Virginia is slated to open the NCAA Tournament on Saturday, assuming the Cavaliers can make it through COVID protocols this week before traveling to Indianapolis. Should all go well, the Wahoos willl face the No. 13 seed Ohio Bobcats, champions of the MAC, in the tournament’s First Round on Saturday night on the IU campus and inside famed Assembly Hall.

Ohio enters the postseason with a 16-7 record with wins over Kent State, Toledo, and Buffalo in the MAC Tournament to claim the league’s automatic bid. The Bobcats were far from the league favorite to qualify for the Big Dance, heading into the conference tournament as the No. 5 seed, before a big upset win over top-seeded Toledo propelled them into the championship. During the regular season, they nearly pulled a massive upset of now No. 1 seed Illinois, leading by as many as eight points in the second half before losing by two. Ohio also dismantled Horizon League champ Cleveland State in December, winning by 55 points at home. Like Virginia, Ohio dealt with COVID issues throughout the season and had seven of its final 10 games of the regular season cancelled. With that, Ohio has had a lighter schedule down the stretch but has lost just once in the last 58 days, with nine of the last 10 being wins.

Ohio is coached by Jeff Boals, who leads the Bobcats to the dance in his second year on the job. Boals came to Ohio after a very successful three-year run at Stony Brook. The Bobcats rank 78th in KenPom, and for comparison, the closest ACC team to Ohio in the rankings is Notre Dame, ranked 81st.

The Bobcats have a very solid offense, ranked 29th in efficiency, led by talented guard Jason Preston, who averages 17.1 points per game, and 41 percent from three.

Virginia and Ohio had just one common opponent in the regular season, Kent State. The Golden Flashes took the Cavaliers to overtime early in the season, and Ohio lost to Kent State in the regular season before exacting revenge with a 22-point win in the MAC Tournament.

We’ll have more on the matchup with the Bobcats later this week.

If Virginia is fortunate enough to play Saturday and advance past the Bobcats, the Wahoos will play the winner of the 5/12 matchup between Creighton and UC Santa Barbara on Monday.

We’ll start with Creighton, the region’s No. 5 seed. The Jays were blown out by Georgetown in Saturday night’s Big East Tournament title game and enter the NCAA’s with a 20-8 mark. Creighton went 18-7 overall and 14-6 in Big East play during the regular season and is ranked 19th in KenPom as of now. Creighton’s best wins of the season were its victories over Villanova in February and a trio of Ws over UConn, including one over the Huskies in the Big East Tournament.

The Jays did have a bit of drama in recent weeks when head coach Greg McDermott was suspended and subsequently reinstated following insensitive comments that he made when addressing his team after a recent game.

Creighton has a high-powered offense, scoring 77 points per game, led by the dynamic backcourt combo of Marcus Zegarowski and Denzel Mahoney. The Jays do have one familiar face to Cavalier fans, with former Duke guard Alex O’Connell playing 10.5 minutes per game off the bench.

Both KenPom and Vegas like Creighton to win their Saturday game. The Jays are 6.5-point favorites as of Monday morning, and KenPom sees the game as a seven-point win for the Jays, with a 71-percent chance for a Creighton win.

If the Jays are upset, the UVa/Ohio winner will take on UC Santa Barbara, winners of the Big West Conference. The Gauchos haven’t faced a murderer’s row but they have racked up an impressive 22-4 record this season and have lost just once time in 2021. With that said, UCSB doesn’t have a single win over a top-100 KenPom team and haven’t even played a team ranked higher than No. 102. A rocky 4-3 start gave way to 13-straight wins before a loss to UC Riverside in February. The Gauchos then won their final two games of the regular season and beat Long Beach State, UC Davis, and UC Irvine in the conference tournament to earn the automatic bid.

UCSB ranks 69th in KenPom in the fourth season under head coach Joe Pasternack, a former Arizona assistant. The Gauchos have become a top program in their league, with an 88-33 record in Pasternack’s seasons at the head of the program. From a metrics standpoint, they are solid on both ends of the floor but not truly elite on either end. They are led on offense by point guard JaQuori McLaughlin, who began his career at Oregon State. This year, he paces the Gauchos with 16.2 points per game and 5.2 assists per contest.

Creighton is a very solid 5-seed that is just below UVa from a metrics standpoints, and is rightly favored in Saturday’s First Round game. But the Gauchos are the typical dangerous mid-major with a high win total. They are a team used to winning and have capable, veteran players and a coach that has done a nice job and could be on to bigger and better things. Beating Ohio will be no easy task, but if UVa can get past the Bobcats, another tough task awaits the Hoos regardless of who wins the 5/12 game.

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