NCAA Basketball: 2023 Battle 4 Atlantis preview and predictions

Who will win the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament?

This is going to be one of the more competitive Battle 4 Atlantis tournaments, as most of them are. What is so great about it though is that there is usually tough competition early on, and this is true for the most part. UNC will most likely take care of business against UNI, barring history repeating itself of course. Armando Bacot will be too much for that team to handle and it should be a game where things open up for that offense.

Villanova and Texas Tech will be close, but given how the Wildcats played against Maryland they’ll be right up there as the favorites. I have them beating Texas Tech in a tight finish. Memphis will take advantage of their own good start and a rough last game by Michigan and be the only upset on day one. Could be a bit bold but Memphis has something to prove here, and Quinerly can get going in a hurry, it more so depends on which Michigan shows up.  And the Razorbacks realistically should not have much trouble against Stanford, so it would be all chalk except for Memphis there.

That would leave us with a UNC against Villanova matchup in the semi-finals, a chance for UNC to solidify themselves potentially into the top 10, or a moment for the Wildcats to leap back into the rankings. It is hard to pick against UNC but if Villanova keeps this defensive consistency up, they can beat anybody in the country, so I’ll say they find a way to get it done against UNC.

Then you have Memphis coming back after the upset to Michigan and Arkansas handling Stanford. Eric Musselman has this team very well coached, and Memphis will have likely played in a much more exhausting contest the day before. So a Villanova versus Arkansas matchup would come to fruition here.

The SEC and Big Ten do not come together too often, but here it would be a tight matchup. Arkansas has not had much luck defensively as of late, but If they got in the championship game one would imagine those wrongs would turn right. I would go with Villanova just based on how they can beat you in any way, and they have a track record in this specific tournament as well.

This would put Villanova in an interesting position in the Big East, their sole loss being to Penn and they’d have wins against UNC, Texas Tech, and Arkansas. No matter who comes out on top of the Battle 4 Atlantis and wins three in a row, they will have quite the nonconference resume to bring to the bracketologists once the NCAA Tournament comes around.