NBA draft prospects to watch in the March Madness tournament
USAT’s Mackenzie Salmon gives you four players to keep your eye on in March Madness that will most likely be heading to the NBA next year.
Sports Pulse
There’s nothing that defines the NCAA Tournament quite like an upset. After all, March Madness isn’t all that mad if everything unfolds the way it was expected.
Surprising results are central to the event’s lore, the kinds of moments that get played on highlight reels that run every March. It could be a first-round stunner like UMBC over Virginia or Fairleigh Dickinson over Purdue, the only times a No. 16 seed has triumphed over a No. 1 seed. Sometimes, Cinderella’s trip to the ball lasts longer than a few days, as mid-major darlings like George Mason, VCU, Loyola Chicago and Florida Atlantic have shown over the past 20 years with Final Four runs.
At least part of the joy of filling out a bracket every March isn’t picking a Final Four or a national champion, but trying to identify where upsets will inevitably occur. What matchups favor the smaller school from the less prestigious league? What players from lesser-known schools will end up capturing the nation’s attention and heart?
Trying to correctly predict upsets is an inexact science, one that can sometimes backfire spectacularly. But what’s the fun in picking favorites in every game?
As the first round of the 2025 NCAA men’s basketball tournament looms, here’s a look at five potential upsets:
March Madness upset picks: five bracket buster first-round expert predictions
This group does not include matchups between Nos. 8 and No. 9 seeds or Nos. 7 and No. 10 seeds, which are often toss-ups.
No. 13 Yale over No. 4 Texas A&M
Buzz Williams’ Aggies are one of the toughest, most formidable teams in the country, one that’s battle-tested after going through the gauntlet of SEC play. They struggle at times to score, though, ranking 322nd among 364 Division I teams in field goal percentage. Their star player, Wade Taylor IV, is making just 35.4% of his attempts this season. Texas A&M made up for those shooting deficiencies through second-chance opportunities, rebounding 42% of its misses, the best offensive rebounding percentage in the country according to KenPom.
While that’s a valuable skill, the Aggies drew a first-round opponent who might be able to thwart it a bit. Yale is allowing opponents to get offensive rebounds on 25.8% of their missed shots, the 22nd-best mark in Division I. If the Bulldogs can clean up the glass and end most Texas A&M possessions with just one missed shot, they’ve got a good chance. After all, James Jones’ program has experience with these kinds of upsets, having beaten Baylor in 2016 and Auburn last year.
No. 11 Drake over No. 6 Missouri
Few stories from outside of college basketball’s power conferences have resonated more than Drake, which last offseason hired four-time Division II champion Ben McCollum as its coach. He proceeded to bring in many of the best players from his Northwest Missouri State squad. Together, that group has excelled, with a 30-3 record and Missouri Valley regular-season and tournament championships.
Missouri, which has lost five of its past seven games, should present an interesting stylistic clash. The Tigers play at a relatively fast pace while the Bulldogs are the slowest team in the country, with a KenPom adjusted tempo ranking lower than all but one of Tony Bennett’s 15 teams at Virginia. If the Bulldogs are able to play the game on their terms, they have a good chance, especially with one of the country’s best guards, Bennett Stirtz. They’re a popular upset pick for a reason.
No. 11 VCU over No. 6 BYU
VCU was one of the more egregiously underseeded teams by the NCAA Tournament selection committee. A Rams squad that enters the tournament with a 28-6 record and Atlantic 10 regular-season and tournament championships is a No. 11 seed despite being No. 31 in both the NET and on KenPom.
Coach Ryan Odom’s team is balanced, ranking in the top 50 nationally in offensive and defensive efficiency, and has some offensive firepower — namely from Ukrainian guard Max Shulga, the A-10 player of the year — to take advantage of what has been an occasionally porous BYU defense. One potential snag, though, comes from the game’s location in Denver, where BYU, unlike VCU, will be used to playing at altitude.
No. 13 High Point over No. 4 Purdue
The Boilermakers, the reigning national runner-up, are stumbling into the tournament, having lost six of their past nine games. They still have plenty of playmakers, namely guard Braden Smith and forward Trey Kaufman-Renn. However, they’ve been questionable on defense at times this season, particularly closer to the basket with Zach Edey now in the NBA.
High Point, which is among the top 25 teams nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency, has the potential to exploit that weak defense and extend its winning streak to 15. It’s not as if Purdue hasn’t had glaring March missteps before, having lost to a double-digit seed in three of its past four tournament appearances.
The 12-over-5 upset is a staple of March Madness brackets, with at least one No. 12 seed beating a No. 5 seed in 33 of the past 39 NCAA Tournaments. In Colorado State’s case, this technically may not even qualify as a surprise, with the Rams a 1.5-point favorite over Penny Hardaway’s Memphis squad, according to odds Wednesday from BetMGM. Still, given the seven-seed gap between the two, we’ll consider it an upset for the sake of this exercise.
Colorado State is one of the hottest teams in the country, riding a 10-game win streak that was capped by winning the Mountain West tournament. Forward Nique Clifford has been one of the best players in the country during that time, averaging 22.2 points and 9.9 rebounds per game over his team’s past 12 contests. The Tigers are a talented team headlined by all-American PJ Haggerty, but they received a surprisingly good seed given their rankings in various major metrics and have been largely untested the past two months competing in the American Athletic Conference.
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