2025 March Madness Elite 8 predictions: Michigan State vs. Auburn, Tennessee vs. Houston
Man, it’s gonna be weird when Villanova’s Kevin Willard and RJ Luis Jr.come to the Garden next year. It doesn’t matter how many times the Spartans may underwhelm, how poorly they may shoot, how many possessions are a grind without a star to lead the way.
It doesn’t matter if they are undersized or overmatched.It is bad business to underestimate Tom Izzo’s teams. The Spartans started the season unranked and entered March as Big Ten champions.
They have gone 8-2 against the spread against ranked opponents and 5-1-1 as underdogs.Their coach is 7-2 all time in the Elite Eight, winning four of five matchups as the lower-seeded team.
Izzo’s most recent trip to the Final Four (eighth overall) came after his relatively unheralded roster upset Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett and Duke. Auburn has better talent but has also spent the past month struggling to recapture the form that made the team the top-overall seed.The second-half surges that allowed Bruce Pearl’s teams to advance past Michigan and Creighton will be harder to achieve against Michigan State’s top five defense and top three rebounding unit.
The Tigers’ past three games against top 10 defenses all ended in defeat. The greatest edge in this game is being offered points in a coin-flip contest.Houston allows fewer points than any team in the nation.
Tennessee holds opponents to the lowest field goal percentage.Houston plays at the fifth-slowest pace in the country.
Tennessee’s tempo is quicker than just 15 of the nation’s 363 other teams. The biggest difference may be the Vols’ momentum, having coasted to back-to-back wins against UCLA’s top 15 defense and Kentucky’s top 10 offense, while the Cougars were pushed to the brink of elimination in back-to-back rounds. Houston tops the nation in 3-point shooting but ranks 268th in attempts, and will not force bad looks against the third-ranked perimeter defense in the nation.However, the Cougars face greater issues inside the arc, wit...