It is sometime easy to forget that analyst Josh Pastner is only 46 years old. Paster has been in the public eye since his playing days with the Arizona Wildcats where he won a National Championship. He followed that up with successful coaching stints at Memphis and Georgia Tech. He is now a regular fixture as an analyst on some of the nation’s biggest networks.
In a recent interview with sports media outlet Awful Announcing, Paster shared some tips for the upcoming NCAA March Madness Tournament.
There are a lot of talented schools as we prepare to finalize this year’s 68-team field. Defending champions the University of Connecticut will be in search of the school’s sixth national title. Houston, Purdue and Arizona are some of the other early favorites.
Asked about UConn’s chances to repeat, Pastner was full of praise for Dan Hurley’s team.
“They have as good of a shot as repeating as anybody has had maybe in the last decade,” said Pastner
March Madness, however, is littered with upset and team’s rarely repeat. The last school to achieve the feat was Florida in 2006 and 2007. Prior to that, Duke won back to back championships under Mike Krzyzewski in 1991 and 1992.
“Iowa State and Illinois could be sleeper teams,” added Pastner. “Those two teams could make deep runs to Glendale, Arizona.”
Asked to name a few of the standout players (aside from Zach Edey) the former coach named UNC’s R.J. Davis, Connecticut’s Tristen Newton and Marquette’s Tyler Kolek.
Pastner also gave some love to the Ivy League schools rating both Princeton and Yale highly after strong years.
The NCAA tournament is set to begin on March 19th with round of 64 starting on March 21.
