March Madness Upsets: Sweet 16 Edition

03/24/2025

The first two rounds have come and gone, and now the Sweet 16 is here. There are 8 games this upcoming weekend, and it's our job to predict some upsets for you. In rounds one and two, we were so close to predicting Robert Morris over Alabama and Gonzaga over Houston and we are determined to pick these upsets correctly, even if the bracket has been mostly chalk so far.

#6 BYU vs #2 Alabama (-5.5)

BYU may be the hottest team in the country right now, and they have shown that in March with very convincing wins over #11 VCU and #3 Wisconsin. Alabama, on the other hand, took a #15 Robert Morris to the wire, but then backed it up with a 14 point win over St. Mary's. The truth is, BYU's three point shooting in this tournament so far will be too much for this Alabama team, and BYU will advance to the Elite 8.

#4 Maryland vs #1 Florida (-6.5)

Even though we just said that BYU is the hottest team in the nation, we were wrong. Maryland is easily the hottest team in the country right now. They are 16-4 in their last twenty games, and all four losses have come from buzzer beaters. Both teams just went through a dogfight with Maryland's buzzer beater win over Colorado State, and Florida just beating out UConn in the round of 32. Even though they are young and inexperienced, don't count out this Maryland team in March.

#5 Michigan vs #1 Auburn (-8.5)

This is the third and final upset of the Sweet 16, and even though it may look like we hate the SEC, by looking at the metrics anyone could realise that these are really good matchups for these lower seeded teams. Anyways, Michigan has a really good chance of winning versus the number one overall seed in the tournament, because of one huge matchup: Auburn's Johni Broome against either Danny Wolf or Vladislav Goldin of Michigan. Both of these players match up really well in the post against Broome, and he just played really poorly against Creighton's seven footer Ryan Kalkbrenner.