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Starting Five: Sweet Sixteen Preview

Mar 26, 2025 | 5:49 PM

By Chris Marler

  1. Portal Madness’ impacting March Madness

The transfer portal has been one of the most talked about things in college sports for several years now. College football felt the effects of this much sooner than college basketball. Heisman trophy winners like Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, and Joe Burrow were all transfer players. By their own admission, the defending national champion Ohio State Buckeyes spent over $20 million on NIL last season with nearly half of that going to portal players. 

However, this year’s Sweet 16 has changed that. Of the 16 teams remaining in the tournament, only Purdue has all five starters who began their college careers at their current school. Even more surprising, only five teams have three or more starters who fit that criteria. That means 11 of the 16 remaining teams have starting lineups where at least half of the players transferred in through the portal.

  1. How many SEC teams will advance? 

The SEC broke an all-time NCAA tournament record for total teams in the field with 14. Half of those teams made it past the first two rounds and into the Sweet 16, which was also a record. From there how many teams will advance?

It’s very hard to get to a Final Four. There’s a reason why Arkansas has made 21 NCAA tournaments since 1990, but haven’t made a Final Four since 1995. There’s a reason why Kentucky has the second most Final Fours all-time with 17, but haven’t made one since 2015. You could make the argument that the Cats making the Final Four four times in five years from 2011 to 2015 might be more impressive than winning a title just once. 

In the last 40 years it’s only happened four times: 

  • 1994: Arkansas, Florida 
  • 1996: Kentucky, Mississippi State 
  • 2006: Florida, LSU 
  • 2014: Kentucky, Florida

It’s worth noting that in three of the four years the SEC has placed multiple teams in the Final Four, an SEC team won the national title. As for this year, who advances in each round? 

Elite Eight Teams: Auburn, Tennessee, Florida, Arkansas 

Final Four Teams: Auburn, Florida 

  1. Get in Prices going crazy 

This year’s tournament hasn’t seen a ton of upsets, leaving a lot to be desired for the casual fan and home viewer. However, the lack of upsets also means more highly ranked teams and national brands are still in the tournamentl. That has driven ticket prices up higher than almost any Sweet 16 in recent memory. 

Here’s a look at what the current “get-in” price is for each regional on the secondary market via Stubhub (which is somehow cheaper than the price on the NCAA’s official website). 

East Regional (Newark, NJ) 

  • Alabama, BYU, Duke, Arizona
  • Get in Price: $179

West Regional (San Francisco, CA) 

  • Florida, Maryland, Texas Tech, and Arkansas 
  • Get in Price: $148

Midwest Regional (Indianapolis, IN)

  • Houston, Purdue, Kentucky, and Tennessee
  • Get in price: $142

South Regional (Atlanta, GA)

  • Auburn, Michigan, Michigan State, and Ole Miss 
  • Get in Price: $382

  1. Bold Prediction 

A four seed will make the Final Four. 

So far, this tournament has been the chalkiest tournament in recent memory. Of the eight games slated for Thursday and Friday, the higher ranked seed is favored in all eight. Only one of those games features a team favored by less than four points. Ironically enough, that game features No. 6 seed Ole Miss facing No. 2 seed Michigan State, with the Spartans favored by 3.5 points. 

If all eight favorites win, it would be the first time in NCAA tournament history that the eight teams in the Elite Eight field would be the top eight teams in the Ken Pom Rankings. 

That surely can’t happen. This March hasn’t had enough Madness, yet. However, that could change this weekend with a team like Purdue, who made the national title game a year ago, playing in front of their home crowd in Indianapolis. If any non-one or two seed can make the Final Four in San Antonio, it’s the Boilermakers. 

  1. Who’s on upset alert? 

We already answered this with the bold prediction for Purdue. So, which SEC team is on upset alert this weekend? It’s Alabama. 

BYU has won 11 of their last 12, including wins over seven tournament teams. That also includes two wins over Iowa State, one over Arizona, and a 34 point win over Kansas. They’ve scored 80 points or more in nine of their last ten wins. They’ll take that hot shooting and scoring streak into Thursday’s game against an Alabama team that ranks in the bottom 20 of all of Division 1 (346th overall) in points allowed at 81 per game. 

The Cougars have also given up a lot of points, ranking 140th in scoring defense at 71.4 ppg allowed. However, the concern for Alabama is that they’ve shot just 70 percent from the free throw line and haven’t made more than seven threes in either of their opening games of the tournament. Their starters are just 6-of-26 from deep for just 23.1 percent. 

This year’s Nate Oats team doesn’t live and die by the three like ones from previous years, but they will need to be much better from beyond the arc to keep pace with BYU’s offense.

Check out more of our SEC coverage.