal from outside — a mere 30.4% from beyond the arc, 335th out of all 355 Division 1 schools — and positively atrocious from the foul line, where they’re 68.9% as a team. (Pitino" target="_blank"> knows first-hand how costly missed free throws can be in a tight tournament game.)
Part of what makes St. John’s so compelling is that they’ve won so much in spite of all of this, thanks to a relentlessly disruptive defense that creates deflections, steals and transitions points — and that can either erase deficits or blow games open in a matter of a few possessions. It’s no coincidence that St. John’s has trailed by double-digits in eight games this season and come back to win seven of them. But relying on escape acts in the tournament is a dangerous game. I’m hoping for a magical run from Pitino and his team, but fearing the worst.
This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:
