Midwest Regional

Biggest Second-Round Upset: No. 9 North Carolina State over No. 1 Kansas

The bottom half of this bracket was tailor-made for a nike jersey nfl cheap  Champions Classic rematch between Duke and Michigan State. Whether the Blue Devils draw Rhode Island or Oklahoma, they’ll play a team heading in the wrong direction that is woefully unequipped to guard Marvin Bagley III and Wendell Carter Jr. And none of the teams in Michigan State’s pod are particularly good at forcing turnovers.

With a No. 12 vs. No. 13 matchup in the top half of the region, that only leaves one viable option for chaos.

And North Carolina State is already a proven giant-killer.cheap youth nfl jerseys

The Wolfpack slayed Arizona, Duke, North Carolina and Clemson—when Clemson was damn good prior to Donte Grantham’s injury—this season. To be fair, they are a No. 9 seed for a reason, and losses to the likes of Northern Iowa, UNC Greensboro, Georgia Tech and Boston College are outstanding reasons not to trust them to beat Seton Hall.

But three years ago, when they beat Villanova in the second round, it was a similar story. That team had a couple of marquee wins and a few head-scratching losses that produced a youth nfl jerseys cheap  middling seed capable of a shocking upset or a face-plant in the first round.

The real reason to like NC State, though, is this team ranks 14th in the nation in three-point field-goal defense and 25th in defensive three-point rate, and Kansas lives and dies by the three. In those huge upsets earlier this year, those four teams shot a combined 15-of-67 (22.4 percent) from youth nfl jerseys downtown. Also, the combination of Omer Yurtseven and Lennard Freeman could wreak havoc on KU’s frontcourt, especially if Udoka Azubuike is still a little banged up.

Midwest Region’s Final Four Representative: No. 3 Michigan State Spartans

It’s a tough call on the Sweet 16 game between Duke and Michigan State, but if there’s one team in the country equipped to beat the Blue Devils’ zone, it’s the Spartans.

Michigan State moves the ball so fluidly, and it is one of the best three-point shooting teams in the country. It might beat up the zone so badly that Duke goes back to man-to-man just to try to stop the nfl youth jerseys bleeding, which is saying something, if you recall how awful this defense was for the first three months of the year.

From there, North Carolina State could give Michigan State some problems in the turnover department, but the combination of MSU’s elite offensive rebounding and NC State’s poor defensive rebounding nfl youth jerseys cheap should mean a landslide victory for the Spartans.

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