Everyone is filling out their brackets and the exciting part is that anything can happen in March. This is a look at which team could make a deep run in the Midwest Region of the March Madness bracket.
Midwest Region Breakdown
Here is a quick look at the odds to win the Midwest Region on DraftKings Sportsbook:
The Midwest Region is arguably the most stacked region in the tournament. Houston is a fantastic #1 seed, ranking third in the country in net rating, but their depth is the truly impressive part of this region. According to net rating, Tennessee is the fifth-best team in the country, Gonzaga ranks ninth, Kentucky is 16th, Clemson is 18th, Purdue is 19th, and Illinois is 20th. That is seven of the top 20 teams in the country, all in one bracket. That is a recipe for chaos and upsets in the later rounds of the tournament. However, there is one more team in the bracket that could make some noise and pull off a first-round upset of one of those top teams.
Will Wade’s McNeese Cowboys check every box when it comes to a possible Cinderella team. They were the Southland regular season and tournament champions and largely dominated their way through the conference tournament. Will Wade is a coach with NCAA Tournament experience and has taken a team to the Sweet 16 before. This team also went to the NCAA Tournament last season, and while they didn’t win their first-round game last season, that was great experience for the players that returned to this year’s team. The other thing you need in March is great guard play, and the Cowboys have that in the trio of Sincere Parker, Javohn Garcia and Quadir Copeland.
McNeese is matched up with Clemson in the Round of 64, which is particularly intriguing because Will Wade is a Clemson alumnus. He is very familiar with the program and that adds an extra layer of juice to the matchup. Clemson is one of the slowest teams in the country, ranking 327th in adjusted tempo. Similarly to Tony Bennett’s UVA teams and Matt Painter’s Purdue teams, among others in that mold, that slow pace does leave teams more open to getting upset. The fewer possessions there are in a game, the more room there is for an underdog to catch fire or the favorite to never find a rhythm.
McNeese has a great shot to pull off that upset and set up a Round of 32 matchup with Purdue. As previously mentioned, Matt Painter’s teams have a propensity to get upset in March. Last year, they made an amazing run to the National Championship, led by Zach Edey. However, Edey is gone and this is back to a traditional Matt Painter team that is liable to be upset. Purdue had been upset in the Round of 64 in two of the three seasons prior to their national title game run, including being the second 1-seed to ever lose to a 16-seed. Just like Clemson, Purdue plays incredibly slow, ranking 297th in the country in adjusted tempo. That sets up another great opportunity for McNeese to pull off an upset and keep a Cinderella run going.
My favorite bet for this region is for McNeese to make the Sweet 16. That bet can be found at +700 on DraftKings Sportsbook. 12-seeds have an all-time tournament winning percentage of 35.3% and a 12-seed has won at least one game in 33 of the past 39 tournaments. A double-digit seed has made the Sweet 16 in each of the past 16 tournaments, so it is common to see a team like this win multiple games. McNeese has two teams that fit the mold to be upset in their first two games, and if they can keep their momentum going from the Southland Tournament, they could push straight through to the Sweet 16.
Best Bet: McNeese to Make Sweet 16 (+700)
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