Kansas State vs. Loyola Chicago: NCAA Tournament game preview, schedule and prediction

How each team plays

Kansas State

With Wade out, the Wildcats have played an excruciatingly slow-paced game. Bruce Weber knows his teams aren’t going to outscore many teams at this stage, so a grind it out battle has been their style.

Good news is that their defense has allowed this to happen. They’ve allowed 34% from the field to Creighton, 30% to UMBC, and 38% to Kentucky. None of them either have reached the 60-point plateau.

Despite going up against some of the best offenses in the country daily with the Big 12, the Wildcats still managed to be a top-50 scoring defense.

Loyola-Chicago

The Ramblers are fifth in the country in scoring defense at 62.4 ppg. And before people mention the Missouri Valley Conference, remember that they held Florida to just 59 points on the road in the non-conference.

This team’s identity is pretty straightforward. They want it to be a low-scoring game and use their balance to have anyone on the court to be their opponent. Considering that it’s been three different Ramblers that have hit the winning shots, it’s been a formula that’s worked for them.

The biggest upset of the tournament won’t be UMBC over Virginia, but rather this game getting over 60 points with these two going at it.