The defending National Champion Kansas Jayhawks got no gifts from the Selection Committee ahead of the 2023 NCAA Tournament.
The Jayhawks are a No. 1 seed once again, but the team has worthy competitors in the West Region bracket, including UCLA, Gonzaga, UConn and analytic darling St. Mary’s.
Kansas is still the team to beat, the Big 12 regular season champions and runner up in the conference tournament, but there are plenty of teams that can give Jalen Wilson and the Jayhawks a run to the Final Four.
First, here are the odds for each team to win the West Region.
2023 West Region odds
West Region bracket
Here’s the full West Region bracket for the 2023 NCAA Tournament:
West Region tournament schedule (Dates, time, channel)
West Region prediction and pick
This region is absolutely loaded, and it’s going to be tough to navigate for Kansas, who has one of the shortest rotations in the entire country and one of its key cogs, Kevin McCullar, is nursing a leg injury. The transfer forward missed the Big 12 title game against Texas and it’s definitely something to monitor moving forward with a quick turnaround after the Round of 64 against the winner of Arkansas and Illinois.
Further, UCLA has injury concerns of its own with its best defender Jaylen Clark set to miss the NCAA Tournament with a leg injury. In the PAC-12 Championship game on Saturday, Adem Bona also left the game with a shoulder injury, the team’s stud big man.
With worthy contenders down the board, I think it’s worthwhile to take shots down the board with worthy contenders in the mix.
The one team that jumps off the board is UConn, led by big man Adama Sanogo and future NBA wing Jordan Hawkins. While head coach Danny Hurley hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game with the Huskies in two tries, this is his best team and they have performed like a top-10 team all season long.
The other team to keep an eye on is TCU as the No. 6 seed. The team is outside the top 300 in 3-point percentage, but is a veteran group that nearly upset No. 1 seed Arizona in the 2022 NCAA Tournament and will hope big man Eddie Lampkin will return from injury to play in the Big Dance.
With dark horses everywhere, I do believe Kansas will navigate this side of the bracket and return to the Final Four for the second straight year, but it’s far from a cakewalk.
PICK: Kansas
Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
