The guard play in the West Region is scarily good.
It’s not just that pretty much everyone in the region has one guard that is VERY GOOD—including ACC Player of the Year RJ Davis, Pac 12 Player of the Year Caleb Love, WCC Player of the Year Augustus Marciulionis, Patriot League Player of the Year Braeden Smith1, WAC Player of the Year Tyon Grant-Foster out of Grand Canyon2, Big 12 Freshman of the Year Ja’Kobe Walter and A-10 Sixth Man of the Year Koby Brea. Four of the top five teams in this region have starting backcourts that rival any in the country, and at least one of those programs isn’t making the second weekend3.
The best games feature great guard play, because great guards lift their teammates. This Region should churn out some of the most fun games. Let’s get into it.
West Region
3 Favorites - North Carolina, because every top-seed has to be considered a favorite, especially the one with the easiest path to the Final Four. The Tar Heels have in RJ Davis the tournament’s best pure scorer, a double-double in Armando Bacot and a defense so good it even held Kentucky below 90 points. Sweeping Duke but losing to Georgia Tech is deeply confusing, and you have my respect for it.
Arizona has the talent and the coaching; they also have the highest variance between “Can win the entire thing” and “Can crash and burn spectacularly on Day One.” I do not trust anything about them except Tommy Lloyd, but that is enough for me.
Saint Mary’s has my floppy-haired son Aidan Mahaney, the best big man in this region in Mitchell Saxen4 and late-night hoops god Randy Bennett pulling the strings. Since the start of the new year, the Gaels have lost once, to Gonzaga, in a game they didn’t really need after already locking up the outright WCC title, and then they turned around 10 days later and kicked the Zags straight into the gutter in the WCC Tournament title game.
2 Chances for Cinderella - Long Beach State has a chance to do THE funniest thing ever, and that’s go on a miracle run in the NCAA Tournament with a coach their new AD has already run out of town. Never underestimate how much karmic fun can be generated by making a power-mad white man look like a buffoon; Beach beating Arizona and making the second weekend would be incredible for the genre.
Elsewhere, Grand Canyon. The Lopes are making their third appearance in the Division I Big Dance and still seek their first win. They have one of the more fun environments in college hoops and have been grinding XP to become a sort of Gonzaga Lite since they transitioned. It’s gonna happen one year, and it might be this year.
I want these people to be happy.
1 Dark Horse - Michigan State, because you go right on ahead and count out a Tom Izzo team in March at your own peril. I will be giving Sparty the respect it commands no matter how many times I find myself to be too trusting of a Michigan State guard.
X-Factor - He could shoot his team out in the first round, or he could be Most Outstanding Player of the Tournament. The ceiling is totally off for the Caleb Love Experience in Tucson.
Coach on the Rise - Eventually it’s going to become impossible to retain Matt Langel (Colgate), but the Raiders should ride this thing out as long as possible. More than half the coaching jobs in the A-10 have opened up just in the last three off-seasons; the dude who built Toothpaste U into a consistent winner couldn’t do the same for Fordham?
Coach on the Outs - Ostensibly no one, but a Purdue-esque embarrassment in Round One would give many of Hubert Davis (North Carolina) biggest haters5 a lot of ammunition.
Overrated - Michigan State, mostly because 14 losses is a lot for a nine-seed to have. Yes, I see your metrics. I know what I said above about the Spartans (and I believe it too). I also know that if you had similar metrics but were instead some podunk-ass school like [casts about randomly] Indiana State, you’d be at home right now.
Overlooked - Well, not only should Nevada mollywhop a suddenly struggling Dayton in Round One6, the Wolfpack profile as the kind of team that might give Arizona7 trouble in Round Two—big, mean, physical and the seventh-most experienced team in the nation according to KenPom. Learn the name Kenan Blackshear; for all the accolades and plaudits for Great Osobor, Isaiah Stevens and Jaedon LeDee, Blackshear was one of the best players in one of college basketball’s wildest leagues this year.
Prediction - North Carolina surges through the top half of this bracket, only encountering even a slight hiccup against Saint Mary’s, whose season ends when the Gaels lack of scoring punch finally results in a knockout blow. On the bottom side, Baylor and Nevada stagger out of the wreckage, where the two-headed freshman monstrosity of Yves Missi and Ja’Kobe Walter finally knock out a game Wolfpack team. The “Caleb Love gets a chance to stick it to Hubert and North Carolina” dream dies against Nevada when Love goes 4-for-17 from the floor.
It’s kind of a wrap after that. Hubert shuts up the haters and the Tar Heels coast to Phoenix.
Colgate’s Version
Probably.
Yeah I said it and I’ll say it out loud in a church.
Last year, I would have been right there. But Hubert has done a great job this year (flop against North Carolina State in the ACC Tournament notwithstanding) and has earned, at least for me and least for right now, the benefit of the doubt.
Via KenPom, Nevada ranks 36th nationally in AdjEM. Dayton’s last win against a KenPom top-40 team was mid-December against Cincinnati; they’re just 5-5 against KenPom top-100 teams since the calendar changed to 2024.
Never forget that Arizona has three of the five worst losses of any top-two seed in this bracket—to Oregon State, Stanford and USC.