NCAA Tournament Preview: Centre College @ North Central College

Monday morning saw the reveal of the 62 team men's Division III basketball tournament. While I still don't know why they won't add two more at-large bids just to make it even, the field nonetheless remains a very good one. As a testament to the strength of the CCIW again this year, 2 other teams made it along with North Central in Illinois Wesleyan and Wheaton, neither of which surprises me. To paraphrase Wheaton coach Mike Schauer, if you can get through the CCIW at 13-1 you deserve to be in the tournament, and Wheaton is always a tough out.

One of the things I like about the tournament besides everyone theoretically having a shot at a national title is that at least at the D-III level, the NCAA cares about travel costs and as such, wants to keep travel for games to within 500 miles so they don't have to worry about flight costs. As such the brackets are set up more regionally than at the highest level. So in the grand scheme of things, my initial feeling of being "shafted" by the NCAA make a little more sense now. But let's take a look specifically at the 3 rounds NCC would have to survive on the road to Salem.

Even the folks at D3Hoops called this the "Bracket of Death". Wisconsin-Whitewater is the defending national champion and they loom in Round 2 should the Cardinals make it. Washington-St. Louis was a second round foe of North Central in last year's tournament, and Illinois Wesleyan is still there, staring us in the face. And if any of the road teams can pull upsets, you know they have to be talented. But tournaments aren't won on paper, and you actually have to play the games. As such, here's what we're looking at on Saturday.

Centre College at North Central College
Gregory Arena- Sat. March 2, 2013- 7pm

About Centre College
From Danville, KY
21-5, SAA Champions

At a glance, I think the only tournament team Centre faced was Transylvania, but they did win that contest, so that legitimizes the Praying Colonels to an extent, plus 21-5 is 21-5. Looking at numbers, this team reminds me a lot of North Central in terms of the depth and balance, except North Central has a lot more experience.

Looking at the roster, the guy who scares me most is Josh Karsner, a sophomore forward who's only 6'4" but has a good inside-out game and shoots a team-leading 45% from outside. Their freshman center Blake Scinta leads the team in scoring at 6'8" but can also shoot a little bit from outside (32%). Their backcourt holds most of their experience though, with Bryon Ellis and Donovan Whiteside proving to be additional scoring threats. This team also plays good defense, allowing under 58 points a game (slightly better than North Central) and is also significantly better at closing out games at the free throw line (74% on the year, with 3 major players over 80%).

This is going to be a physical game, but I like North Central here. They know how to play this style and have ground out multiple wins against physical CCIW foes. They've been to the Dance before and know what it takes to win. But what gives North Central the edge is the way the seniors stepped up down in Bloomington, as well as the resurgence of Jack Burchett off the bench for the Cardinals. He played huge roles in the wins over Wheaton and Augustana this past weekend, and with the depth North Central has, I think they'll just be a little too much for the Colonels. Underrated part of this as well: Merner has a tendency to get really loud for games like this. It's going to be awesome.