NCAA Tournament 2017: 5 dark horses that could go far

Princeton Tigers

The Tigers fall neatly into the archetype for a ‘thunderbolt’ as identified in the dark horse archetype article, a team that comes from nowhere to rush to the Sweet 16. While Ivy League teams aren’t exactly coming from nowhere — an Ivy League squad has won at least one tournament game in four of the last 10 tournaments — it’s more about objective expectations.

Without considering conference or talent, Princeton’s resume isn’t overwhelming. They scored a single victory over a team in KenPom’s top 80 and lost most of the big games in their admittedly strong non-conference schedule. They’re currently slotted as the 59th best team in adjusted efficiency and don’t have any standout, player of the year-type candidates.

But the indicators for upset-worthiness are strong, here. Princeton takes nearly 42 percent of its shots from 3-point range and has made 38.1 percent of them, a top 50 rate in the country. They’re also excellent at generating steals, coming up with them on 10.5 percent of all defensive possessions. And while they generally punt on offensive rebounds, pulling in just 24.2 percent of their misses, they clean up the boards on the defensive end, allowing just 24.8 percent of opponent misses to be rebounded by the other team.

Plus, their first round opponent is Notre Dame, a team that rarely even tries to hit the offensive boards. While Notre Dame is an excellent offensive squad, they’re a bit weak on defense, ranking just 58th in the country in adjusted efficiency. Princeton has actually been better than them on that end so far this year. In a slow-paced, offense-centric, 3-point shootout, Princeton has more than a puncher’s chance.

And should the Tigers and their Giant Killer profile make it to the next round, they could go up against a West Virginia squad that lost in the first round of last year’s tournament despite a similar efficiency profile. The tools are there for the Tigers, they just have to take the opportunity.