Before filling out your bracket, these are the 50 things to know about this year’s NCAA men’s tournament

From locals in the field to the sleepers to keep an eye on, here's what to know before Thursday's first-round tip of the NCAA men's portion of March Madness

Rick Pitino led St. John's to a Big East championship and an NCAA Tournament appearance. Read moreNoah K. Murray / AP

by Ed Barkowitz, For The Inquirer

Updated March 17, 2025, 8:55 a.m. ET

Published March 17, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET

There might not be any local teams in this year’s NCAA Tournament, but there are plenty of local players.

The SEC dominates the discussion, but there are other stories, too. St. John’s is a contender for the first time in decades, there’s a Martelli who will charm the national stage, and Montana might not be around for long, but it has a player we all can root for.

Don’t fill out that bracket just yet. Here are 50 things to consider.

1. Kentucky’s Andrew Carr (West Chester East) is back in the tournament for the first time since 2022 when he was with Delaware. (He had 13 points, shooting 5-for-5 from the field, in a loss to Villanova that day in Pittsburgh.)

2. Carr, a 6-foot-10 power forward who also played at Wake Forest for two seasons, averages 10.5 points in 23.7 minutes for the Wildcats. He has scored in double figures in four of the last five games and has become one of the Wildcats’ most reliable players. “Given his size, experience and craftsmanship around the basket,” wrote John Clay of the Lexington Herald-Leader, “Carr at his best means Kentucky at its best.”

3. A record 14 of the 16 teams in the SEC qualified for the NCAA Tournament. Those that got in: Auburn (No. 1 seed), Florida (1), Alabama (2), Tennessee (2), Kentucky (3), Texas A&M (4), Missouri (6), Mississippi (6), Mississippi State (8), Georgia (9), Oklahoma (9), Vanderbilt (10), Arkansas (10) and Texas (11). Auburn, Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee are legit title contenders.

3a. The SEC teams that did not get in are LSU (14-18) and South Carolina (12-20), the only ones in the league that didn’t have winning records.

4. Christian Ings, who helped Neumann Goretti win three state titles, is Norfolk State’s second-leading scorer (11.9 ppg). He had 19 in the MEAC semifinals and 16 in the championship, when he also hit the game-winning free throw. Tyrel Bladen (Coatesville High) gives coach Robert Jones about 17 minutes off the bench. The Spartans get Florida in the first round.

5. The biggest surprise of Selection Sunday was North Carolina getting in. The Tar Heels went 1-12 in Quad 1 games and were eliminated by shorthanded Duke in the ACC Tournament.

6. Teams making their first NCAA Tournament appearance: High Point (Big South), SIU-Edwardsville (Ohio Valley), Omaha (Summit), UC San Diego (Big West).

7. High Point has players from Cameroon, Canada, Australia, Lithuania, Croatia, and Iceland on the roster. Its leading scorer, Kezza Giffa, was born in Paris.

8. Missouri coach Dennis Gates wears the same suit for every game. “If somebody decided to steal my suit, I’d be in trouble,” Gates told the New York Times. “‘I’m just thankful for Tiger Cleaners. They get me right.” Missouri was 0-18 in the SEC last year, 10-8 this season.

8a. Gates learned at the elbow of Leonard Hamilton not only the concepts of the game but also how coaches should carry themselves. “You’re not only representing yourself but others who are on the climb and want the same opportunities,” he said. “Somebody’s going to see me for the first time. What impact will I have on them visually? And what impact will I have on them, not just with what I wear but how I act?”

9. Omaha, picked to finish eighth in the nine-team Summit League, started the season 4-9, including a 32-point loss at Iowa State. In 2021, Oral Roberts came out of the Summit and made it to the Sweet 16 as a No. 15 seed.

10. Michigan starts two 7-footers, including Danny Wolf, who transferred in from Yale. Wolf was the Ivy League tournament MVP last year and he had 13 points in a first-round upset of Auburn.

11. The Wolverines’ other 7-footer, Vladislav Goldin, was first team all-Big Ten. Earlier this month, he saw his parents in March for the first time in five years after they were able to secure a visa from Russia. Goldin also got engaged in February. Been a busy month for the kid.

12. Even without Wolf, Yale won the Ivy League for the second consecutive season. The Bulldogs are led by 6-foot-6 senior John Poulakidas, a sniper who had 28 in that win over Auburn last year. “He’s got good size and he’s got that shot-making ability that you really crave,” Bulldogs coach James Jones said. “John would start for [almost] any team in the country.”

13. Auburn spent much of the season ranked No. 1, which is nice, but won’t mean a thing if the Tigers make another early exit. They were a No. 4 seed when they lost to Yale last year. In 2022, they were a No. 2 seed and lost in the second round to 10th-seeded Miami. This is the Tigers’ sixth tournament under Bruce Pearl. They went to the Final Four in 2019. The other four times they didn’t make it out of the first weekend.

13a. Auburn has lost three of its last four and somehow still received a No. 1 seed for the second time in school history. Those late losses were to Texas A&M, Alabama, and Tennessee. The Tigers deserved the No. 1 overall based on their body of work.

14. Auburn star Johni Broome transferred from Morehead State in 2022. A big influence on his decision was when Morehead State played at Auburn in the 2021-22 season opener for both teams. Auburn Arena (nicknamed “The Jungle”) was electric as the Tigers thumped Morehead by 23. Broome had 12 points that night, but an impression was made. Don’t fumble his first name, which is pronounced JUH-Nye.

15. Broome made a run at the Wooden Award, but Duke’s Cooper Flagg almost surely will be the national player of the year. He’d be the fourth freshman to win it, joining Kevin Durant (2007), Anthony Davis (2012), and Zion Williamson (2019). Davis/Kentucky won the national title, Williamson/Duke reached the Elite 8, Durant/Texas lost in the second round.

16. Flagg, who missed the last two games with an ankle injury, is projected to be the No. 1 overall pick in June’s NBA draft. According to Basketball-Reference.com, he’ll be the third player from Maine to play in the NBA. Current Miami Heat swingman Duncan Robinson and Jeff Turner (1984-96) are the others.

16a. Dominating the college basketball news this week will be whether Flagg is able to play when Duke opens Friday against the winner of American-Mount St. Mary’s. As of now, all signs point to yes.

17. Duke center Khaman Maluach started playing basketball in 2019 but developed enough to be a deep reserve on South Sudan’s Olympic team in Paris. (It was eliminated in the qualifying round.) He’s listed at 7-2, has a 7-5 wingspan and a 9-8 standing reach. Yep, 9-foot, 8 inches. He’s a projected top-five pick, too.

18. Bryant, a small school in Smithfield, R.I., with an undergrad enrollment of 3,240, is back in the tournament for the second time in four years. In 2022, it was a No. 16 seed. This year, the Bulldogs are a No. 15 seed and get Michigan State in the first round.

18a. Tom Izzo is a No. 2 seed for the fourth time. Twice, Michigan State advanced to the Final Four. The other time, in 2016, the Spartans lost to No. 15 seed Middle Tennessee.

19. Bryant is coached by Phil Martelli Jr., a St. Joseph’s alum and son of the former Hawks coach. Six of Martelli’s top seven players are transfers, including America East MVP Earl Timberlake.

20. Timberlake, who played at DeMatha High and was a five-star recruit, started his college career at Miami, then played two years at Memphis. By the time he got to Bryant, his passion for the game started evaporating. He’s gotten new life, however, telling the Providence Journal earlier this season: “I credit [the coaching staff] for helping me get that love back for the game.”

21. According to Bryant’s sports information department, Timberlake is just the second Division I player in at least the last 38 years to average 15.0 points, 8.0 rebounds, 4.5 assists, and 1.5 blocks in a season. And he’s the team’s point guard! The other player with those numbers was Penn’s A.J. Brodeur during the 2019-20 season. Brodeur, by the way, still lives in Philadelphia and is a financial planning and analysis expert for national retail chain Five Below.

22. Mississippi coach Chris Beard, who took Texas Tech to the Final Four in 2019, is back in the NCAAs with his fourth team (Arkansas-Little Rock, Texas were the others).

23. Mikeal Brown-Jones, who’s from North Philly and spent part of his high school career at Girard College, plays about 10 minutes per game for the Rebels. He’s had previous stops at VCU and UNC-Greensboro and has played in 141 career games. This is his first trip to the NCAA Tournament.

24. Four teams for Beard is nice but Rick Pitino has now taken six different programs to the NCAA Tournament after guiding St. John’s to its first Big East title in 25 years. Boston U., Providence, Kentucky, Louisville, and Iona are the others.

25. St. John’s four losses have been by seven points. The Red Storm have won nine in a row, last losing on Feb. 12 at Villanova. The Johnnies, however, haven’t gotten past the tournament’s first weekend since the Ron Artest/Metta World Peace team reached the Elite Eight in 1999.

26. Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner, a 7-1 center, is the second player named as Big East Defensive Player of the Year four times. Patrick Ewing is the other. He also averages 19.5 points and scored 49 in a game in November.

27. American University, which was once coached by current NBC Sports Philadelphia analyst Jim Lynam (1973-78), is back in the tournament for the first time since 2014. Sophomore Mark Mayock, a Berwyn native who played at Westtown School, gets about 24 minutes off the bench. He had 16 points in a close loss to Virginia in December.

28. Florida is playing its best ball. Not only did the Gators win the SEC Tournament, they beat Tennessee in the final in front of a hostile crowd in Nashville on Sunday. It was a virtual road game. The Gators are the No. 1 seed in the West, their highest seed since 2014 when Billy Donovan took ‘em to their most recent Final Four. The Gators went 5-1 against fellow conference heavyweights Tennessee, Auburn and Alabama. Impressive.

29. Rugged Florida forward Alex Condon is from Perth and grew up playing Australian rules football. He’s also gotten teeth knocked out each of the last two seasons playing basketball for the Gators. He finally decided to wear a mouth guard after “my mom started crying.”

30. Robert Morris (26-8), coached by former Penn player Andrew Toole, tied the school record for wins. Justice Williams, who averaged 12.3 points last year after transferring in from LSU, has not played this season. The former Roman Catholic star had knee surgery last summer.

31. Southwest Philly native Quadir Copeland helped McNeese State get back to the NCAA Tournament with 18 points in the Southland championship win over Lamar. Copeland played at Syracuse for two seasons, but the Orange did not reach the NCAAs. Teammate Jerome Brewer (Camden H.S.), who had an ankle injury in the preseason, has not played this year.

32. St. Francis of Pennsylvania (16-17) is the 28th team to make it to the tournament with a losing record. The Red Flash won three games in the Northeast Conference tournament to earn the automatic bid. They will play Alabama State on Tuesday in the play-in game in Dayton, which coincidentally is where their season began on Nov. 4 with a 30-point loss to the Flyers.

33. ESPN analyst Jay Bilas thinks Texas Tech’s JT Toppin is one of the five best athletes in the country. Toppin, who considered entering the NBA last year, is the younger brother of 2020 National Player of the Year Obi Toppin. JT dropped 41 on Arizona State in February, shooting 17-for-22.

34. The Red Raiders, the No. 3 seed in the West Regional, were unranked for most of the season. They didn’t crack the top 25 until late January. One of their losses was to St. Joseph’s in November when Erik Reynolds II had 26 for the Hawks. Toppin had 22 points and 18 rebounds that night (12 offensive boards).

34a. Texas Tech’s plans to have a public viewing party for Sunday’s Selection Show had to be scrubbed because of underground fires around campus, including exploding manhole covers.

35. Lipscomb is coached by Lennie Acuff, who kicked around at the NAIA and Division II levels for 29 years before getting his shot at the D-I level in 2019 at age 54. The Bisons drew Iowa State, which will not have second-leading scorer Keshon Gilbert, who struggled recently with a groin injury.

36. Archbishop Carroll product A.J. Hoggard helped get Vanderbilt back to the tournament for the first time since 2017. Hoggard, the team’s point guard, played in eight NCAA tourney games when he was at Michigan State. He’ll be looking to erase the memory of his last one, however, when he shot 1-for-10 and had three turnovers in a loss to North Carolina in the second round last season.

37. Nice turnaround for Vandy, which went 9-23 last year in Jerry Stackhouse’s final season. It hired Mark Byington after he helped 12th-seeded James Madison upset Wisconsin in the first round last year. Stackhouse, a first-round pick by the 76ers in 1995, is now an assistant coach for the Golden State Warriors.

38. Marquette senior Kam Jones, one of the better point guards in the nation, has dedicated this season to Terry Tippett, his high school coach who died in November. Jones averaged 18.5 points, 4.5 boards, and 6.1 assists in the regular season and posted a triple-double against Purdue (17-13-10). It was the first such game for a Marquette player since Dwyane Wade in 2003.

39. Rooting for Kansas guard Zeke Mayo to have a solid tournament. He was the target of some ugly messages on social media following the Jayhawks’ loss to Texas Tech on March 1 when he shot just 1-for-7. A week later, Mayo, who is from Lawrence, Kan., dropped 20 on Arizona in the Jayhawks’ final home game.

40. Kansas was ranked No. 1 for the first five weeks of the season, which was highlighted by a win over Duke. The Jayhawks have been without Elmarko Jackson after the former St. Augustine Prep/Academy of the New Church star tore the patellar tendon in his left knee during summer workouts.

41. Two players in the history of the Missouri Valley Conference have racked up 600+ points, 180+ assists and 70+ steals in a single season: Indiana State’s Larry Bird in 1978-79 and Drake’s Bennett Stirtz this season.

42. Stirtz is one of four players who transferred to Drake from Division II Northwest Missouri State along with coach Ben McCollum. Stirtz (39:20) and Mitch Mascati (38:29) are first and second in the nation in minutes played per game.

43. “I don’t know if I’ve had a more rewarding season because of what we went through. And I’ve had some, but this ranks right up there.”

44. That was Arkansas coach John Calipari describing a season when his club started 0-5 in league play and lost its top two scorers (Adou Thiero and Boogie Fland) to injury. DJ Wagner, the former Camden High star who followed Calipari from Kentucky to Arkansas, is the key to the Razorbacks. If he’s playing his best, Arkansas will be a tough out.

45. Calipari has been using a seven-man rotation, which includes Billy Richmond, who also played at Camden High. Richmond comes off the bench and plays about 16 minutes a game. “He was never a point guard,” Calipari said of Richmond. “But [when] you’re down to seven, who else?” The Razorbacks are on track, however, to get back Fland, who has missed the last two months with a knee injury.

46. Kareem Watkins, a half-brother of Wagner’s, is not part of the Razorbacks’ rotation, but he does work on the scout team in practice. He earned his degree in finance from Kentucky last spring and is working toward a master’s degree.

47. Two-time defending champion Connecticut is the No. 8 seed in the West, its highest seed in the Danny Hurley era. Senior guard Hassan Diarra (167 career games) has fought through a knee injury in the second half of the season. Ahmad Nowell (Imhotep) has been backing up Diarra for a few minutes per game.

48. Guard Robert Wright, who played at Neumann-Goretti before teaming up with Cooper Flagg at Monteverde Academy prep school, has had a solid freshman season at Baylor. He averages about 30 minutes per game and had a season-high 24 points in a key win against Kansas in February.

49. Montana sophomore guard Money Williams has a catchy name, and a compelling story. Both of Williams’ parents died within the last two years, leaving him and his four siblings orphaned. He has kept the family, which lives in Oakland, together and been able to stay in college with the help of a GoFundMe drive. Fans of the University of Tennessee donated $50,000 when Montana played there in November. The Grizzlies lost big, Williams had 30, but does that really matter?

50. “I’m so proud to have coached him and for him to still be doing what he’s doing,” Williams’ high school coach, Orlando Watkins, told the East Bay Times. “For him to be doing that after all he’s lost over the last year, it’s a testament to who he is as a person and what his parents instilled in him.”