2019 March Madness Bracket: Best Sleepers and Cinderella Team Picks
NCAA Championship Cinderella Picks: If The Slipper Fits…
Let’s get this out of the way immediately: It’s not wise to bet on a Cinderella team to win the national title because it so rarely happens. The modern version of the NCAA Tournament began in 1985 when the field was expanded to 64 schools (now 68). The worst-seeded team to win it all since then was No. 8 Villanova in 1985, which knocked off Patrick Ewing and the Georgetown Hoyas in an epic title game performance.
Villanova entered that season unranked. Only three more times has a school been unranked to begin the year won it all: Syracuse in 2003, Florida in 2006 and Connecticut in 2011. It should be noted that those last three schools were all ranked by the time the NCAA Tournament rolled around.
So, any Cinderella schools mentioned here (one per region) are just Final Four candidates as it’s still smart to bet largely chalk to win the national title. Top seeds have won it 21 times since 1985, including nine of the past 12. We’ll consider a Cinderella any school seeded lower than fourth. Odds are to win national title (even though they won’t).
East Region Cinderella Pick
UCF (+30000)
The Knights are seeded eighth in the East and could well lose their tournament opener to No. 9 VCU. Should UCF win that, tournament favourite Duke will be waiting. So maybe this isn’t a smart pick. But the Knights were the preseason AAC favourites for a reason. They have one player who can cause major headaches for any school in 7-foot-6 senior Tacko Fall, who is the NCAA’s all-time field-goal percentage leader – usually he dunks. Fall is shooting 75.4 percent from the field in 2018-19 and blocking 2.5 shots per game. UCF ended Houston’s national-best 33-game home winning streak on March 2.
West Region Cinderella Pick
Buffalo (+8000)
The Mid-American Conference champions are sixth in the West and open Friday against the St. John’s/Arizona State First Four winner. The Bulls are legit. Last year, they were a No. 13 seed and destroyed No. 4 Arizona 89-68 in the first round before running into Kentucky. This year’s Buffalo team is better than that one with just three losses. It won at West Virginia and Syracuse out of conference and enters on a 12-game winning streak. Star CJ Massinburg would start for any Power 5 school.
South Region Cinderella Pick
Cincinnati (+10000)
The Bearcats were terribly seeded as a No. 7 in the South (should have been a 5, maybe a 4) and open with No. 10 Iowa. Up next surely would be No. 2 Tennessee, which has faltered down the stretch. Per usual, the Bearcats are one of the country’s top defensive teams (also one of the country’s best offensive rebounding teams) and they won the AAC Tournament title by knocking off No. 11 Houston by 12. UC knows how to win tight games with 10 of its regular-season victories by six points or fewer.
Midwest Region Cinderella Pick
New Mexico State (+30000)
The Aggies are the No. 12 seed in the Midwest and one of the hottest schools in the nation on a 19-game winning streak – they haven’t lost since Jan. 3. They nearly won at Kansas on Dec. 8 when the Jayhawks were ranked No. 2 in the country. NMSU annually dominates the WAC and usually gets that conference’s automatic bid but hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament games since 1992. This is a very deep team with 13 players averaging at least 11 minutes per game.
Click here for our prediction on who will win the 2019 NCAA Championship.