Deadspin: Teams That Can Pull Off Some Upsets

[T-Bone]

http://deadspin.com/the-ncaa-tournament-teams-that-can-actually-pull-off-so-1793196298

Marquette

This is a damn good year for Coach K acolytes. Chris Collins helped Northwestern make history, Mike Brey has Notre Dame humming as usual, Johnny Dawkins revived a dead UCF program and got them over the 20-win mark in his first year, and now Steve Wojciechowski (revealing my evil roots, I spelled that on the first try) has his Golden Eagles dancing for the first time in four years.

The Golden Eagles are similar to UNC-W in that they want to run with you, but this team just also happens to be a model of efficiency. Marquette scored 82.5 points per game by way of shooting the fucking lights out—this team hits 43.0 percent of its threes, the best mark in the nation. A telling stat via SportsReference: They rank 15th in overall field goal percentage, 75th in field goals made, but 219th in field goal attempts.

They achieved this thanks to solid play from veteran players like Katin Reinhardt, JaJuan Johnson, and Andrew Rowsey. That trio combines with a pair of freshman in Sam Hauser and Markus Howard to shoot teams out of the arena—all of them hit at least one three per game. Center Luke Fischer, who cleans up on the boards and is good for a block or two a game. Howard, all 5-foot-11 of him, is the star-to-be of the group.

The freshman from Chandler, Az., scored at least 15 in five of his last six games, including a season-high 34-point explosion in win against fellow tourney team Xavier. He slayed the Musketeers the same way the Golden Eagles took down Crieghton—by draining a ton of threes. Howard shoots 54.9 percent from behind the three-point line, tops by nearly 10 percent on a team with five players that take at least 2.5 treys per game.

Marquette was on-and-off in Big East play this year, never winning or losing more than two in a row—that's a blaring alarm considering this is a tournament where winning consecutive games kind of matters. The Golden Eagles have losses to Georgetown and St. John's, and were blown out by Michigan. I know, I know, but stay with me here, because Marquette's upside is nuts—Wojo's team scored wins against No. 1 seed Villanova, Creighton twice, and Xavier twice. Those are legitimate tournament victories