NCAA Basketball: Predicting all 32 autobids for 2022 NCAA Tournament
By Bryan Mauro
Big Sky
Winner: Southern Utah Thunderbirds
Southern Utah was supposed to run away with the league and then come back and get revenge for their early exit in last year’s Big Sky tournament. This is the year that the Thunderbirds finally return to the NCAA tournament. Southern Utah has the most experience of any team in the league as they have a ton of players returning from last season and most of those players had experience at another university before arriving at Southern Utah.
The Thunderbirds are going to have some competition for the top spot with Montana State and Weber State, but Southern Utah is due to play their best basketball of the season and show why everyone thought they were the most talented team in the league a year ago. John Knight III is the best player on an already experienced roster.
Sleeper: Montana Grizzlies
The Big Sky tournament was crazy last year and saw some first-round upsets. After the first round though, the league pretty much went as expected and saw Eastern Washington get the automatic bid in the tournament. Montana doesn’t have a ton of experience in the NCAA tournament on this roster, but head coach Travis DeCurie has a lot of experience and a lot of success in winning this tournament.
Coaching matters in tournaments like these and so do fundamental things like not turning the ball over and running an efficient offense. The Grizzlies do those things well and if everything works out could make a little run. Honestly, if anyone outside of the top three wins this tournament it would be a huge surprise.
Big South
Winner: Longwood Lancers
The Lancers have been a division 1 team for 18 seasons, and this would be their first appearance in the NCAA tournament. Longwood has already had a historic season as they have secured their first winning season in their Division 1 history, as well as their first 20-win season, and their first postseason appearance. Head coach Griff Aldrich has steadily been stockpiling talent and entering the season Longwood was a trendy sleeper pick to make the NCAA tournament. They were more than a sleeper but have been dominant in their run through the conference.
Longwood has a trio of guards who are very hard to defend and have been the catalyst for this historic season for the Lancers. Justin Hill is the likely Player of the Year in the Big South and when he goes the Lancers go. Longwood is the class of the league this year and they will likely be a 16 seed if they make the NCAA tournament.
Sleeper: High Point Panthers
Outside of the top 4 teams in the league, there is not much hope for any other team to win this tournament. The talent gap is too large for most of these teams to overcome. However, High Point has something that the rest of the teams don’t and that is the best scorer in the league. John-Michael Wright is a great scorer and is the type of player who can get hot and lead his team to a victory. The Panthers are going to need Wright to stay hot for the duration of the tournament for them to have a chance.
Tubby Smith recently stepped down as the head coach for High Point and left the program in the care of his son, and while High Point has yet to win a game under their new head coach, anything can happen in the conference tournaments especially when you have a player the caliber of Wright.