(9) Kansas State over (8) Creighton
To be honest, I am not sure I like any of the No. 9 seeds to come out of the first round. I feel like the No. 8 seeds have some clear advantages just about across the board. However, for the sake of this article, Kansas State is my pick. Both of these two teams stumbled to the conclusion of the season with 2-3 records over the last five games.
During this final stretch for Creighton, they showed how much they can struggle against mid-level teams in the No. 7-12 range for seeding. While they did add a monster win over Villanova (the other win was over DePaul), they also suffered losses to Butler, Providence, and Marquette. Considering these three teams line up fairly well in terms of talent with K-State, the trending in mid-level games does not look good for the Bluejays.
As for K-State, they added a couple of solid wins over mid-level teams in TCU and Baylor but also suffered two mid-level losses to TCU and Oklahoma (other loss was to Kansas). This is a hard team to get a gauge on, as is Creighton.
Because this game could seriously go either way and I have no leaning in either direction in regards to who will win, I will take this as the most likely “upset.” But, seriously, as the age-old question asks: “Is a 9-over-8 upset really an ‘upset’?”
Runner-Up: Alabama over Virginia Tech