The men's NCAA tournament is all about matchups. Sometimes, you find the right one; other times, the wrong one finds you.

That's why the college basketball teams most likely to win it all aren't necessarily the ones with the greatest strengths, but rather the ones with the fewest and least troubling weaknesses.

Here, we're taking an early look at eight bubble-ish teams capable of exploiting a title contender's weaknesses and ruining brackets across the nation.

From turnover-forcing defenses to three-point assaults, unstoppable offenses, star players and everything in between, there are a wide variety of teams that could cause problems if they make the Dance.

All teams on this list are projected for no better than a No. 7 seed in the most recent Bracket Matrix update. That means it would be take at least one sizable upset for them to make it to the Sweet 16.

With the right draw, though, they might be able to go even further than that.

Teams are presented in alphabetical order.

Florida Atlantic Owls

Florida Atlantic has almost the exact same roster that busted everyone's bracket by making it to the Final Four one year ago, so, yes, the Owls are built to do it again.

What's interesting for this year, though, is they might bust brackets in the opposite direction by immediately losing when a bunch of people will pick them to reach the Sweet 16, as they have been so painfully hit or miss all season long.

At their best, they beat Arizona on a neutral court in one of the most entertaining games of the entire season. The Owls also scored at will in consecutive victories over Butler, Texas A&M and Virginia Tech in winning the ESPN Events Invitational. And though they lost the game, they dropped 89 points on Illinois in a high-caliber, neutral-site affair.

At their worst, they lost at home to Bryant, suffered a road loss to Florida Gulf Coast and have repeatedly not looked good away from home in AAC play, going 4-4 with only one win that wasn't decided either in overtime or at the buzzer.

It's the lack of defense that makes them hard to trust. Quality lead guards have rather consistently been able to have a field day against the Owls, who can't seem to stay in front of anyone along the perimeter.

At the same time, they're averaging well over 80 points per game and have proved they can go punch-for-punch in a high-scoring affair against even some of the best the nation has to offer.

Provided FAU does ultimately get back into the Dance, this is probably the biggest wild card of them all.

Gonzaga Bulldogs

Whether Gonzaga will even make the NCAA tournament is still entirely up in the air.

The Bulldogs have just one win over the top 1.5 Quadrants, but that lone win at Kentucky was a huge one. They have Q1 road games remaining against San Francisco and Saint Mary's, though, and will likely face both of them again in the WCC tournament, meaning the opportunities are there.

However, if the Zags do continue their quarter century-long streak of NCAA tournament appearances, they would be an uncommonly dangerous No. 10/11 seed.

As far as the predictive metrics are concerned, Gonzaga is a top 25 team, basically no different from the likes of Kentucky and Wisconsin who are looking good for No. 5 seeds.

Per usual under Mark Few, they have one of the best two-point offenses in the nation, they don't commit many turnovers and they're considerably better than most on the glass.

They gave Purdue a good battle in the Maui Invitational despite shooting 6-for-32 from three-point range. And considering they only made two triples in the game against UConn, it's kind of a miracle they only lost that one by 13.

Graham Ike—a transfer from Wyoming who missed all of 2022-23 due to injury—has been a more consistent force in the paint than he was early in the year. And Anton Watson has been solid all season.

The big X-factor, though, is Nolan Hickman. When Gonzaga's primary three-point weapon posts an O-rating of 80 or better, the Zags are 22-1. When he doesn't? They're 0-5.

If Hickman gets into a groove, maybe the slipper still fits.

Indiana State Sycamores

Defense wins championships, but upper-echelon shot-making can fuel a Cinderella story for the ages.

And if you're looking for a team that can simply shoot its way to a few dubs in March, look no further than the Indiana State Sycamores.

All five starters average at least 10 points per game, shoot at least 56 percent from inside the arc and shoot at least 32 percent beyond it. And we're not talking about a "Zach Edey is 1-for-2 which is 50 percent" situation. All five starters (and sixth man Xavier Bledson) average at least two three-point attempts per game and convert them at a high level.

As a result, Indiana State is leading the nation in effective field-goal percentage.

(Five of those six primary Sycamores also shoot at least 80 percent from the free-throw line, which isn't part of eFG%, but is pertinent information all the same.)

It's worth pointing out that having the best eFG% doesn't always amount to much. Colgate led the nation in that department last season, and the Raiders got trounced by 20 in the first round. Arizona was third in eFG% and scored 55 in a first-round loss to Princeton.

But we've also somewhat routinely seen the best shooting team make a run to the Sweet 16, if not further. Gonzaga rode that high-efficiency shooting to the title game in 2021, and it carried Villanova to a national championship in 2018.

Indiana State's lack of defensive prowess is more than a little concerning. In their five losses, the Sycamores allowed 86.4 points. They've also allowed at least 82 points in four of their victories. Kind of feels like they're going to need to win a 90-88 type of instant classic just to pull off a first-round upset.

But in Robbie Avila, Isaiah Swope and Co., they do have the bucket-getters to make it happen.

Michigan State Spartans

Aside from pointing out that Tom Izzo is still the head coach, do we even need to make the case for Michigan State as a team that could bust brackets?

In the past 20 NCAA tournaments, the Spartans have twice made the Final Four as a No. 5 seed, did so a third time as a No. 7 seed, made it to the second weekend two other times as a No. 7 seed and had one run to the Elite Eight as a No. 4 seed.

January, February, Izzo. It's just what they do.

Notably, though, they haven't been anything special when receiving a No. 8 seed or worse, going 2-5 overall from that starting point with those two wins coming in No. 9 over No. 8 first-round "upsets" in 2007 and 2017.

So, fear the reaper if they end up with a No. 7 seed, but fade the Spartans if they end up with a worse seed?

Regardless of where they land on Selection Sunday, as long as it's "in the field," they'll be scary.

Michigan State is comfortably top 20 on KenPom and has one hell of a three-headed backcourt in Tyson Walker, A.J. Hoggard and Jaden Akins.

The 5 spot has been a season-long issue for the Spartans, with Izzo having an even shorter leash than usual with Mady Sissoko in recent weeks. But as long as the three guards and Malik Hall show up, it almost doesn't matter what they get out of the combination of Sissoko, Carson Cooper, Jaxon Kohler and Xavier Booker.

Provided they don't get annihilated in the paint and on the glass, they can beat anyone.

Mississippi State Bulldogs

Since shocking the world in 1996 by making it to the Final Four as a No. 5 seed, Mississippi State has been much more bark than bite when it does get into the Dance.

The Bulldogs have made eight tournaments since then, earning a No. 2, No. 3, two No. 5s, a No. 8, a No. 9, a No. 11 and a No. 13 seed. Both No. 5 five seeds immediately lost to a No. 12 seed. Neither the No. 2 nor the No. 3 made it to the Sweet 16. And overall, they've gone 4-8 in the tournament over the past 27 years.

But this year's team?

It might be different.

Save for having no answer for Alabama's freight train of an offense in Tuscaloosa a few weeks ago, Mississippi State has had one of the best defenses in the nation, capable of stifling a good offense or completely suffocating an average one. Even in the bad losses to Southern and Georgia Tech, the defense certainly wasn't the problem.

Nor was defense the problem last year, when Mississippi State also ranked among the most efficient defenses en route to its immediate exit in the First Four.

But the difference from last year is Josh Hubbard.

The 2022-23 Bulldogs were a nightmare on offense, save for big man Tolu Smith, who could only create so much for himself in the post. But with this freshman shooting guard firing up almost 10 three-point attempts per game and really expanding the floor, it's a different story.

Smith is continuing to dominate down low, but now there's a perimeter game around him for an offense averaging 75 points over its last 13 games—a mark Mississippi State reached just four times in the entire 2022-23 season.

Notably, Smith was sidelined by injury for those aforementioned bad losses in which the Bulldogs couldn't even crack 60 points. Those games feel like a lifetime ago.

If Hubbard gets hot, this team absolutely has second-weekend potential.

New Mexico Lobos

Of the Mountain West's six legitimate candidates for at-large bids, New Mexico has the most tenuous grip on a spot in the field following its recent home loss to Air Force.

If the Lobos don't win at least one of their remaining road games against Boise State and Utah State, they might have to settle for trying to win the NIT.

But with the exception of San Diego State—who is looking good for a No. 4 seed and doesn't meet the criteria to be on this list—New Mexico is the Mountain West squad that feels most likely to make a run to the second weekend.

That's no knock on the likes of Colorado State or Nevada. This whole top six has been great, and if you're not watching any time they face each other, you've been missing out on phenomenal late-night hoops.

But New Mexico is the one with five dudes who can legitimately take over any game.

Jaelen House, Donovan Dent, Jamal Mashburn Jr., JT Toppin and Nelly Junior Joseph have each had at least one game this season in which they scored 26 points. House gets a lot of steals. Dent racks up assists in bunches. Toppin and Joseph relentlessly crash the glass and block some shots. And Mashburn's mid-range game is unguardable.

It's maddening that the Lobos aren't consistently better than they have been, but you don't score 88 and 99 in consecutive convincing wins over San Diego State and Utah State unless you have a sky-high ceiling. They could make a deep run, if they get in at all.

Villanova Wildcats

Do I trust Villanova to make a deep run? Absolutely not.

For a team that doesn't even shoot that well from three-point range (33.0 percent), the Wildcats are way too reliant on the deep ball (47.1 percent of field-goal attempts) and allow far too many triples on defense. It's why they've suffered 12 losses and haven't been able to string together more than two consecutive quality performances since late November.

But could Villanova get hot from distance and/or run into a couple of opponents who can't seem to hit water in the ocean while making a run to the second weekend? Absolutely.

That's the beauty/horror of a team that ranks top 20 in the nation in three-point rate on offense and bottom 20 in the nation in three-point rate on defense. All those three-point attempts on both ends of the floor just take an already pretty random game and add a few more dice to be rolled.

It's why Villanova was able to reel off four consecutive solid wins over Maryland, Texas Tech, North Carolina and Memphis, but bookended that good stretch with bad losses to Penn and Saint Joseph's.

And speaking of Saint Joseph's, the Hawks are in that same top-20/bottom-20 boat and damn near won at Kentucky three days after suffering a home loss to Texas A&M-Commerce.

Peak randomness potential.

Of course, it's still unclear whether we'll even need to worry about how far to pick Villanova. The Wildcats have three coin-flip games against Providence, Seton Hall and Creighton still to come, likely needing to win at least two of those in order to secure a spot in the field.

However, if that happens and it looks like they're peaking at the right time, it's going to make it that much more difficult to resist the temptation to pencil in a couple of upsets.

Wake Forest Demon Deacons

Much like Gonzaga, it hasn't been a question of whether Wake Forest is talented enough to win games in the NCAA tournament, but rather an issue of the Demon Deacons not having enough quality wins to secure a spot in the field.

Following the recent win over Duke, though, Wake Forest looks to be in good shape for a bid—even with the subsequent bad loss to Notre Dame—which will be unwelcome news for the to-be-determined No. 1 or No. 2 seed that might need to go through the Demon Deacons just to reach the Sweet 16.

Simply put, Wake Forest has dudes.

Hunter Sallis was never able to shine in his two years at Gonzaga, but he has blossomed into a borderline lottery pick in Winston-Salem. And he's just one of four Deacs averaging at least 13 points per game, along with Kevin Miller, Cameron Hildreth and Andrew Carr. That doesn't include Efton Reid, either, who is a force in the paint if and when he can stay out of foul trouble.

The tough part of trying to make heads or tails of Wake Forest's tournament ceiling is it has only played four games against surefire tournament teams, splitting the home-and-home with Duke, winning the home game against Florida and getting trounced at North Carolina.

But this is a well-balanced, normally pretty efficient team that is a threat to drop 85 on anyone (other than Virginia).

Wake Forest hasn't been to a Sweet 16 since 2004, but this could be the roster that ends the two-decade-long, second-weekend drought.