Just about every college basketball coach will tell you winning in the NCAA tournament is heavily based on what type of matchup their team draws. Now that Selection Sunday has delivered yet another riveting unveiling of 68 teams, the Cinderellas, Final Four sleepers and title contenders can be sorted out based on the 2016 tourney's matchups.
While March is always wild and unpredictable, this season's madness started way earlier with a record number of top teams falling like flies. With that, why think the tournament would be normal madness? Here's a look at seven predictions that will shake up the bracket.
No team from the mighty Big 12 reaches the Final Four
In a season in which the Big 12 has been the clear-cut toughest conference in the country and Kansas has emerged as the top overall seed in the whole tournament, it would almost be bizarre to not see a team from the Big 12 in Houston come April. But it's not as though the Jayhawks, No. 2 seed Oklahoma, No. 3 seed West Virginia, No. 4 seed Iowa State, No. 5 seed Baylor, No. 6 seed Texas and No. 8 seed Texas Tech have an easy path. Bill Self's team could run into a surging UConn team as early as the first weekend in the South Region. And while Buddy Hield's Sooners do have the moxie to get past top-seeded Oregon or anyone in the West, OU has proven to be extremely vulnerable when it's not shooting the ball well from beyond the arc. The conference didn't fare too well in last year's tournament, either, as both Iowa State and Baylor got stunned in the opening round by mid-major Cinderellas.
