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NCAA Tournament 2019: Buy or Sell Syracuse, VCU, Ole Miss, and Utah State

By Cody Gerena

<> at Carrier Dome on December 8, 2018 in Syracuse, New York.
<> at Carrier Dome on December 8, 2018 in Syracuse, New York. /
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DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA – JANUARY 14: (L-R) Tyus Battle #25, Paschal Chukwu #13, Frank Howard #23 and Oshae Brissett #11 of the Syracuse Orange celebrate during the final seconds of their win against the Syracuse Orange at Cameron Indoor Stadium on January 14, 2019 in Durham, North Carolina. Syracuse won 95-91 in overtime. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA – JANUARY 14: (L-R) Tyus Battle #25, Paschal Chukwu #13, Frank Howard #23 and Oshae Brissett #11 of the Syracuse Orange celebrate during the final seconds of their win against the Syracuse Orange at Cameron Indoor Stadium on January 14, 2019 in Durham, North Carolina. Syracuse won 95-91 in overtime. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images) /

The NCAA Tournament is back and the brackets have been released with four new 8-seeds. Will any of these seeds be able to make an impact on the bracket?

The 8-seed, possibly the toughest seeding to get for any team whose a contender. First, you have to go through a 9-seed which the odds of happening is the same as a coin flip. Then you have to go beat a 1-seed just to get past the first weekend into the NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen (Except for Kansas State last year thanks to UMBC even though K-State was a 9-seed).

There is little to no advantage to be in this spot. A loss in the Round of 64 can’t really even be counted as an upset. After that round, all they could do is be the ones who will have to upset as only four out of the 24 8-seeds who reached the Round of 32 in the past ten tournaments beat a 1-seed to reach the Sweet Sixteen. From there they do surprisingly well, with two of those four reaching the championship game(2011 Butler and 2014 Kentucky). The other two teams have their dream dashed in the Sweet Sixteen.

This year our roster of 8-seeds features two mid-majors and two power-six teams. Out of those four, only Utah State is here with an auto-bid by winning their conference, the Mountain West. Syracuse is coming from arguably the best conference in the country, the ACC which has three 1-seeds. They have a win against 1-seed Duke. Ole Miss has had big wins such as ones against 5-seeds Auburn and Missippi State, and close losses to 2-seeds Tennesse and Kentucky, and 3-seed LSU.

Finally, VCU is the latest at-large to come from the Atlantic 10 but they have a top 10 KenPom defense. Which of these teams will go far and amass high value, and which of them will fall short? It’s time to buy or sell!

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