A 2016 NCAA Tournament primer to get you caught up

The 2016 NCAA Tournament is about to get started. Following what was an interesting selection process over the weekend, North Carolina, Virginia, Kansas and Oregon enter the tourney as top seeds.

Meanwhile, the Big 10 postseason champion Michigan State Spartans were snubbed out of a No. 1 seed.

In a season that has been defined by major upsets on a near-weekly basis, we can expect much of the same during the first three rounds of the tournament this week.

Will 2016 represent the first time a top seed drops to a 16th seed? If not, what will be the biggest upset this week?

Who are the favorites? Who are the dark-horse candidates to cut down the nets in Houston next month?

We plan on covering this and a whole bunch more in our NCAA Tournament primer below.

The big four

Kansas

As the top overall seed in the tournament, Kansas has to be considered the odds-on-favorites to hoist the trophy when all is said and done in Houston.

Perry Ellis and Wayne Selden Jr. are the team's two-best players, but the emergence of sophomore guard Devonte' Graham has been key. He scored 27 points in Kansas' Big 12 title game win over West Virginia over the weekend. If Graham can continue to produce at anywhere near this level, it's going to be hard for anyone in a difficult south region to beat the Jayhawks.

Xavier

Despite losing two of their past four games, both to Seton Hall, the Musketeers have as good of a chance as any team to hoist the trophy in Houston next month.

Existing in the same region of North Carolina, it's not going to be easy for Xavier to earn a spot in the Final Four. However, the play of sophomore guard Trevon Bluiett can be enough to keep this team above water while second and third-tier options look to step up.

Bluiett is averaging 17 points per game over the past seven outings, a span that has also seen freshman guard Edmond Sumner put up nearly 13 points per game. The performance of these two players are going to be key moving forward.

Michigan State

An all-around game that rivals any other player in the nation, senior guard Denzel Valentine averaged 17.3 points, 8.7 rebounds and 9.0 assists per game in the conference tournament. Any sort of repeat performance in the real tourney will likely lead to the Spartans coming out of the midwest region.

With a 29-5 record on the season, Michigan State is actually 20-2 when Valentine doesn't go for 20 points. This tells us a story of a team that has a lot more in terms of talent behind the senior guard.

In this, it's going to be vital for fellow senior guard Bryn Forbes to step up his game. He averaged just 7.3 points while shooting 32 percent from the field in the conference tourney. That came on the heels of him putting up an average of 22.3 points in the team's final four regular season outings.

North Carolina

Fresh off an ACC Tournament championship, the Tar Heels enter the big dance as one of the favorites to bring home their first national title since 2009. The primary reason for North Carolina's recent success has been the play of senior forward Brice Johnson, who actually put up a 21-rebound performance against Duke in the regular season finale.

Johnson has put up a double-double 20 times this season. It's not a coincidence that the Tar Heels boast a 17-3 record in those 20 games.

That's going to be key here. If Johnson hits the boards hard, North Carolina is going to be incredibly hard to beat. It's also going to need someone to step up from the outside. That will have to come in the form of sophomore guard Joel Berry II who is shooting 39 percent from three-point range on the season.

The other four

Oregon

Fresh off a 31-point win over Utah to nab the conference's postseason tournament title, Oregon heads into the tournament as a top seed. It does so having won eight consecutive games, five of which have come by double digits. With a 6-0 record against top-25 teams, the Ducks have proven they can succeed against the best.

It's going to be really interesting to see if freshman guard Tyler Dorsey can continue his recent stellar play in the big dance. He's averaging 19.6 points and 5.2 rebounds while shooting 54 percent from the field over the past five games. Add in the consistent scoring prowess of sophomore forward Dillon Brooks (16.8 points per game), and Oregon can stay with any team in the nation offensively.

Villanova

Having not even reached the Sweet 16 since their run to the national semifinals back in 2008-09, Jay Wright and the Wildcats have a huge monkey to get off their backs in the tourney this week. That's only magnified with a recent loss to Seton Hall in the Big East Tournament — a loss that stripped Nova of a top seed.

With a 3-4 record against top-25 competition this season, the Wildcats 29-5 overall record is a bit soft. What we do know is that this team surely has the necessary depth to make a deep run in the tourney. Seven different players are averaging 20-plus minutes and six-plus points per game.

Led by leading scorer Josh Hart and leading rebounder Daniel Ochefu, there is a ton of talent on Wright's roster. It's now going to be all about putting it together this week. If that happens, Nova will be just fine.

Oklahoma

Let's not fool ourselves into thinking it's going to be all about Buddy Hield here. The likely player of the year award winner has been electrifying thus far this season, averaging 25 points while shooting 46 percent from three-point range.

Though, Hield is going to need some help if the Sooners are going to make a deep run in the tourney. Simply put, asking one man to do it himself is asking a bit too much.

In this, back-court mate and fellow senior Isaiah Cousins will have to step up. Cousins is averaging 13.0 points while shooting at a 42 percent clip from the field this season. Interestingly, Oklahoma boasts a 9-2 record when he shoots 50 percent or better from the field. Unfortunately for Oklahoma, this has happened just one time since early February. That's going to be a huge key here.

Virginia

Following their loss to North Carolina in the conference tournament final, the Cavaliers still find themselves as a surprising top seed. In a region that includes Michigan State and Utah, this is going to be no easy task.

Considering just how battle tested Virginia is (nine games against top-25 teams), no stage is going to be too big for this team. Add in the stellar all-around play of senior guard Malcolm Brogdon and effective shooting of Anthony Gill inside, and the Cavaliers have the talent to take out the nation's best.

Three dark-horse title contenders

Miami

With a 5-3 record against top-25 teams, the Hurricanes have proven that they are more than up for the task when it comes to taking on elite-level competition. That's going to have to continue in the tournament with the team slotted in the same region as Kansas and Nova. A potential third-round matchup against Arizona magnifies this further.

Ranked outside of the top-25 in the Associated Press' preseason poll, Miami has done more than anyone imagined this year. It can top that off by a surprising run in the tournament. This will depend heavily on the performance of former Texas Longhorn Sheldon McClellan, who is averaging 15.8 points while shooting at a ridiculous 50 percent clip from the guard position.

Indiana

The primary issue for Indiana has been playing down to the level of competition. Five of the team's seven losses have come against un-ranked opponents with three of those defeats coming against teams that aren't dancing this week.

When it comes to playing elite-level competition, the Hoosiers have been just fine. They boast a 4-2 record against top-25 teams. This tells us a story of a team that might struggle to get out of the first week of action, but could very well go deep into the tourney should that happen.

California

The Golden Bears aren't your normal No. 4 seed. One of the most-talented teams in the nation, CAL is hitting its peak at the exact right time. They have won nine of 11 with those two losses coming by single digits against ranked opponents.

Freshmen stars Ivan Rabb and Jaylen Brown have been as good as advertised in their first (and only) season in Berkeley. The two are combining to average 27.5 points and 14.0 rebounds. Meanwhile, senior guard Tyrone Wallace packs the experience and leads the team in scoring at a hair under 16 per game.

CAL faces a difficult matchup with Hawaii in the first round, but it surely has the necessary talent to go deep into the tournament. In fact, a Sweet 16 outing against Kansas would be all sorts of awesome.

Four things to watch for

1. How seniors handle the big stage

With Ben Simmons and the Louisiana State Tigers not dancing, a vast majority of the focus this week is going to be on how the nation's top seniors perform in their last hurrah for their respective teams.

From Michigan State's Denzel Valentine and Oklahoma's Buddy Hield to North Carolina's Brice Johnson, there is a ton of talent from a pool of players that decided to stay a full four seasons at the collegiate level.

It also stands to reason that one of these players will be cutting down the nets next month in Houston, meaning that we are going to want to keep an eye on who performs well early on. Averaging a near triple-double in the Big 10 Tournament, Valentine is the one I am most intrigued to see.

2. The young guns

California and Kentucky. Two supremely talented teams that seem to be clicking at the right time. Two teams with multiple High School All-Americans. And two teams that are flying under the radar heading into the tournament.

Are their youngsters going to do enough to allow these teams to make a deep run in the tournament?

For California it's all about the freshmen tandem of Ivan Rabb and Jaylen Brown. Now add in the experience of fellow starters Tyrone Wallace and Jordan Mathews, and there's the necessary experience to help these young guys overcome what might be some butterflies on what promises to be a huge stage.

Kentucky's run to the SEC Postseason Tournament title was big for the young guns on the team. It proved that this one particular stage wasn't too big. Of the team's six leading scorers, two are freshmen with two coming in as sophomores.

It goes without saying that likely lottery pick Jamal Murray is going to be the biggest key for the Wildcats. Though, don't sleep on fellow guard Tyler Ulis, who is averaging 27.5 points in the team's past two games.

3. Bracket busters

There are a ton of people who would love to see Indiana and Kentucky take on one another in the east region this upcoming weekend. Though, there's a decent chance that one of these two teams will fall in Round 2. Indiana will face a difficult Chattanooga team while the Wildcats will be going up against Stony Brook.

Out west, a Duke-Baylor third-round game would be all sorts of sexy. That's until we realize Yale could very well push the Bears to the brink on Thursday with a game North Carolina-Wilmington squad primed to push the defending champs.

These are among four early-round bracket buster possibilities. They include four and five seeds, two of the most common seeds to be upset early in the tournament in recent seasons.

Taking it a step further, this one scribe wouldn't be surprised to see multiple top-three seeds fall in the second round. That's where a team like the Green Bay Phoenix in the west region comes into play. A top-six scoring team, Green Bay should give a third-seeded Texas A&M squad all it can handle.

The same can be said with Fresno State taking on Utah in the midwest region and a 15th-seeded Weber State squad taking on Xavier back east.

4. Oregon's geographic advantage

The top-seeded Ducks will play the first two rounds this upcoming weekend in Spokane, Washington. Should they advance to next week, Oregon will then be lucky enough to travel a bit further south to Los Angeles.

This means the Pac-12 champions won't be traveling from the west coast until a potential Final 4 trip to Houston.

No other upper-echelon team has this type of geographical advantage, especially when it comes to the close proximity to the school's campus.

Looking at the west region, Oregon's top competition is pretty far from home. Its potential second-round matchup will be against either St. Josephs (Philadelphia) or Cincinnati. Meanwhile, a Sweet 16 game would likely come against Baylor or Duke. This has to be considered a major advantage for the Ducks.

Best second-round matchups

Of all the second-round matchups set to take place this week, I am most intrigued by the west region. There are three double-digit seeds that stand a good chance of knocking off teams in power conferences.

In reality, Texas A&M, Duke and Texas should be alarmed here. Texas A&M has a heck of a matchup against a high-scoring Green Bay team. Meanwhile, Duke faces off with a North Carolina-Wilmington squad that has won 16 of 18 heading into the tourney.

For Texas, the concern has to be a Northern Iowa squad that has already knocked off North Carolina and Iowa State (when both were top-five teams) earlier in the year. These potential upsets could shake up the west region in a huge way heading into the weekend's action.

The best games here are not eight against nine seeds. Instead, it's six against 11's. A game Gonzaga squad will be tasked with going up against a Seton Hall Pirates team that earned a surprise Big East postseason championship.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned Longhorns must do battle with a Northern Iowa squad that has been giant killers this year.

Vanderbilt and Wichita State will take on one another in the play-in game in the south region on Tuesday. The winner will then face an Arizona squad that could be prime for an upset.

Meanwhile, back east, Michigan and Tulsa will take on one another for the right to battle Notre Dame in the second round. All of these potential Round 2 matchups could be pretty darn good.

Any shot for the defending champs?

Duke enters the tournament as a fourth seed after dropping a ridiculous 10 regular season games. A ton of people are sleeping on the defending champs simply because the number of losses they have accrued.

But let's look at what makes the Blue Devils tick. They rank 17th in the nation at 81.5 points per game. They boast a decent enough 4-4 record against top-25 teams, including wins over both Indiana and North Carolina.

Sophomore guard Grayson Allen, despite his antics, has been a tremendous performer after breaking out in last year's title run. He's averaging 21.6 points while shooting 42 percent from three-point range. Meanwhile, super freshman Brandon Ingram is averaging nearly 17 points and seven boards per game. With this inside-out duo, the Blue Devils can score with the best of them.

The largest issue here is a lack of depth. Duke currently has six players averaging more than eight minutes of game action, meaning that's going to be its rotation heading into the tournament. If forced with an up-and-down game, that's going to be a major issues for Coach K and Co.

With all this said, Duke does have a clear path to the Final 4 in a west region that includes the weakest No. 1 seed in the tourney, Oregon. With a potential Round 3 outing against Baylor or Yale, it's reasonable to believe the Blue Devils will get out of the first weekend, at which point anything is possible.

Checking in on the top NBA draft prospects

A total of 15 of my top-20 prospects for the 2016 NBA draft will be taking to the court in the tourney this week with LSU's Ben Simmons being the primary outlier there.

Can Duke's Brandon Ingram narrow the gap between himself and Simmons as the top prospect in the draft? Will his performance for the defending champions even matter in the grand scheme of things?

How about Kentucky combo-guard Jamal Murray? He's considered the top back-court player in the entire draft but could potentially find himself in a showcase game with Providence guard and fellow top prospect Kris Dunn. How fun would that be?

With three potential first-round picks, California's top prospects are going to have a huge stage to strut their stuff on this week. Who will take advantage of it? And is Jaylen Brown actually a better pro prospect than Ivan Rabb?

The NCAA Tournament is all about school pride and bringing some hardware back to campus. Though, a lot of these youngsters are playing for the right to earn millions at the next level. This shouldn't be lost in the pageantry that is March Madness.

Final 4 predictions

A season that has been defined by upset after upset and top teams falling at record clips, there's no reason to believe this is going to change in the tournament. If that's the case, one must make sure to take into account potential upsets when filling out his/her bracket.

That's what we plan on doing here. Without getting into too much detail regarding our picks, here's how each round plays out in our predictions.

We have a total of 10 lower seeds winning in Round 2, including Northern Iowa, Green Bay and Virginia Commonwealth in the west region. The highest seed we're predicting to fall in the second round is No. 3 Texas A&M out west (to Green Bay).

Moving on to the third round, this is where it gets really interesting. We predict that only three lower seeds will come out on top with Providence providing the biggest upset against the top-seeded North Carolina Tar Heels in the east region. In reality, the likes of Ben Bentil and Kris Dunn should scare North Carolina big time in that potential Round of 32 game against the Friars.

Our predictions also include two double-digit seeds moving on to the Sweet 16 with both Northern Iowa and Virginia Commonwealth coming out on top in the west region. for VCU, it will come in the form of an upset over the No. 2 seed Oklahoma Sooners and Buddy Hield.

Moving on to the Sweet 16, the tremendous matchups are plentiful here. From Kansas taking on California in the south region to Oregon and Duke out west and Seton Hall/Michigan State in the midwest, this has an opportunity to be really fun.

We went ahead and predicted two of the remaining three No. 1 seeds to come out on top with only Oregon falling victim, meaning the defending champion Blue Devils will be riding high into the Elite 8. The lowest seeded team making it to the last eight will be Northern Iowa by virtue of its win over Virginia Commonwealth.

This leads us to our Final 4 predictions. We have Kansas and Northern Iowa going at it in one game with Providence taking on Michigan State in the other.

This is where Northern Iowa's Cinderella season comes to an end. While it has beaten two top-five teams on the year, Kansas is just too good from top to bottom. With the Jayhawks handling that game with relative ease, we will go ahead and predict that Michigan State, fresh off the Big 10 Tournament title, to defeat Kris Dunn and the Friars in the other national semifinal.

This will pit a top-seeded Kansas team against a Michigan State state squad that was robbed of a top seed. In the end, we are going to go with all-everything guard Denzel Valentine and the Spartans to cut down the nets in Houston next month.