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March Madness 2025: Three SEC teams most at risk for a first-round upset
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Greg Sankey went on The Pat McAfee Show Monday afternoon and immediately got ribbed by the show host for paying off the NCAA Tournament selection committee. In jest, of course, after the SEC set a new tournament record on Sunday with 14 bids to the Big Dance. Prior to the bracket reveal, Sankey told anyone who would listen his league deserved those 14 bids.
“That’s earned, man. I can go through the record if you want,” Sankey quipped back at McAfee. “I’ll go through all the data for you.”
And the data supports Sankey’s side. According to KenPom, the SEC enters March Madness with a conference-wide net rating of 22.03. That is on pace to set a record for the best mark by a single conference in KenPom’s database, which tracks back to the 1997 season. No league has even ended a year with a plus-20 net rating since the ACC (20.32) did so in 2004.
The overall winning percentage of the 16 SEC teams this season (65.4%) is on pace to be the best by a single league since the 1991-92 season, when the Big Eight won 66.7% of its games. That league had (drum roll) 8 teams it in. The SEC is double that size, something that is obvious but still worth pointing out here.
Once the tournament begins, the numbers will change. The SEC might end the season slipping below that 2004 ACC mark. The winning percentage might dip below historical status. But with 2 of the 4 No. 1 seeds and 2 more teams seeded on the 2-line, the SEC could very well go on to win a national championship, something that hasn’t happened since 2012. Four of the 6 shortest odds to make the Final Four on DraftKings belong to SEC schools.
As the frontrunner, fans will be looking to see the SEC drop first-round games. Following months of chest-pounding, that’s something the SEC can’t really afford to do.
But there is no March without the Madness, and upsets are bound to happen. Five SEC teams lost first-round games last season. Three of them were seed upsets. Auburn and Kentucky lost as top-4 seeds.
Which SEC teams are at risk this season?
Here are 3.
No. 4 Texas A&M vs. No. 13 Yale — South Region, Thursday
While the narrative exists that lengthy runs in the conference tournament don’t always help lay the groundwork for lengthy runs in the NCAA Tournament, momentum still matters heading into the Big Dance. Since seeding began in 1978, no NCAA champion who played in a conference tournament failed to win at least one game at that conference tournament. Texas A&M had a one-and-done showing in Nashville last week, losing in overtime to Texas in its opening game at the SEC Tournament.
The Aggies did close the regular season with back-to-back wins — first at home against then-No. 1 Auburn and then on the road over LSU. But with the benefit of hindsight, that Auburn game looks like more of an outlier than a sign of any ship-righting. A&M lost 4 straight games prior, and in 3 of those games it failed to score more than 70 points. A&M had 73 at the end of regulation against Texas in the conference tourney and it got next to nothing from anyone not named Wade Taylor IV.
I had assumed Zhuric Phelps, who showed himself during the regular season to be capable of scoring in bunches, could be the Robin to Taylor’s Batman and mitigate the Aggies’ awful first-shot offense. Phelps’ body language in the Texas game was tough to watch. He shot 3-for-19 and looked completely out of it in the second half and beyond.
Taylor, an inefficient scorer, cannot do it all on his own. Yale, which went 22-7 this season and enters the tourney with wins in 16 of its last 17 games, can run away from A&M if the Aggie offense disappears.
The Bulldogs are an outstanding rebounding team (15th nationally in rebounding rate) and a remarkably efficient 3-point shooting team (38.8%). In last season’s upset of Auburn, guard John Poulakidas scored 28 points and drilled 6 of his 9 triples. The Naperville native has hit 13 of his last 28 triples and scored at least 25 points in 2 of his last 3 games entering tournament play.
At BetMGM, Texas A&M is a 7.5-point favorite. EvanMiya’s spread projection shaves nearly 2 points off that number.
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No. 6 Mizzou vs. No. 11 Drake — West Region, Thursday
If you’re reading this, it means my editor, a proud Mizzou grad, has not silenced me for doing the one thing he told me not to. In my defense, this game will likely be the single most popular upset pick of the first round. At the time of writing, 80% of the spread bets for this game on BetMGM had been placed on Drake to cover as a 6.5-point underdog.
Styles make fights. There is not a more stark contrast of styles anywhere in the first round.
The Tigers play at a quicker-than-average pace (121st), with around 68.2 possessions per game, according to KenPom’s adjusted tempo metric. Mizzou’s 120.3 offensive rating ranks sixth in the country.
The Bulldogs play at the slowest pace in Division I, with an average of just 58.8 possessions in their games, according to KenPom. They use 22 seconds of the 30-second shot clock on offense — the longest average offensive possession in a decade, per KenPom — and grind games to a drudging halt by milking clock, getting to the foul line, and limiting transition opportunities the other way. Drake’s 95.5 defensive rating this season is the 15th-best in the country.
Missouri Valley Player of the Year Bennett Stirtz is averaging 19.1 points, 5.7 assists, and 2.2 steals per game this season while shooting 49% from the floor and 39% from 3. He plays 39.3 minutes a game. While that’s a worry for Drake deeper into the tournament, it’s only a worry for Mizzou in the first round. Stirtz is coming off back-to-back 24-point games in the MVC Tournament.
Drake has won 18 of its last 19. Its head coach, Ben McCollum, won 4 national championships in 15 seasons at the Division II level before taking over at Drake in the offseason. Five players averaged at least 27 minutes a game for McCollum’s last Northwest Missouri State team, and 4 of them followed him to Drake.
Because of its talent on the offensive end of the floor, Mizzou can be a Cinderella team this postseason. But Dennis Gates’ group is in for a dogfight in Round 1. Drake is top-10 in forced turnover rate and top-25 in rebounding on both sides of the floor. If the possessions are limited and Drake starts finding extra possessions, Mizzou is in trouble.
No. 6 Ole Miss vs. No. 11 North Carolina/San Diego State — South Region, Friday
The last time every No. 6 seed beat every No. 11 seed in the same tournament was in 2004. And this is an Ole Miss team that doesn’t know what it doesn’t know. The Rebels haven’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2019. They haven’t won a tournament game since 2015.
In the first round, it’ll either get North Carolina or San Diego State.
The Aztecs are 2 years removed from a Final Four run under coach Brian Dutcher and play a bruising brand of defense. They’re 13th nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom. They have the sixth-best shot defense, allowing a 45.3% effective field goal rate to opponents. They’re top-20 in 3-point defense and block shots at the highest rate in D1.
North Carolina is the inverse, a storied NCAA Tournament performer who expects to not just make the field each year but make deep runs. The Tar Heels have won 8 of their last 10 to squeak into the field — with the only 2 losses coming against Duke — and have averaged 82.9 points per game during that span. The Tar Heels have plenty of tournament experience throughout the top of their rotation and will have the best player on the court in RJ Davis.
The Rebels will learn their exact opponent late Tuesday night. And they probably have some extra fire in the belly after a CBS Sports analyst called them “a fraud” on Selection Sunday.
I wouldn’t go that far, but I do think this is one of the more dangerous spots for an SEC team in the first round. The Rebels weren’t the same team when they left The Pavilion this season.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
