2021 March Madness Matchups We'd Love to See in Men's College Basketball

For years and years, the selection committee for the men's NCAA tournament has insisted that it doesn't put together made-for-TV matchups; that it wouldn't even be feasible to manufacture such games since their main focus is on coming up with a true 1-68 seed list before more or less just watching things fall into place based on bracketing principles.

I won't go into the nitty-gritty details, but having participated in the mock selection committee exercise at NCAA HQ in the past, I can confirm that this is true. Geography typically reigns supreme in the bracketing process.

But not this year.

Though not official yet, the expectation is that the entire 2021 men's NCAA tournament will be held in Indianapolis, which would completely negate the geographical component of bracketing—thus opening the door for some hand-fed, juicy matchups.

There are still other bracketing principles that need to be considered, such as avoiding first-round games between teams who played during the regular season, rules put in place to spread out the bid-heavy conferences, an effort to balance the top four seeds within each region, etc. However, removing geography from the mix makes everything substantially more flexible.

Will the selection committee actually consider some of these dream scenarios while putting together the final product in a few months? Probably not. Maybe they'll accidentally give us a few of these gifts, though.

This would be an intriguing matchup for three reasons.

First and foremost, you've got the brother-against-brother dynamic with Virginia and Sam Hauser taking on Michigan State and Joey Hauser. They played together during the 2018-19 season at Marquette and were both required to sit out last year after transferring. Now, they are the leading scorers in their respective new homes and would legitimately partake in a lot of one-on-one battles to determine which team advances to the next round.

Second, it would be a "rescheduling" of a game we were already planning to watch this season. The Cavaliers and Spartans were supposed to square off in the ACC-B1G Challenge, but they had to cancel the game when Virginia went on a COVID-19 pause. Would be nice to get an opportunity to read the feature on the Hauser brothers that The Athletic's Brendan Quinn had prepped for the morning of the canceled game.

Third, there's some serious recent tournament history between these programs. Michigan State upset Virginia in both the 2014 and 2015 NCAA tournaments. The Cavaliers did eventually win it all in 2019, but there are a lot of fans in and around Charlottesville who haven't forgotten that Tom Izzo was responsible for eliminating what—at that time—were the two most promising Virginia teams since the days of Ralph Sampson in the early 1980s.

A little revenge to ensure Michigan State doesn't win its first national championship since 2000 would be much appreciated among Wahoos fans.

As things stand, this is the dream pairing for the national championship.

Gonzaga has been an unstoppable force of nature. The Zags have faced Kansas, Iowa, Virginia, West Virginia and Auburn, and the only game in which they had even the slightest bit of trouble was against the Mountaineers—in which star freshman Jalen Suggs suffered a lower-leg injury midway through the first half and they temporarily looked human. But even in that one, Gonzaga blitzed a pretty good WVU defense for 53 second-half points.

Even after watching Gonzaga plow through the competition for the first few weeks, the recent 98-75 victory over Virginia was the most staggering. Since Jan. 1, 2014, only one team had previously scored so much as 82 points against the Cavaliers—and even in that January 2017 game against Pittsburgh, the Panthers needed overtime and an unconscious 13-of-21 three-point shooting effort to pull that off. It's one thing to score at will against Iowa. Scoring on practically every possession against Virginia was unreal.

And yet, Baylor might be every bit as good as Gonzaga.

It's too soon to know for sure, because the Bears have only faced one opponent worth a darn. In that 82-69 victory over Illinois, the Illini led early in the second half and still had a fighting chance with about eight minutes to go.

But what we've learned about Baylor thus far is that this team is still a force to be reckoned with in the paint. We knew the Bears could shoot and defend with all those veteran guards, but UNLV transfer Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua has been a much-needed revelation on the glass. He, Mark Vital and Flo Thamba have been one heck of a trio of offensive rebounding for the one team that might be able to beat Gonzaga.

Like Michigan State-Virginia, this is also a game we were supposed to get earlier in the year. Gonzaga had to postpone the scheduled Dec. 5 game, but that's probably for the best. Now we can spend the next three months arguing about who's best as opposed to already having the answer.

Louisville would need to improve drastically for this pairing to come to fruition. If Iona does earn the MAAC's auto bid, it would likely be a No. 16 seed—maybe a No. 15 seed if enough worse teams happen to win their conference tournaments. However, after the 85-48 loss to Wisconsin on Dec. 19, Louisville's path to a No. 1 or No. 2 seed is a steep, uphill climb.

If this matchup comes together, though, it would be the most talked about No. 1/2 vs. No. 15/16 matchup in NCAA tournament history.

There have been plenty of prior instances of teams facing a former coach, but getting Rick Pitino against Louisville would be like watching an arsonist return to the scene of the crime. It's still hard to believe that he's already back coaching college basketball after all of the allegations and sanctions that came from his final few years with the Cardinals.

It would be a no-love-lost game to say the least, and I wouldn't be surprised if Chris Mack left the starters out there until the final buzzer of a 60-point blowout to provide somewhat of a therapeutic moment for fans still irate about being forced to vacate the 2013 national championship.

There wouldn't be anywhere near as much animosity in this battle between a program (Texas) and its former coach (Rick Barnes), but there sure would be a lot of coach-specific intrigue here.

Texas' current head coach, Shaka Smart, entered this season on perhaps the hottest seat in the nation. The Longhorns merely went 90-78 in his first five seasons and have yet to win an NCAA tournament game under his tutelage.

It hasn't been for lack of talent. Dating back to the 2015 recruiting class, Texas has signed 18 top-100 recruits, including 5-star guys Andrew Jones, Jarrett Allen, Mo Bamba and Greg Brown. It simply hasn't translated into much success until now, with the Longhorns sitting at 7-1 with wins over Indiana, North Carolina and Oklahoma State and a hard-fought loss against Villanova.

Tennessee has been just as impressive, albeit mostly against less-noteworthy competition. The Volunteers have been Virginia-like on defense, allowing just 52.7 points during their 6-0 start. They have dominated both the rebounding and turnover battles in most of their games and look like the early favorites to win the SEC.

But no matter how well these teams fare in the regular season, the big question at both of these programs is: Will it matter in March?

Tennessee has never been to the Final Four and has only even advanced to the Elite Eight once in program history (2010). Texas has only been to the Final Four once since 1947 and has been bounced prior to the Sweet 16 in each of its last eight trips to the Big Dance—most of those with Barnes on the sideline.

This could be a No. 2 vs. No. 3 Sweet 16 pairing, provided they don't both get knocked out in the first week.

Who doesn't love a classic top offense vs. top defense showdown?

Technically, Gonzaga is now the top offense. The Bulldogs moved slightly ahead of Iowa after demolishing Virginia the day after Christmas. But Iowa was No. 1 in adjusted offensive efficiency up until that point, and the Hawkeyes may well get it back again before the NCAA tournament begins.

Either way, it's close, and we've been treated to a few recent renditions of this matchup in the tournament.

In fact, Texas Tech played in one of these games two years ago when its No. 1 defense ousted Gonzaga's top offense 75-69 in an excellent Elite Eight showdown.

Four years before that, the top offense reigned supreme over the top defense when Wisconsin ended Kentucky's undefeated quest in the Final Four in a back-and-forth, 71-64 classic.

And in the (since-vacated) 2013 national championship, Louisville's No. 1 defense struggled with Michigan's No. 1 offense. However, the Cardinals got bailed out by Luke Hancock catching fire in an 82-76 victory.

What would happen if Iowa and Texas Tech run into each other? Hard to say. I'd probably pick Texas Tech, because the Red Raiders actually can shoot from time to time while Iowa seems to be allergic to the idea of playing defense. But if the thought of Luka Garza flexing his muscles against an elite defense doesn't get you excited, you're clearly in the wrong place.

I can't quite put a finger on why, but doesn't it feel like Villanova and Wisconsin should play every year?

At the very least, doesn't it feel like they actually have played more than once in the past 25 years and more than twice in the past 70 years?

Maybe it's because they both always seem to be good lately, or perhaps it's because they're somehow consistently good with a bunch of upperclassmen who can hit threes in their sleep.

Alas, these two annual contenders—both teams have played in 14 of the past 15 NCAA tournaments—have been like two ships passing in the night. Their lone encounter since 1995 resulted in Wisconsin's come-from-behind colossal upset of No. 1-seeded Villanova in the second round of the 2017 tourney.

They could make up for lost time with a possible Final Four matchup this year.

Both the Wildcats and Badgers got out to strong 8-1 starts in which the eighth victory was arguably the best yet. Villanova was dominant at Marquette to improve to 3-0 in Big East play. Two days later, Wisconsin went on the road for a strong win over Michigan State—despite the Spartans shooting 73 percent from three-point range.

Wisconsin did suffer an unexpected loss to Maryland on Monday night to drop to 8-2 overall. But even with that result, Villanova and Wisconsin enter the final few days of 2020 at Nos. 3 and 4, respectively, in the KenPom rankings. While that certainly doesn't guarantee that either team will be a No. 1 seed come tournament time, they do seem like the early favorites to win their conferences.

One of the most iconic games in NCAA tournament history was the 1983 national championship, when Jim Valvano's No. 6-seeded NC State Wolfpack stunned Houston's Phi Slama Jama at the buzzer.

But in the nearly four decades since that instant classic, there haven't been many instances when a rematch would have been a must-watch affair.

Since 1984, there have been a grand total of seven weeks in which both teams were ranked in the AP Top 25. Six of them came in the middle of the 2018-19 season, when the Wolfpack started 13-1 before missing the NCAA tournament. And there have only been two years when both teams made the NCAA tournament: 1987 when Houston was a No. 12 seed and NC State was a No. 11 seed, and 2018 when Houston was a No. 6 seed and NC State was a No. 9 seed.

Might this finally be the year?

Houston is 7-0 and is sitting at No. 6 in the AP poll. Kelvin Sampson has four former transfers—Quentin Grimes, DeJon Jarreau, Justin Gorham and Brison Gresham—in his starting lineup, and that veteran rotation has the Cougars looking like a title contender.

NC State hasn't cracked into the AP Top 25 just yet, but the Wolfpack are 5-1 and picked up a huge win over North Carolina a few days before Christmas. Devon Daniels, Braxton Beverly and Co. have formed one of the top turnover-forcing machines in the country, and they're going to be, at the very least, a major nuisance in the ACC.

We'll see what the next three months hold, but this could be a No. 2 vs. No. 7 second-round matchup. And if it is, buckle up for nonstop replays of Jimmy V running around the court looking for someone to hug.

The vast majority of major-conference teams have played in the NCAA tournament at least once in the past decade, but there are a few unfortunate programs mired in quite the drought.

By far, the longest such dry spell belongs to Rutgers, which hasn't been dancing since 1991. The next-longest streak of tournament-less seasons resides with DePaul (2004). And while it would be sweet if those two long-forlorn programs both made the tournament and faced each other, I would be infinitely more entertained by Rutgers drawing one (or more than one?) of the blue bloods: Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and UCLA.

(Indiana is also conventionally considered a blue-blood program, but the Scarlet Knights are already scheduled to face the Hoosiers twice during the regular season as Big Ten opponents, and no one outside the city of Bloomington and under the age of 35 thinks of Indiana as one of college basketball's top programs anyway. Sorry, not sorry.)

Dating back to the 1949-50 season, Rutgers has never faced Kansas, lost its only matchup with Kentucky, has an 0-3 record against Duke, holds an 0-12 record against North Carolina and is 1-2 against UCLA—that lone victory came in December 1981. That's an overall record of 1-18, but no time like the present to start to turn that around.

In his Dec. 22 bracket projection, ESPN's Joe Lunardi had Rutgers as the No. 4 seed in the same region as No. 5 seed Duke. What a fun little second-round battle that would be. And perhaps the winner of that game could run into projected No. 1 seed Kansas in the Sweet 16.