Your Guide To The 2019 NCAA Men’s Tournament: West region

Seed outlook: Gonzaga is the best team in the West by a considerable margin, but the Zags, despite reaching have performed well under the tournament’s glowing lights. However, Gonzaga has a 70 percent likelihood of reaching the Elite Eight, according to our model, as well as the third-best odds of any group to accomplish the national championship game (26 percent).
If Gonzaga face Syracuse in the next round, the Orange’s zone defense will give the Bulldogs trouble. This is the best offense Mark Few has experienced Spokane, but it may be analyzed by any of those terrific defenses in the West: Four of the best 15 can be found within this area, including the best two at Texas Tech and Michigan.
Sneaky Final Four select: No. 4 Florida State. A fixture in the KenPom Top 20 for the majority of the season, the Seminoles are hoping to build on last year’s championship run, which saw them come within a 4-point margin of making the Final Four. FSU has a dominant defense (No. 9 at Pomeroy’s ratings) plus a balanced roster that saw four players collect at least 2.5 win stocks. This draw is not terrible, either: Vermont is not especially tough as a first-round foe, and Marquette is very beatable (more on that below). No. 1 seeded Gonzaga probably looms then, and also we give FSU a 24 percent chance against the Zags — but the Seminoles could have a 48 percent chance of creating the Final Four when they had been to pull off the upset.
Don’t wager on: No. 5 Marquette. Teams seeded fifth are not generally good bets to make it past the Sweet 16 anyway, but Marquette could be a particularly bad pick. As stated by the FiveThirtyEight power evaluations, the Golden Eagles are undoubtedly the worst No. 5 seed in the area, and also a first-round date with breakout mid-major superstar Ja Morant didn’t do any favors. Marquette has some star power of its own in junior guard Markus Howard, who ranks sixth in the nation with an average of 25 points per game, but this team lost five of its last six games and has a tough tournament road ahead of it.
Cinderella watch: No. 10 Florida. They are poised to do some damage that they are here, although the Gators might have been among the bubble teams to creep into the area of 68. They brought Nevada, a so-so No. 7 seed, in the very first round, and also we provide Florida a 42 percent chance of pulling the upset that. Last year’s national runner-up, Michigan, likely waits in Round two, and that’s a difficult matchup (23 percent likelihood for Florida) — but if the Gators win, then they’ve a 38 percent likelihood of earning the Elite Eight. In a region with a number of good-but-flawed possibilities, Florida appears better than the.
Player to watch: Brandon Clarke The Zags’ linchpin is not the consensus lottery pick, nor the two veteran guards that have together started 87 percent of Gonzaga’s games over the previous two seasons. It’s a transfer from San Jose State who is in his first season with the team, Brandon Clarke. He’s perhaps the most underappreciated player in the nation.
On a team that typically comes with a it is Clarke, at 6-foot-8, who’s tasked with protecting the paint this year. Clarke has responded by setting a single-season blocks record and submitting the maximum block rate of any group under Few.
“Should I feel like if I can find a great, fast jump first, I’ll pretty much leap with anybody,” Clarke told me. “I mean, I’ve seen Zion (Williamson) coming down through the street before TV, and if I can not jump at the right time, I likely wouldn’t jump with him, but… I do not actually see myself not leaping with anybody.”
Likeliest first-round upsets: No. 9 Baylor over No. 8 Syracuse (48 percent); No. 10 Florida over No. 7 Nevada (42 percent); No. 12 Murray State over No. 5 Marquette (32 percent)

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