NCAA Tourney Dark Horses

The NCAA field will have 64 teams in it. A lot of teams have already punched a ticket for an at-large berth, regardless of how they do in their post-season conference tournament. However, for the vast majority of teams, the only way they will get to the NCAA's is to win the conference tournament outright. The odds are stacked against those teams, but here are a few who might pull off a surprise:

Some teams who can perhaps bolster their at-large hopes by playing very well in their respective conference tournaments:

GEORGIA TECH (+1400 to win the ACC) is a team that can get to 20 wins, and may be in line for one of the NCAA slots handed out to the ACC, but depending on how many bids the conference will get, they might need to do something extraordinary in the ACC to get itself into the Big Dance.

The Yellow Jackets have had a problem winning on the road, as they have dropped seven of eight, and that's a double-edged sword, because while they won't have any "home cooking" the way they did in last year's tournament, but they won't be the visitor either, on this neutral floor. We do know that losing five of the last seven games on the schedule, including a defeat to Virginia Tech on Saturday, could come back to haunt them.

What's useful to remember, though, is that this is a team that has the size to stand up to Duke, which they beat at home on January 9, and they boast a strong front court presence with Gani Lawal and freshman Derrick Favors, who block shots, pull down 17 rebounds between them and shoot 56% between them. Sometimes in the post-season, it's all about getting those easy shots close to the bucket, and the paint could belong to them.

While we freely admit that NOTRE DAME (+750 to win the Big East) greatly bolstered its hopes at an at-large NCAA bid with its recent winning run, you have to consider that the Big East is going to send a lot of other teams to the Big Dance - Villanova, Syracuse, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Marquette and Georgetown will almost certainly be there. The Irish have made a great case for themselves, but nothing is guaranteed.

In case you're not up to speed, Notre Dame lost one of the best players in the country, Luke Harangody, with a bone bruise in his knee, and then they started to play better. Without Harangody, they suffered very close losses to St. John's and Louisville, then swept by Pittsburgh, Georgetown, U-Conn and Marquette.

People have been scratching their heads, but there really is a logical explanation for it. You see, Harangody, who won Big East player of the year two seasons ago, was such a dominant part of the Notre Dame offense that it made this team a lot easier to scout and prepare for. After all, he took 37% of the team's shots, which was the highest percentage of any player in the country. Now you see better ball movement, less predictability, more sharing of leadership, better defense, and more emphasis on shooting three-pointers.

Tim Abromaitis has discovered himself as a scorer. Harangody has now come back, and you knew that coach Mike Brey had a decision to make. He has wisely chosen to have Harangody coming off the bench, so now he is "instant offense" as a sixth man, and the opponent doesn't even know when it's going to happen.