It’s finally March, and with South Carolina looking poised for its first tournament appearance since who even knows when, I hope you, the entire Gamecock Nation, are excited for some Madness. I hope everyone plans on skipping their Thursday and Friday classes to watch the opening round, with their excuse being that they were too tired. Tired, not due to excessive homework, but because they’d been pulling all-nighters for seven straight days, analyzing all 68 teams in the tournament and searching for any clues that could lead them to the perfect bracket, the Holy Grail of March.
Yet I realize that this is a football school and that most of you honestly just can’t wait until March is over and the spring football game you’ve been waiting months for is finally here. I get that.
But for the few of you that do care — I’m not going to say the intelligent ones, but the ones that have their head on straight and know which sports matter most — I have some tips for you. I have three teams that I know you are underrating, that I know everyone is underrating and that I am sure will go farther than what is expected of them based on seeding. Listen, and hopefully I'll bring you one step closer to bracket success.
Kentucky
Okay, maybe as Gamecock fans you aren’t underrating this team as much as everyone else in the country. And yes, maybe as basketball fans you are questioning how in the world I am calling a Kentucky team underrated. But right now, this Kentucky team has the best point guards in the nation in Tyler Ulis and one of the purest scorers in Jamal Murray. They possess the size and versatility up front to make any team reassess how they define the words “big,” “athletic” and “good." With a hiccup against Vanderbilt in their last game and a boneheaded loss to Texas A&M that never should have happened, many have written off this Kentucky team as only pretty good this season. But you heard it here first, before the inevitable streak through the SEC Tournament and run to the Elite Eight, watch out for these Wildcats.
Texas
After the first half of the season, this Texas team looked like they were destined to be even more mediocre than their football team this year (For any football fan who made it this far, one, I’m impressed. And two, I hope you kind of chuckled at that but didn’t laugh too hard because at least mediocre is better than any word you can use to describe the Gamecock team you cheered for). But with a huge midseason win over North Carolina, Shaka Smart and his team have taken the college basketball world by storm. With three wins over top-six teams and a drubbing of Oklahoma just last week, this Longhorns team can go toe-to-toe with anyone in the nation outside of Kansas. And if you can see past Monday night's disaster of a game, you will see that Texas seems poised to pull a big upset in the tournament en route to the Sweet 16.
West Virginia
The Mountaineers are good. Like, really good. Just ask any point guard who went up against their defense how good it was. If he answers honestly, you’ll probably just get a few tears before you feel compelled to remind him that every other ball handler turned it over every time he touched it against this team. Probably all his teammates did, too. This West Virginia team is second in the nation in both steals per game and turnovers forced, allowing them to stay in almost every game even if they are outskilled, outsized and outshot. And with their tenacity on the offensive boards (third in the nation in that), even if the shots aren’t going in, West Virginia can manufacture enough shots and putbacks to stay in any game. Don’t expect them to win pretty, but do expect them to win and watch this team win close game after close game on their journey to the Final Four.