NCAA Tournament 2019: Buy or Sell Syracuse, VCU, Ole Miss, and Utah State
By Cody Gerena
Utah State Aggies
This year’s Midwest Regional 8-seed representative is the Utah State Aggies 28-6 (15-3), who are the only team on this seed-line who have won their conference tournament. They got the auto-bid by beating San Diego State in the Mountain West Conference championship game by a score of 64-57 as a two-seed, behind 7-seed Nevada. They have been on a roll recently, winning their last 10 and 17 out of their last 18. The AP and Coaches Poll have noticed them giving them the #25 spot on the latest poll, making them the only ranked 8-seed as of the tournament’s start.
Their offense is led by junior guard Sam Merrill, who scored 24 points in the championship win over San Diego State. He also scored 29 points over a ranked Nevada team in an 81-76 win. In that win, freshman center Neemias Queta got a double-double with 13 points and 11 rebounds.
They will have a tough first-round matchup in the Washington Huskies, who many thought will be the Pac-12’s only bid in the tournament. The Aggies are still the favorite anyway, with a -3 point spread in favor of them. They also outrank the Huskies by 20 in KenPom with Utah State at 33 to Washington at 53. The NET also has them as the better team 29 to 45, so it can be safe to assume that Utah State will win this game.
If they win against Washington, they will be rewarded with a 1-seed UNC team who just lost a spot in the ACC championship by one basket to their rival Duke. If that doesn’t light up a fire under the Tar Heels then I’m not sure what will. UNC has not looked weak against any of the mid-majors they faced this year, they even beat Wofford at Wofford by double-digits to get revenge on them from last year. It is hard to see Utah State pulling off the rare 8-seed over 1-seed upset against UNC.