NCAA tournament First Four preview: Nevada vs. Arizona State

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament continues Wednesday night with the second set of First Four games in Dayton, Ohio. Here’s a look at the games, with two 16th-seeded conference champions and two 11th-seeded at-large teams looking to advance into the tournament’s main draw.

All times Eastern. All point spreads and totals taken Wednesday morning from DraftKings Sportsbook.

No. 16 Texas Southern (14-20) vs. No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson (19-15)

Winner faces: No. 1 Purdue on Friday at 6:50 p.m.

Point spread: Texas Southern -2.5

Even though Texas Southern is the only NCAA tournament team with a losing record, the Tigers still rate out higher than Fairleigh Dickinson in terms of Ken Pomeroy’s statistical rankings. At No. 312 out of 363 Division I teams, the Knights are the lowest-ranked team in the field of 68, but thanks to an NCAA rule that prohibits teams that are transitioning to Division I from playing in the NCAA tournament, Fairleigh Dickinson is dancing even though it lost to Merrimack in the Northeast Conference tournament championship game.

Only two teams in the nation were less efficient defensively than the Knights this season. Their opponents shot 36.9 percent from three-point range and 56.1 percent from two-point range, both among the country’s worst marks. But Texas Southern also was one of the nation’s worst shooting teams, going 28.7 percent from three-point range (No. 360) and 47.4 percent on two-pointers (293rd).

The nation’s shortest team per Pomeroy’s numbers — none of its rotational players stands taller than 6 feet 6, and its two starting guards are 5-8 and 5-9 — Fairleigh Dickinson could struggle inside against Texas Southern big men Joirdon Karl Nicholas and John Walker, who are both 6-9. The Tigers get 58.8 percent of their points from two-pointers (ranking 17th nationally in that metric), and it will be a chore for the undersized Knights to stop them.

Pick: Texas Southern -2.5. The Tigers are more battle-tested after playing an arduous nonconference schedule against the likes of Texas Tech, Houston, Auburn, Kansas and Arizona State (they actually beat the Sun Devils, a fellow First Four participant, on Nov. 13). Statistically, Fairleigh Dickinson is one of the worst NCAA tournament teams this century: Since 2002, only three other teams have made the tournament with a sub-300 Pomeroy ranking, and all lost their first tournament game by at least nine points.

No. 11 Arizona State (22-12) vs. No. 11 Nevada (22-10)

Winner faces: No. 6 TCU on Friday at 10:05 p.m.

Point spread: Arizona State -2.5

The Sun Devils should be getting some good scouting reports on the Wolf Pack considering that starters Desmond Cambridge and Warren Washington both transferred to Arizona State from Nevada after last season. Cambridge leads the Sun Devils in scoring and Washington is their best rebounder, but Arizona State as a whole does not shoot well, whether it’s three-pointers (31.4 percent), two-pointers (47.9 percent) or free throws (68.9). All three of those percentages rank near the bottom of the 68-team field.

Nevada doesn’t shoot the ball all that well either apart from Jarod Lucas, who has scored 28, 23 and 24 points in the Wolf Pack’s past three games (all losses, which is probably why it’s playing in Dayton on Wednesday). Lucas got to the free throw line 29 times over those games, making all but four of them, and Nevada as a whole gets to the line at an impressive clip and tends to excel when it does (at 79.2 percent, the Wolf Pack is the second-best foul-shooting team in the tournament).

Rebounds could be key in a game where shots might not be falling, and Nevada has proven itself pretty adept at cleaning up its opponents’ misses, ranking in the top 50 nationally in defensive rebounding percentage.

Pick: Nevada +2.5. If Cambridge hadn’t hit that insane buzzer-beater to stun Arizona on Feb. 25, would we even be talking about the Sun Devils here?