NCAA Tournament 2021: 10 lower-digit seeds capable of pulling an upset

Utah State Aggies

The Utah State Aggies got into the field as an at-large and will take on the 6 seed Texas Tech. Utah State won the automatic bid to the NCAA tourney last year after winning the Mountain West conference tourney. This Utah State is great defensively, they are the No. 8 defensive team in the country according to Kenpom.

The Aggies are 15th in the country in defensive field goal percentage to go along with allowing the 5th lowest percentage of offensive rebounds in the country. Utah State also is a great two-point defensive team ranking 4th in the country in defensive two-point percentage.

Neemias Queta is one of the best players in the country contributing 15.1 points per game 10.0 rebounds and 3.2 blocks per game. He does a great job protecting the rim and is 2nd in the country in defensive rating. Under Chris Beard, Texas Tech has been known for its defense and is pretty good this year ranking 24th.

With the quality of defenses and both team’s rating below 150 in Kenpom’s tempo ranking, you can expect a low-scoring game. With the quality defense that Utah State plays along with Queta and Justin Bean the aggies will be a tough out and will be hard for them to pull the upset.