March Madness is quickly approaching with just 13 days until Selection Sunday.
The projected 68-team bracket took a bit of a hit over the weekend with several seed-altering upsets for fighting for the final No. 1 seed, such as No. 8 Purdue going 0-2 on the week with losses to No. 13 Michigan State and Ohio State and Iowa State losing to Texas Tech.
Several bubble teams saw their margin of error on making the field dwindle, looking at you, Auburn and Indiana.
There remain opportunities for teams to salvage or improve their respective NCAA Tournament resumes, as there remains a week left in the regular season for most conferences before teams ship out to their respective tournaments. The first conference tournament starts Monday, March 2 with the Horizon League, while the Big Ten will be the last one to finish just before the bracket reveal Sunday, March 15 at 6 p.m. ET.
But which teams have done some work on their March Madness picture that is going a bit unnoticed?
Here’s a look at USA TODAY Sports predictions on which college basketball teams are underrated heading into the final week of the regular season and their respective conference tournaments:
March Madness predictions: Underrated teams
For this March Madness prediction exercise, we’ve added the following filters and parameters: Team must be currently projected as a five seed or higher in ESPN Joe Lunardi’s and USA TODAY Sports’ latest projections, and their NET and KenPom rankings don’t align with their respective projected seeding.
Michigan State
- KenPom: No. 10
- NET rankings: No. 11
- Projected seeding: No. 4 seed on ESPN | No. 4 seed on USA TODAY Sports
It’s March, never count out Michigan State and Tom Izzo. The Spartans gave the country an early reminder of that Thursday in West Lafayette when they walked out of Mackey Arena — where they had not won in their past seven trips — with an upset win over No. 8 Purdue.
Michigan State followed that up with a win at Indiana, where it got 21 points each from Jeremy Fears Jr. and Jaxon Kohler, two veteran pieces that can lead the Spartans on a national championship run, in addition to their defense that ranks sixth on KenPom.
The Spartans hold a 14-5 Quad 1 and Quad 2 combined record, and have won 12 of their past 15 games. With a date set with Michigan on Sunday, Michigan State could be in the mix for a 2-seed line before heading to Chicago for the Big Ten tournament.
Kansas
- KenPom: No. 16
- NET rankings: No. 16
- Projected seeding: No. 3 seed on ESPN | No. 3 seed on USA TODAY Sports
Before we get started on this blurb, yes, Kansas is a blue-blood, so how are the Jayhawks ‘underrated’? They are on here for the same reason Michigan State is: They’re coming into form all while jammed in the middle of a packed Big 12, which has been the best conference in college basketball this season.
Since Jan. 13 with its win over then-No. 2 Iowa State, Kansas has all but three of its past 12 games, with four of those wins being against top-ranked wins over then-No. 13 BYU, then-No. 13 Texas Tech, then-No. 1 Arizona and then-No. 5 Houston.
Their seven Quad 1 wins are tied for the second-most in the Big 12 with Texas Tech, only behind Arizona’s nation-leading 13 Quad 1 wins.
Virginia
- KenPom: No. 17
- NET rankings: No. 14
- Projected seeding: No. 4 seed on ESPN | No. 4 seed on USA TODAY Sports
The job Ryan Odom has done in Charlottesville hasn’t been talked about enough nationally. Most of what has happened in the ACC has been overshadowed by how good Duke has been in the conference (just look at how Virginia’s Saturday game played out at Cameron Indoor).
Led by Thijs De Ridder (16.0 points and 6.2 rebounds per game), Odom has Virginia back in the NCAA Tournament after missing it last season. The 25 wins for the Cavaliers, who have two Quad 2 opportunities to round out the regular season, are the most for a head coach in his first season in program history. It’s also a 10-win improvement from last season for Virginia under Ron Sanchez, who took over for Tony Bennett following his abrupt retirement.
Alabama
- KenPom: No. 14
- NET rankings: No. 15
- Projected seeding: No. 4 seed on ESPN | No. 4 seed on USA TODAY Sports
It’s hard to remember the last time Alabama wasn’t in the headlines daily, and that was largely due to the Charles Bediako-NCAA eligibility case.
Alabama remains in the headlines, but for good measure now, as 23 points and the game-winning shot from Labaron Philon Jr. helped the Crimson Tide steal one on the road against Tennessee that will undoubtedly impact their March Madness seeding projection positively.
The Crimson Tide has won eight straight going into the final week of SEC play, where it will have a Quad 1 road opportunity at Georgia on Tuesday. They have a top-3-ranked offense on KenPom — that features Philon, Aden Holloway and Latrell Wrightsell — and NCAA Tournament metrics that are in a solid spot going into the SEC tournament, where, depending on their matchups, they could work their way to the 3-seed line. Defense will be the question for the Tide come March.
Nebraska
- KenPom: No. 11
- NET rankings: No. 12
- Projected seeding: No. 3 seed on ESPN | No. 3 seed on USA TODAY Sports
There was no better story in college basketball at the start of the season than Nebraska, as the Cornhuskers started undefeated at 20-0 before sustaining their first loss on Tuesday, Jan. 27 at Michigan. That loss to the Wolverines was the first of three losses in a four-game stretch for the Cornhuskers, though all three losses came to top-15 ranked teams with Illinois and Purdue as the others.
Since then, the Cornhuskers have bounced back a bit — though they fell to projected seven-seed Iowa on the road — with four wins in their last five games. They have a top-five-ranked defense on KenPom, rank in the top-15 on both KenPom and in the NET rankings and have an offense that is top-7 in Big Ten play in scoring with Pryce Sandfort leading the charge.
Could this be the year that the Cornhuskers get their first-ever NCAA Tournament win? We’ll find out in two weeks.
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