Every March, college basketball fans are treated to a series of exciting instant classic games in the NCAA tournament and this year should be no different.

68 teams are included in the March Madness Tournament including the play-in games. However, there are always a couple of teams that find themselves on the outside looking in.

This year, there are a few notable snubs from the Tournament field. The most peculiar one is the preseason Number 1 North Carolina Tar Heels. They are the first preseason number 1 team to be left out of the tournament field since the field expanded to 68 in 1985. They never seemed to put things back together after dropping 4 straight games after beginning the season 5-0.

When second-year Tar Heels coach Hubert Davis was asked if he had a pitch for the tournament committee to include them, he responded “At the end of the day, we had our chances.”

Another few other notable teams left out of the tournament are the Vanderbilt Commodores and the Clemson Tigers. Both teams had quality wins against very good teams but didn’t have a complete enough resume to be included.

One very interesting thing about the NCAA tournament from year to year is that there will be matchups we would otherwise never see. Each different conference has a slight difference in style of play and it makes for fun and interesting match ups.

One such matchup is Duke against Oral Roberts. The Blue Devils are led by Freshman big man Kyle Filipowski who averages 15.4 points per game and 9 rebounds. Duke is on a 9 game win streak and will be hard to take down.

With that being said, the Blue Devils are beatable. At one point in the season they had lost 4 of 8 and were having offensive struggles.

The Oral Roberts Golden Eagles are another tough team to stop, They are 30-4 and led by Senior Guard Max Abmas. Abmas had quite the NCAA tournament in 2021 and helped lead the Golden Eagles to a Sweet Sixteen run.

This is going to be a great game as both teams have bonafide stars and solid support pieces that will aid each of them in their efforts to win.

Another game to watch is Miami against Drake. They have two drastically different styles of play which will make for an interesting game.

The Drake Bulldogs are a team from the Missouri Valley Conference and have a slow style of play as well as a balanced attack. Their main scorer is Sophomore Tucker DeVries. He is a 6’7” wing who is capable of shooting the ball at a very high level.

If Drake is able to slow the game down, they should be able to stop Miami from getting into their transition offense and beating them.

The Miami Hurricanes play at a blistering pace and are always looking to get up and down the court. Led by a quartet of guard and wing scorers, they play at a fast pace which benefits and compliments the strengths of their stars.

With that being said, the Hurricanes lack paint presence due to their 4 guard starting lineup. As a result, they will need to get into transition. If Miami can outrun the Bulldogs, they will cruise to the next round.

As with any sporting event in 2023, betting will be heavily involved with March Madness. People will also be creating their perfect bracket in the hopes of predicting the correct National Champion. The Houston Cougars are the odds on favorite to win this year’s tournament followed by Alabama and Connecticut.