Five NCAA Tournament Sleepers

USC

The Trojans' chances in the tournament boil down to one thing:  can O.J. Mayo put on his Dwyane Wade mask can carry them to the final four?  Yes, they play great team defense.  Yes, Taj Gibson is a player who should not be overlooked.  But in Tim Floyd's ball control, dribble-around-until-you-find-an-opening-or-until-you're-forced-to-take-a-28-foot-fade-away-as-the-shot-clock-expires offense, the success of O.J. Mayo in generating scoring opportunities for himself and for others will be the key in determining how far this team advances.  I'm not going to make a Miracle Whip joke, but the fact that you now know that I was thinking about it is probably embarrassing enough.

Davidson 

This is a team that has lost six games all season, and three of them were to Duke, North Carolina and UCLA by a combined 22 points.  So how are they only a 10 seed?  Well, they play in the Southern Conference amidst such perennial powerhouses as Elon and Wofford -- schools which might have been made up just so they could be beaten by Davidson -- so it's fair to say that their season-ending 19 game winning streak meant approximately nothing to the selection committee.   Davidson will be leaning on prolific scorer Stephen Curry for the bulk of their offense, a strategy that generally doesn't work too well against better-defending bigger schools, but tell that to UCLA, Duke and UNC, as that didn't keep Curry from putting giving three top 10 teams a serious case of The Fear.

Kentucky

The Wildcats have made more NCAA tournament appearances than any other school, so it's no surprise to find them in the tournament this year.  It is surprising, though, looking purely at the program's history, that they're considered a sleeper this year.  In fact, without a hot finish to their season, they'd probably be lucky to find themselves in the NIT, the boring trivia-obsessed grandfather of the NCAA.  While Kentucky is playing well, though, the major reason I consider them a sleeper is the matchups they've drawn.  Marquette has been wildly up and down all season, and their coach, Tom Crean, can't seem to recruit a single viable interior option.  Stanford is obviously a good team, but they're heavily reliant on the scoring of Brook Lopez, a highly skilled post player who can't seem to remember that he shouldn't constantly take bad shots away from the basket.  And Texas, though extremely talented and led by possibly the best point guard in the country in D.J. Augustin, relies on athleticism that Kentucky can match.

St. Joseph's

Apart from stout post defense, the Hawks pretty much have everything you could ask for from a number 11 seed, including a legitimate professional prospect in 6-10 senior wingman Pat Calathes, the brother of Florida's standout freshman point guard Nick Calathes.  Still, St. Joe's is sort of an unusual pick for a sleeper since they ended the season in a bit of a tailspin, going 3-6 in their last nine games.  One of those three wins, though was a win over 3rd seeded Xavier, while one of the losses was a 4 point loss to that same team.  Calathes' unselfish all-around play certainly leads the team, but don't count out explosive junior forward Ahmad Nivins, who is built like a tank made out of recycled brick houses.

Drake 

When you think "Basketball Dominance," there are only three words that come to mind:  Missouri Valley Conference.  Alright, maybe not, but if you've seen Drake play this season, you know this little Iowa school has the right kind of team for a deep tournament run.  They play a smart, motion offense focused on finding good shots for an extremely deep pool of talented shooters -- they have four players who've made over 40 threes this season, and two of those guys, led by sophomore guard Josh Young.  The team is led by senior point guard and former walk on Adam Emmenecker, who -- and I mean no disrespect by this, Mr. Emmenecker -- is kind of like the Steve Blake of the Missouri Valley conference*.  He is the disciplined floor general who gets the ball where it needs to be.  As a five seed, Drake will actually be favored to win its first game before a likely matchup with UConn tests the Huskies perimeter defense.  And then it would be on to UCLA, the prospective tournament favorite.  You can never count out a team that shoots as well as Drake does, though. 

* By emphasizing how little disrespect I meant to Adam Emmenecker by comparing him to Steve Blake, I mean no disrespect to Steve Blake.