March Madness Predictions: Will Marshall Cover vs. West Virginia? 3/18/18

The Thundering Herd also got big shots down the stretch from Ajdin Penava and C.J. Burks and will play the Murray State-West Virginia victor in the next round.

They ended up coming thousands of miles to meet in San Diego, and while Marshall got to the second round by winning a nail-biter against Wichita State, West Virginia overcame early shooting struggles to outmuscle Murray State. The Mountaineers have won nine out of the last ten games. WVU sophomores Chase Harler (Moundsville, West Virginia) and Logan Routt (Cameron, West Virginia) regularly play for the Mountaineers.

Conner Frankamp, Wichita State’s own sharpshooter, did his best to keep the No. 4 seed in the game. He is shooting 35.7% from behind the arc on the year, but in his last three outings, he has shot 51.6%. He favors the shots that typically yield the most points, as he explained in this instant classic about advanced analytics when asked if his team didn’t work the ball into the paint enough during a game.

How can the Shockers win?

The Thundering Herd had not been to the NCAA tournament since 1987.

Scouting WVU: Along with 17.1 points, Carter’s 6.7 assists rank 12th in the country and his 2.9 steals are second. He has been strong late in the season, getting four of his six double figured scoring performances in the month of March. “So we can get the ball moving it will give our 3-point shooters angles to get ’em off”. Elmore was the only game’s player to compete for the full 40 minutes. He leads West Virginia with 17.1 points and 6.7 assists, while committing only 2.7 turnovers per game. Murray State tried more than twice as many 3-pointers (23 to 11), but only made three more.

But, Marshall was leading by 5 points at the time and did have momentum. Williams accomplished double-digit scoring in four of his last five games, combining for 63 total points.

If it wants to advance to the Sweet 16 for the 11 time in program history, keying in on Elmore like it did with Stark would go a long way to achieving that. When he does so, Penava has to play softer defensively. The Thundering Herd were a good, not great Conference USA team this season, placing fourth in the regular season standings.

Everything shaped up the way the state of West Virginia wanted to. “You play one time at their place, one time at our place and one time at a neutral place, whatever”.

“I never advanced past the first weekend in my entire college career, which is something I definitely was not really expecting”, Frankamp said, seeming nearly stunned saying it aloud for the first time.

The list of teams that have reached the Sweet 16 as a No. 13 seed is short: Bradley, La Salle, Ohio, Oklahoma, Richmond and Valparaiso.