A big Sunday awaits the Never Been Kissed – those schools who have never made it to the Sweet Sixteen since the men’s basketball tournament expanded to 64 teams back in 1985. Before we look ahead to Sunday and part two of Championship Week(s), let’s recap the major stories since our checkpoint last Sunday.

High Point hit their nadir in the Big South semifinal, turning a 15-point second half lead into an overtime loss to Longwood, and an inglorious exit from this year’s NBK. One Panther who can hold his head high is Kezza Giffa, the 6’1″ junior guard is a foul-drawing savant (#9 in the country in Fouls Drawn per 40 MIns, #7 in Free Throw Rate) and was a perfect 14-for-14 from the stripe on Saturday, coming off the bench to garner KenPom game MVP honors in a losing cause. Longwood & UNC Asheville square off on Sunday (11 AM CDT on ESPN2 ) for Big South glory and NBK consideration.

Even more surprising was Youngstown St losing to Cleveland St in their Horizon League tournament opener, though the flow of this game was very different. Cleveland St took control halfway through the first half and the Penguins could not get closer than five points the rest of the way. DJ Burns had a strong game in a losing cause – the well-traveled 6’7″ senior went for 17 points & 18 rebounds.

Wrapping up the downer section of this post, Akron continued their tailspin this week, falling to both Eastern & Western Michigan to end the regular season losing 5 of 8, after an 18-5 start. The Zips performance in February and March has been downright (John) Groce, and they’ve ceded the top seed in next week’s Mid America Conference to Toledo. We’ll see if the Zips right the ship, or if the Mud Hens snag their NCAA & NBK spots.

Morehead St showed the rest of this group how to handle their business, shrugging off three-straight February losses to run off three straight wins and take the Ohio Valley Conference tournament championship on Saturday. Seniors Riley Minnix & Kalil Thomas led the way in the conference tourney and will await their bracket fate next week. Joey Brackets has the Eagles as a 14-seed.

Appalachian St & James Madison continue on their path to a seemingly-inevitable clash in the Sun Belt tournament final, but first they will need to get past Arkansas St & Texas St respectively on Sunday night. With KenPoms of 75+, this looks like an NBK battle for just one spot.

Samford also made their Sunday semifinal; they face Furman for a place in the Southern Conference final on Monday (6 PM CDT on ESPN or ESPN2).

Finally we get to the entree of this blog meal: Indiana St vs Drake in the Missouri Valley Conference final. Arch Madness has gone chalk since the preliminary round, leading to this clash of NBK hopefuls on Sunday (1:10 PM CDT on CBS). Joey Brackets does not hold out much hope for the loser of this one getting love from the committee, so even with comparatively solid KenPom ratings of 41 & 51, our guess is this is a winner-take-all matchup.

How’d they get here? On Saturday, Indiana St used a total team effort to overwhelm Northern Iowa from the outset and win going away. Take your pick of game MVP candidates in this one, as every Sycamore on the floor performed at peak level. Drake, on the other hand, fell behind early to a solid Bradley team (#61 KenPom), battled back to tie at halftime, then survived a back-and-forth second half to squeak out the win. Atin Wright carried the Bulldogs, as the 6’1″ junior transfer from Cal St Northridge his a season-best 5 of 7 three pointers and chipped in 3 steals. Is it better to cruise through a semifinal, or does iron sharpen iron? We’ll see on Sunday.

The final should be a fun one, as both teams are much stronger on Offense than on D. Keep an eye out for early foul trouble for ISU — they are not deep and the farther you go into their bench the contribution drops off a cliff, while Drake has more reinforcements at the ready. ISUs main weakness on Offense besides a lack of depth is a high rate of getting their shots blocked, but despite’s Drake’s superior size they hardly ever block shots. It’s a classic matchup of the extremely movable object meets the fading, blinking force.

Data courtesy Kenpom.com and Basketball Reference
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

Before we get into the Never Been Kissed rankings for this year in D1 Men’s Basketball, we will take a moment to congratulate the D3 Men’s Basketball teams who made the Sweet Sixteen by surviving this past weekend. Among them is WashU, winning two straight overtime games to make the Sweet Sixteen for the ninth time — their last time qualifying was in March 2020 before COVID shut down the remainder of the D3 tourney.

OK, back to D1. This week saw several members take a step back, including our top two TCU (two losses this week) and Nebraska (one loss, one win). N.C. State, UNC-Wilmington, and Oakland dropped all the way out of our rankings after losses this week. SMU is on a three-game skid (two this week) and dropped 16 places in the KenPom, while Samford got waxed by 22 at Wofford and dropped 14 spots.

On a positive note, Grand Canyon rebounded from their two-game skid with two emphatic wins this week, moving up 11 spots in the KenPom and three in the NBK. UC-Irvine also blew out their opponents this week, moving up 14 in the KenPom and one in the NBK. Akron, Charleston, and Youngstown St make their NBK 2024 debuts. Our NBK Four from the Mountain West Conference all held onto their spots in Joey’s Bracket, with Boise St shoving New Mexico to the very brink of the bracket, Lobos losing at Broncos by ten.

The two weeks of Championship Week are now underway, as the Ohio Valley, Big South, Missouri Valley, and Atlantic Sun will all crown tournament champions by Sunday.

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

With SLU on the dark side and the future uncertain for the Billikens, let’s turn our attention to teams very much alive this year. Teams who are looking to break through to the second weekend. Teams who have only watched the Sweet Sixteen, but have Never Been Kissed themselves.

Last year saw two programs hit such heights: 15-seed Princeton upset Arizona & Missouri to make the second weekend, and 9-seed Florida Atlantic topped Memphis & Fairleigh Dickenson to also advance. The Owls did not stop there though, beating Tennessee & Kansas St to get to the third weekend. NBK to Final Four – FAU in 2023 matched the feat of Loyola Chicago in 2018.

This year’s batch of hopefuls once again includes many from the Mountain West (Colorado St, New Mexico, Utah St & Boise St), NBK Stalwarts (TCU, SMU & UC-Irvine), and even promising Big Ten contenders (Nebraska & Northwestern). Beyond the MWC, the Missouri Valley and Sun Belt conferences have the most intrigue here, each with two contenders but historically just the one spot reserved in the tourney. Indiana St & Drake are neck-and-neck in the MVC standings as well as in the KenPom rankings. Sun Belt leader Appalachian St had a flashy non-conference win over Auburn and hold a one-game lead on James Madison, while the computers favor the Dukes at the moment.

St Mary’s is running away with the WCC, and usual hegemon Gonzaga is in an unfamiliar spot on the wrong side of the bubble, but the NBK has its watchful eye on WCC #3 San Francisco. Chris Gerlufsen’s Dons won’t get an at-large berth so they will need to take the WCC tournament from the big two.

ESPN Bubble Watch ($) gives zero shot to middling major conference teams like UCF and N.C. State, but we will not give up on them just yet. Keep a close eye on this space as teams play their way out of NBK consideration, and others play their way in.

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

(5) San Diego St vs (4) UConn – 8:20 PM CDT on CBS

Keep your eye on the foul totals and the double-bonus situation tonight, for a couple of reasons. In the first half, both of these coaches are extremely conservative when it comes to playing guys with two fouls. So a first half second foul on anyone is a near certain auto-bench and may screw up the rotation. San Diego State wants to maximize the minutes of the Huskies’ Naheim Alleyne and Hassan Diarra. Then as we get into the second half, both teams also give up a high free throw % to the opponent, meaning they generally foul guard. This could provide a comeback path for either side.

These teams are deep enough — San Diego State goes a legitamate nine-deep and UConn is at about eight-and-a-half depending on how you feel about Diarra — and both have versatile scoring and defensive profiles, so foul trouble with a particular player may not prove decisive. But we saw in the women’s final yesterday that the sheer abundance of fouls on Iowa, then the fifth on Monika Czinano curbed their comeback run, and finally the technical (counting as personal foul number four) on Caitlin Clark seemed too much for the Hawkeyes to overcome.

Is this the game San Diego State unleashes the full Adam Seiko? The fifth-year senior is shooting 44.3% on three point attempts but has had only three games with 9+ attempts. How did he shoot in those games, you ask? 6 for 9 vs Occidental in December, 7 for 9 vs Utah St in January, and 6 for 10 vs UNLV in January. He’s only attempted four this entire tournament.

Data courtesy Kenpom.com and Basketball Reference
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

The maddest March ever gives way to April Fool’s Day; let’s take a WAB-style look at the Final Four matchups for this historic Saturday. Your brackets are broken so we hope you can sit back and enjoy the action amidst the ripped-up scraps.

(9) Florida Atlantic vs (5) San Diego St. – 5:09 PM CDT on CBS

Looking first at Florida Atlantic, Brandon Weatherspon has been particularly effective in the Owls red-hot run to their first Final Four. The 6’4″ junior gives Florida Atlantic a little size off the bench. You read that right: they’re sosmall that a 6’4″ dude is brought in to give them size. Weatherspoon shoot his rare shots at 55% on twos, 35% from three, and 76% from the line, and does not turn the ball over (33rd lowest TO Rate, per KenPom ($) ). Johnell Davis was everywhere all at once in FAU’s win over FDU in the second round — 29 points, 12 ebounds, 5 assists, 5 steals. Meanwhile, Jalen Gaffney breaks all our nice things, and Tre Carroll — son of former NFL defensive end Anthony Hargrove — remains a top secret weapon, seeing no action in the tournament to date despite good production in his grad transfer year.

San Diego State leans heavily on buff southpaw Matt Bradley and the brilliance of Nathan Mensah, with Jaedon Ledee spelling Mensah off the bench. Those three are no Kawhi Leonard, but they did what The Claw never could and led SDSU to the Final Four. These three have had a pretty quiet tournament for them with just 7 of 15 performances even above average, and a few mostly-foul-trouble induced stinkers from Darrion Trammell, Aguek Arop, and Micah Parrish to cobble together four straight wins. Adam Seiko is the man to watch from beyond the arc, shooting a sizzling 44% on the season, and has let it fly a whopping four times (!) from distance in the tournament. Bizarre.

(5) Miami vs (4) UConn – 7:49 PM CDT on CBS

Basketball, as we know, is a game of five on five. Our five versus your five, typically. But Miami plays a bizarre brand of four on four. More specifically, their game within the game is the positive work by their four players up in the Pro Zone — Norchad Omier, Jordan Miller, Isaiah Wong, and Nijel Pack — fighting like hell to offset the bricklaying and general tomfudgery of the four party-poopers near the bottom — Anthony Walker, Bensley Joseph, Harlond Beverly, and AJ Casey. In the middle sits Wooga Poplar, who solidifies the Canes status as best-named team in the Final Four and bridges the gap between the solid (waste) and spectacular.

UConn is the one coming into this eclectic Final Four with any sort of institutional pedigree. This year’s club features two guys in the rarified air of past champions Kemba Walker and Shabazz Napier. Adama Sanogo comes into the Final Four at number 9 in the KenPom Player of the Year rankings ($) and was particularly terrifying against Iona in the first round, going for 28 points and 13 rebounds in just 25 minutes. And when Sanogo is not on the court, Donovan Clingan carries the load inside. Clingan is not the scorer that Sanogo is — he’s no threat from three and a poor free-throw shooter — but at 7’2″ is a Sanogoeqsue rebounder and a phenomenal shot-blocker. His closest statistical comparison is to Mark Williams of last year’s Final Four team Duke and now on the Charlotte Hornets, and we all remember what Williams did for the Blue Devils last March. Tristen Newton has been solid this tournament, and Jordan Hawkins has elevated his game, while Naheim Allenye has had maybe his best four-game stretch as a Husky spelling Hawkins and Jackson. He does this H-A-W-K-I-N-S and J-A-C-K-S-O-N, we presume. #analysis

Data courtesy Kenpom.com and Basketball Reference
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

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