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No. 2 Marquette vs. No. 15 Vermont

There aren’t many who are bold enough to pick a No. 15 seed over a No. 2 seed in their brackets, but over the past several years, the upset has become a more frequent occurrence, evidenced by Oral Roberts’ run in 2021 and Saint Peter’s run to the Elite Eight last year after beating No. 2 seed Kentucky. Whether Vermont can recreate that magic remains to be seen, but the Catamounts will be making their fourth NCAA Tournament appearance since 2017 under head coach John Becker, and gave Arkansas all it could handle in a 75-71 opening-round loss last year. This season, the America East Conference champions come into the tournament on a 15-game winning streak led by senior guard Finn Sullivan who was the conference player of the year. Senior Dylan Penn joins Sullivan in the backcourt as Vermont’s leading scorer.

While Vermont has plenty of momentum going into Friday’s matchup, it might not compare to that of Marquette. Picked to finish ninth in the Big East before the season, the Golden Eagles have had a chip on their shoulder all year, as Shaka Smart’s guys rolled to a 28-6 record while winning Big East regular season and tournament titles. The resume for Marquette is impressive, as they only lost one game to a non-tournament team in Wisconsin, which was also its only home loss of the year. Meanwhile, they stacked up regular-season victories against Baylor, Creighton, UConn, and Xavier, beating the latter two again in the conference tournament. Led by Big East Player of the Year Tyler Kolek, leading scorer Kam Jones, and a couple of talented forwards in Oso Ighodaro and Olivier-Maxence Prosper, Marquette has the looks of a potential Final Four team.

We're not done yet! |

— Marquette Basketball (@MarquetteMBB)