Here’s a look at the Midwest Region of the NCAA Tournament as March Madness gets set to tip off Tuesday:
No. 1 Purdue
Record: 29-4
Conference: Big Ten
Coach: Matt Painter (19th season)
Post-ing up: Don’t be so quick to dismiss Purdue despite its recent March flops. The supporting cast around projected National Player of the Year Zach Edey has improved, and the Boilermakers own victories over the likes of second-weekend contenders Gonzaga, Tennessee, Marquette, Alabama, Arizona, Illinois (twice) and Wisconsin.
No. 16 Grambling State
Record: 20-14
Conference: SWAC
Coach: Donte’ Jackson (7th season)
Post-ing up: For the first time in school history, Grambling State is dancing, reaching the tournament with a fantastic finish that saw it win 12 of its last 14 games, which included winning the SWAC regular-season title. The Tigers find ways to win — 10 of those victories came by single digits.
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No. 16 Montana State
Record: 17-17
Conference: Big Sky
Coach: Matt Logie (1st season)
Post-ing up: The balanced Bobcats, who earned a third straight NCAA Tournament bid, feature a starting lineup in which everyone averages between 8.4 and 15.9 points. The linchpin is Robert Ford III, a high-scoring junior guard who was also the Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year.
No. 8 Utah State
Record: 27-6
Conference: Mountain West
Coach: Danny Sprinkle (1st season)
Post-ing up: Sprinkle was named a Naismith Coach of the Year finalist and has already captured one of the program’s most successful seasons. The Aggies returned no scoring — literally — from last year and brought in 13 new players, but won their first-ever outright Mountain West regular-season title.
No. 9 TCU
Record: 21-12
Conference: Big 12
Coach: Jamie Dixon (8th season)
Post-ing up: At its best, TCU can beat anyone, boasting wins over Baylor, Houston and Texas Tech. It, however, also lacks consistency, and enters the tournament with four losses in six games. A difficult team to trust. Dixon’s teams have reached the Round of 32 in each of the past two NCAA Tournaments.
No. 5 Gonzaga
Record: 25-7
Conference: West Coast
Coach: Mark Few (25th season)
Post-ing up: Gonzaga has now reached 25 consecutive NCAA Tournaments after a hot finish saw it win 14 of its last 16 games. The forward tandem of Graham Ike and Anton Watson are a load, the duo averaging a combined 30.9 points and 14.3 rebounds per game. Few has reached eight straight Sweet 16s.
No. 12 McNeese
Record: 30-3
Conference: Southland
Coach: Will Wade (1st season)
Post-ing up: The controversial Wade — fired at LSU amid NCAA violations — has now led three different schools to the dance, and McNeese might be the best job he has done. The year before his arrival, the Cowboys won 11 games. Now, it is in the tournament for the first time since 2002.
No. 4 Kansas
Record: 22-10
Conference: Big 12
Coach: Bill Self (21st season)
Post-ing up: When healthy, the Jayhawks are still a Final Four contender, despite a closing stretch that saw them lose four of their last six games. Health is a major question for Kansas’ two stars, Hunter Dickinson (dislocated shoulder) and Kevin McCullar Jr. (knee), neither of whom played in the Big 12 Tournament.
No. 13 Samford
Record: 29-5
Conference: Southern
Coach: Bucky McMillan (4th season)
Post-ing up: Offense wins championships, too. Sanford is proof of that. The uptempo Bulldogs are eighth in the country in scoring (86.0), eighth in 3-point shooting percentage (39.3) and 20th in assists (17.5). They’re led by junior forward Achor Achor — no, not a typo — a native of Melbourne, Australia.
No. 6 South Carolina
Record: 26-7
Conference: SEC
Coach: Lamont Paris (2nd season)
Post-ing up: A former longtime Wisconsin assistant among other stops, Paris just earned a lucrative contract extension for his stellar work with the Gamecocks. He engineered a turnaround from an 11-win campaign a season ago to earn the school’s first tourney bid since their Final Four in 2017.
No. 11 Oregon
Record: 23-11
Conference: Pac-12
Coach: Dana Altman
Post-ing up: The Ducks earned their first NCAA bid in three seasons with a shocking run to the Pac-12 tourney title, including an upset Friday over No. 6 Arizona. Senior center N’Faly Dante out of Mali averages nearly a double-double, and senior guard Jermaine Couisnard, a transfer from South Carolina, contributes more than 15 points per game.
No. 3 Creighton
Record: 23-9
Conference: Big East
Coach: Greg McDermott (14th season)
Post-ing up: After losing two straight Big East games in early February, Creighton responded with four straight wins — including a victory over then-No. 1 UConn. And they followed that by toppling No. 5 Marquette in March, so the Bluejays won’t be overmatched by anyone, especially with Baylor Scheierman on the floor.
No. 14 Akron
Record: 24-10
Conference: MAC
Coach: John Groce (7th season)
Post-ing up: Enrique Freeman is a rarity these days — the mid-major star who stayed put rather than transfer up. The reward is a second NCAA Tournament in three years for the talented senior forward, a double-double machine averaging 18.6 points and 13.0 rebounds.
No. 7 Texas
Record: 20-12
Conference: Big 12
Coach: Rodney Terry (2nd season)
Post-ing up: You remember Max Abmas, right? He led No. 15 Oral Roberts to the Sweet 16 in 2021. Now, the uber-talented fifth-year guard is looking for another March run, this time with up-and-down Texas, which hasn’t won or lost more than two consecutive games since the turn of the new year.
No. 10 Colorado State
Record: 24-10
Conference: Mountain West
Coach: Niko Medved (6th season)
Post-ing up: Senior guard Isaiah Stevens has long been one of the conference’s best scorers, having averaged double figures in all five seasons, and leads one of the country’s most efficient offenses. Dancing for the second time in three years, the Rams are looking for their first tourney win since 2013.
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No. 10 Virginia
Record: 23-10
Conference: ACC
Coach: Tony Bennett (15th season)
Post-ing up: Since winning the national championship in 2018-19, the Cavaliers haven’t won a game in the tournament. And they had a hard time getting in this year, thanks to a late-season swoon. As has been the case in the past, Bennett’s crew is stout on defense (59.1 ppg allowed) and doesn’t score much.
No. 2 Tennessee
Record: 24-8
Conference: SEC
Coach: Rick Barnes (9th season)
Post-ing up: After entering the SEC Tournament as the No. 1 seed, the Volunteers were stunningly upset — and blown out — by Mississippi State in the quarterfinals. Dalton Knecht was the unanimous SEC Player of the Year and a Naismith Player of the Year candidate. Is Barnes on the hot seat?
No. 15 Saint Peter’s
Record: 19-13
Conference: MAAC
Coach: Bashir Mason (2nd season)
Post-ing up: Two years after the Peacocks’ magical Elite Eight run as a No. 15 seed, they are back in the field. It’s a very different team with a different coach that showed its toughness in the MAAC Tournament, winning three games by a combined nine points.
