We began the tournament with 25 Never Been Kissed (NBK) hopefuls. Six survived and advanced to the Round of 32. Before we look ahead to the weekend action, a hat tip to Fairleigh Dickenson joining an elite club on Friday night.

WE HAVE A FRIEND NOW

— UMBC Athletics (@UMBCAthletics) March 18, 2023

SATURDAY
#3 Princeton (33%) vs Missouri – 5:10 PM CST on TNT
It’s interesting how Princeton uses Keeshawn Kellman like an “opener” in baseball. The 6’9″ senior has started all 28 games this year but plays less than half the minutes. Seems like a bit of a Big Guy smoke screen behind which they go sneaky small. Kellman and Blake Peters were both very efficient in limited roles against Arizona.

Princeton’s opponent on Saturday are the Mizzou Tigers, coming off a tough win over favored Utah St. Mizzou features three players in the “pro zone”, with D’Moi Hodge the most productive Mizzou Tiger since the great DeMarre Carroll (career earnings $80M). Another grad transfer Noah Carter has been Mizzou’s best undersized postman. And Kobe Brown’s ascendancy this year has been nothing short of astounding.

#4 Furman (23%) vs San Diego St. – 11:10 AM CST on CBS
Perhaps most remarkable about the Paladins upset of mighty Virginia on Thursday was how unremarkable their performance was overall. Jalen Slawson led the way (19 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists) and JP Pegues shrugged off a tough game (3 for 9 shooting, 4 turnovers) to hit the huge three. For the most part the Dins just did what Dins do. Pegues’ shining moment was made possible by a colossal mistake from the Cavs Kihei Clark, who threw the ball up for grabs inexplicably when it looked like Virginia had the game in the bag.

#5 Northwestern (20%) vs UCLA – 7:40 PM CST on TNT
The Wildcats rode standout performances from Boo Buie (22 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists) and Chase Audige (20 points, 6 rebounds, 4 steals) to outlast fellow NBK-er Boise St. on Thursday. The Broncos are quite thin, relying on 5.5 players, and the Wildcats wore them down in the end. Northwestern will have their hands full on Saturday with a UCLA team rolling in spite of recent injuries to Jaylen Clark (out for the year) and Adem Bona (day-to-day). Jaime Jaquez (#3 in the KenPom Player of the Year rankings) leads the Bruins.

Data courtesy Kenpom.com and Basketball Reference and RealGM.com
Game Score metric created by John Hollinger detailed here
Plot format by Aaron Baggett
Inspiration from Ken Pomeroy
Inspiration from Rock M Nation
Team colors courtesy:
Benjamin S. Baumer and Gregory J. Matthews (2020). teamcolors: Color Palettes for Pro Sports Teams. R package version 0.0.4.

Below we recap Thursday’s action and look ahead to the weekend from the standpoint of the Never Been Kissed (NBK) — our tracker for those schools who have never made it to the Sweet Sixteen in all the years since the NCAA first expanded the D1 Men’s tournament to 64 teams back in 1985.

THURSDAY

Princeton pulled off the upset of the day, beating #2 seed Arizona 59-55 and busting Jay Bilas’ bracket right off the jump. This was a game where Princeton just hung around — down 16-13 after 10 minutes, down 31-30 at half, down 49-41 with 10 minutes to go — before closing with an 18-6 run as the Wildcats wilted. 6’8″ Princeton senior Tosan Evbuoamwan was too much for even the touted Arizona bigs to handle, putting up 15 points, 11 rebounds while commanding double-teams in the paint. The victory launches Princeton to the top of the NBK standings, as they have a 33% chance of beating Mizzou on Saturday and making their first Sweet Sixteen of the modern era. This marked the last college game for NBK favorite and St Louisan Courtney Ramey.
The Tigers were the biggest but not the only upset of the day. Furman pulled an unlikely rabbit from the hat of the #4 seed Virginia Cavaliers on Thursday night 68-67. With Virginia up two an less than ten seconds left, 2019 hero Kihei Clark launched the illest-advised pass in recent history, picked off easily by Furman’s Garrett Hien, who in turn found JP Pegues for the winning three. Virginia had an in-game win probability of 96.1% before Clark’s ill-fated launch, and afterwards Cavs coach Tony Bennett called it a “gut punch”. Next up for the Paladins are the Aztecs of San Diego St on Saturday.
In an all-NBK first round showdown, Northwestern prevailed over Boise St. 75-67.
Utah St. threatened, but ultimately could not pull past Mizzou, and the Tigers won 75-67. Weirdly, a technical foul on Aggies coach Ryan Odom seemed to fire up the other team. Mizzou extended their three point lead to nine and never trailed again. And the Mountain West continues to come up small in big moments.
Charleston gave the Mountain West some glimmers of hope as they fell to San Diego St. 63-57. The Cougars cut the lead to two with under five minutes left, but could not handle the Aztecs combination of size and speed. They end the season 31-4 and put themselves on the watch list for NBK 2024.
Louisiana was a trendy pick over injured and teetering Tennessee, but came up short 59-55. The game was never as close as the final score, with the minimum win probability for the Vols of 85%.
Colgate were brushed aside easily by a strong Texas team 81-61, with Sir’Jabari Rice off the bench for the Longhorns to shoot 7-10 from three point range.
UNC Asheville went down 14-0 against UCLA and it never got much better. They were crushed 86-53.
Northern Kentucky, on the other hand, was only down two at halftime, but could not stay with a hobbled but great Houston club 63-52.
Howard hung with Kansas for the first ten minutes, but the presence of Vice President Kamala Harris and the absence of Addidas Enthusiast Bill Self were not enough to tip the scales in favor of the Bison.

FRIDAY
Here is today’s action in the NBK:
#2 TCU (61%) vs Arizona St. – 9:05 PM CDT on truTV
#5 Drake (46%) vs Miami FL – 6:25 PM CDT on TBS
#6 Florida Atlantic (49%) vs Memphis – 8:20 PM CDT on TNT
#7 N.C. State (31%) vs Creighton – 3:00 PM CDT on TNT
#8 Iona (20%) vs UConn – 3:30 PM CDT on TBS
#9 Montana St (21%) vs Kansas St. – 8:40 PM CDT on CBS
#10 UC Santa Barbara (22%) vs Baylor – 1:30 PM CDT on TNT
#11 Vermont (16%) vs Marquette – 1:45 PM on CBS
#12 Grand Canyon (14%) vs Gonzaga – 6:35 PM CDT on TruTV
#13 Kennesaw St. (17%) vs Xavier – 11:40 AM CDT on TNT
#14 Farleigh Dickinson (2%) vs Purdue – 5:50 PM CDT on TNT

Data courtesy Kenpom.com and Basketball Reference and ESPN

The field is set! Joey Brackets once again only missed one (congratulations Nevada, our condolences Rutgers)! And this year’s bracket contains a whopping 25 schools that have never made it to the Sweet Sixteen in the years since the field was first expanded to 64 teams back in 1985. These teams are the Never Been Kissed (NBK), and in this post we rank them from most- to least-likely to make it to the second weekend.

Last year all of our predictions about who would emerge were wrong – we liked San Francisco, Vermont, Colgate, Boise St., and Texas Southern, but only longshot Saint Peter’s (2.0% chance) made it to the promised land. Undaunted by our failed past, we will again pick one from the 20s, one from the 10s, and a flyer from the single-digits.

We like TCU this year to take care of business against aforementioned Nevada, then swing the upset over Gonzaga in round two. The Horned Frogs are NBK veterans, and made it through a very tough Big XII slate. The Zags had Saint Mary’s to contend with, and ultimately prevailed in the Big West final, but they have been on mothballs now for more than a week. It looks like they will be without beloved big man Eddie Lampkin Jr. for the tournament, but this year we foresee the rise in small ball as the prevailing trend. As Clark Kellogg might say, the “Froghorns” move on.

To that end, we are also picking N.C. State at 10.9% with their three-guard combo of Terquavion Smith, Jarkel Joiner, and Casey Morsell frustrating a bigger Creighton squad and playing Baylor’s combo of Keyonte George, Adam Flagler, and LJ Cryer to a stalemate. Wolfpack to the second week.

Kennesaw St. is our longshot pick this year (2.7%). The Owls don’t have a player over 6’8″ but they can shoot it from deep (37% on threes, #33 per KenPom). Colgate is the best three-point shooting team in the country this year, up over 40%, but we do not like their matchups with Texas and Texas A&M. Thus the pick of the Owls.

Data courtesy Kenpom.com

Before we get into the NBK update, congratulations to lemasteb for Outwitting, Outplaying, Outlasting all others in Rush the Court’s College Basketball Survivor pool. Best CBB pool on the internet. Pick two teams from the top six conferences to win all their games that week, then you can’t use them again the rest of the season. Be sure to sign up next November.

SATURDAY
Utah St took San Diego St to the final minutes but fell in the end to the Aztecs 62-57. San Diego St continues its hegemony in the most NBK-friendly conference of late: the Mountain West. Computers still like the Aggies and they seem to be reasonably well-positioned in that First Four Byes range.

Florida Atlantic beat UAB soundly 78-56 to take the Conference USA tournament title and automatic bid. They did not need it to get in. FAU and fellow NBKer Charleston are going to be lumped together in talking head circles in the days to come — with identical 31-3 records and coming from the ranks of the unknown — but FAU will be thrown into the 8/9 fray while Charleston lurks in the seed equivalent of the dunker spot as a 12-seed. Good spots for both, from where we sit.

Iona struggled to rid themselves of Marist, as still more blood drained from the head of soon-to-be-St-Johns-coach(?) Rick Pitino in the process. The Gaels needed this one to get in, and they got the job done 76-55. They will be an underdog but will not sneak up on anyone, as Pitino will be in the news all week.

Toledo fell to Kent St, in one that hurts real bad at the NBK central office. The Rockets were riding a 19-game win streak, having run the table since a loss to — you guessed it — Kent St back in January. And not only have they Never Been Kissed, Toledo has never even gotten to hold hands. Their last NCAA Tournament appearance was in 1980, the days of Pee Wee Lenard and Prince Bridges. Shake it off and come back strong next year, Rockets. We’ll save you a spot.

Vermont handled UMass Lowell and will renew their pursuit of a Sweet Sixteen berth once again next week. They got a little projected-seed bump as well with some upsets from above.

SELECTION SUNDAY
Yale (58%) at Princeton – 11 AM CDT

Only one NBKer game – here’s the full slate for Sunday:

Behold! Our final Never Been Kissed rankings on the morning of Selection Sunday. In years past we’ve tweaked the formula for the pre-Selection-Show edition, shuffling the teams around based on Most Favorable Projected Seed versus KenPom Rank. This year we don’t have time for that, so we’ll stick with KenPom Rank and Bracketology status as our key metrics.

Data courtesy Kenpom.com and ESPN Bracketology and ESPN Bubble Watch ($) and NCAA.com

Busy times at WAB HQ means we are late getting started with this year’s effort to track the fates of those schools who have never made the Sweet Sixteen — Never Been Kissed (NBK) — since the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament expanded to 64 teams back in 1985. What’s a Billiken favorites Saint Louis could play their way onto this list with a win in the A-10 semifinal this afternoon over tormentor VCU.

Five NBKers have made it to their conference tournament championship game today. They’re on the edge (the edge) of glory:

#1 Utah St (45%) vs San Diego St – 5 PM CST
#3 Florida Atlantic (59%) vs UAB – 7:30 PM CST
#11 Iona (89%) vs Marist – 6:30 PM CST
#12 Toledo (47%) vs Kent St. – 6:30 PM CST
#17 Vermont (66%) vs UMass Lowell – 10 AM CST

Utah St, Boise St, Yale, and Tulane will play today in the semifinals. Enjoy the action.

Data courtesy Kenpom.com and ESPN Bracketology and ESPN Bubble Watch