Gonzo on NCAAs: The Makings of a Cinderella

After the brackets get announced tonight, the madness begins. The entire nation will be trying to figure out who will win and who will lose, who will survive and advance, and most of all, who will wear the Cinderella glass slipper.

And then, will that Cinderella wear the glass slipper for just a few bright shining moments, or like modern-day giant-killers Butler, VCU, George Mason and Wichita State, can a team from a smaller non-BCS conference catch lightning in a bottle and ride a magical wave of adrenalin, emotion, momentum and confidence all the way to the sacred holy grail — the Final Four.

As a former up-and-coming fearless and ambitious coach with big dreams, there is a formula I believe lists constants that many, if not all, of these teams have had in common in the past — some necessary traits to look for in picking upset teams in your brackets.

First and foremost, like my Luis Flores at Manhattan, or Speedy Claxton at Hofstra for Jay Wright, Stephen Curry at Davidson for Bob McKillop,  underrated and underrecruited star players actually lift their respective teams up and can become household names by outperforming the big boys.

If you chronicle every special run many of these teams have gone on, they almost always have a Player of the Year from their conference, a go-to type guy that sets their team apart.

Next, study the roster and you will notice another common theme is experience. Often, there are seniors who have forged an iron tough identity. The demeanor of guys who have been together and play great together produce that elusive thing — chemistry– to go along with senior leadership. The team that surprises everyone this March will not have the one-and-done lottery type picks that populate the rosters of Kentucky and Kansas and their ilk.

But the chemistry they have developed over time is precious. There is no substitute for experience, and come tourney time seniors usually play with great urgency, desperation and focus.

The next necessary component is the kind of confidence, swagger, mental toughness and belief that only comes from not just winning games but competing for and winning conference championships, plus getting their fill of neutral site holiday tournaments. Those teams have played  in every type of hostile environment, so drawing the big names on a neutral site where they might be considered the underdogs does not scare them.

They have the belief they can and will play with anyone, anywhere, at anytime, and their window of opportunity is much smaller so they must take advantage of this and kick the window in.

For instance, my Manhattan College team that knocked off Florida in 2004 won seven championships in three years — two conference tourneys, three regular season conference championships and two Holiday Festival titles at Madison Square Garden.

Many of these teams, like Butler before and Wichita State now, are on a two-year or three-year run where they, like Gonzaga before, have been consistently good over time.

Lastly, with everyone declaring how much parity there is in the college game today, how the talent level in the nation is watered down, or because of realignment in leagues, no one is really that much better than anyone else anymore.

There is very little black and white and a lot of gray, not so many elite blue blood teams anymore.

As always, the tourney is more about matchups than seedings, but always about the players. And one thing history in the tourney has taught us is that great players come in all sizes and shapes, from all kids of backgrounds.  There are always great players with big chip on their shoulders wanting to prove they can play and outperform other players who get more publicity.

Team pride also comes into play, with one-bid conferences looking to prove they belong (think VCU several years ago). Eventually, there will be a 16 beating a No. 1 seed, and don’t be surprised if a team with experience, chemistry and a chip on the shockers cut down the nets this year.

The teams that fit my profile are Mercer, which is playing Duke; Harvard, which is playing Cincinnati; Tulsa, which is playing UCLA; George Washington, which is playing Memphis; and Dayton, which will face Ohio State.