The 2022 NCAA Tournament began with several hot mid-majors threatening to wreck the bracket. Trendy upset picks like Murray State, San Francisco, Colorado State, South Dakota State, Chattanooga and trusty ol’ Loyola Chicago abounded. So of course the mid-major team that made it the farthest was No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s, which toppled Kentucky and Purdue on its way to the Elite Eight.
No one outside of Shaheen Holloway’s immediate family saw the Peacocks’ stunning run coming. Yet here we are at the precipice of the 2022-23 season trying to identify the next little guy to get hot in March. Good luck with all that.
Our panel of 17 college basketball experts took a stab at predicting several key developments in the upcoming college basketball campaign, and we’ll run these sure-to-look-silly calls once a day up until the start of the season. Leading off is our panel’s attempt at finding Cinderella.
Which mid-major makes a deep March run?
And here is a sampling of our experts’ rationales:
San Diego State
Brian Dutcher is entering his sixth season as head coach, and he has done a great job continuing the success the program had under Steve Fisher. The only thing he hasn’t done is win a game in the NCAA Tournament, although to be fair the Aztecs were headed for a No. 1 or 2 seed in 2020 when the tournament got canceled. The Aztecs return several key players from the team that lost in overtime to Creighton in the first round last year, including a pair of formidable super seniors in 6-4 guard Matt Bradley and 6-10 center Nathan Mensah. — Seth Davis
Matt Bradley is just the kind of guard who can lead a mid-major to the second weekend, especially a mid-major that checks like Brian Dutcher’s team does. — Joe Rexrode
I think they *technically* count as a mid-major, so I’ll say San Diego State. This is an old team, with four fifth-year seniors, which is always one of the key ingredients in a March run. Plus, they should be great defensively. — Nicole Auerbach
The Aztecs have run into some bad NCAA Tournament luck with injuries, matchups and a (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime pandemic in recent years, so they definitely seem due. They reportedly played UCLA to within a possession during a secret scrimmage last weekend, showing off their potential to hang with the big boys. — Brian Bennett
Dayton
Gonzaga. JK JK. Gonzaga is not a mid-major. Is Dayton? Assuming we’re cool with that distinction, let’s pick the Flyers, where Anthony Grant’s retooled young team already arrived ahead of schedule a year ago. — Eamonn Brennan
A bit of a cheat here, if only because the Flyers will be top 25-worthy to start the season. Reaching a Sweet 16 wouldn’t be a colossal surprise. Nevertheless, they’re a mid-major with a defensive identity, led by DaRon Holmes, who could evolve into an All-America-level two-way force. — Brian Hamilton
It’s a shame we’ll never know what Anthony Grant’s Obi Toppin-led squad could’ve done in the 2020 NCAA Tournament, but this is Dayton’s best team since. — Brendan Marks
Drake
Darian DeVries has a really good experienced point guard in Roman Penn and a sophomore who should be getting buckets at the high-major level but just so happens to be his son in Tucker DeVries. DeVries also landed a sneaky good get from the portal in former Florida State/Texas Tech wing Sardaar Calhoun. He should thrive at that level. — CJ Moore
Loaded with seniors. Stocked in the backcourt. A coach with NCAA Tournament experience. Book it. — Brendan Quinn
Furman
The Paladins just missed a trip to the tourney last season, losing an OT heartbreaker to Chattanooga in the Southern Conference championship game. But they bring back loads of experience and familiarity, including fifth-year seniors and leading scorers Mike Bothwell and Jalen Slawson, along with another returning starter in Marcus Foster. — Justin Williams
Saint Louis
The Billikens played all of last year without Javonte Perkins and still won 23 games. Perkins plus four starters are back, including point guard Yuri Collins, who toyed with the portal. Before he tore his ACL, Perkins was a 17-points-per-game scorer, who sunk 38 percent from the arc. Take his skill and Travis Ford’s experienced roster, and you have the perfect recipe for March upsets. — Dana O’Neil
UAB
Andy Kennedy’s team won 27 games and made the NCAA Tournament last season, and the Blazers return Conference USA Player of the Year Jordan “Jelly” Walker, a guy who can (and did twice last season) drop 40 points on somebody. — Kyle Tucker
UC Santa Barbara
The three best true mid-majors in the country, in my opinion, are North Texas, UAB and Western Kentucky. But they all play in Conference USA, which makes it tricky to pick one. So let’s go with the Gauchos, a group loaded with high-major talent. The frontcourt is a terrific inside-out combo of productive former Pac-12 guys in Miles Norris and Andre Kelly. But the man to watch here is Ajay Mitchell, the team’s lead 6-4 lead guard who won the Big West Freshman of the Year award could end up being the kind of terrific lead guard that can lead a team to upsets in the tournament — Sam Vecenie
Western Kentucky
The Hilltoppers are loaded with talent. They bring back the tallest player in college basketball in Jamarion Sharp, who led the country in blocks (4.6), and leading scorer Dayvion McKnight averaged 16.2 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game. They also added three impactful transfers in Emmanuel Akot (Boise State), Khristian Lander (Indiana), and Dontaie Allen (Kentucky). If they can put it all together, I wouldn’t want to play this squad. — Tobias Bass
Wyoming
It was a bad first-round matchup last year with post-driven Indiana, but a little better luck there and Jeff Linder can get them to a Sweet 16. — Hugh Kellenberger
(Our complete panel of experts: Nicole Auerbach, Tobias Bass, Brian Bennett, Eamonn Brennan, Seth Davis, Scott Dochterman, Brian Hamilton, Hugh Kellenberger, Brendan Marks, Austin Meek, CJ Moore, Dana O’Neil, Brendan Quinn, Joe Rexrode, Kyle Tucker, Sam Vecenie and Justin Williams.)
(Photo of San Diego State’s Matt Bradley: Kevin Jairaj / USA Today)
