It’s certainly been a tumultuous season for Alabama basketball, which was under the fire for months for attempting to (and at times successfully) playing the ineligible Charles Bediako.

Yet on the day that Bediako filed a motion to voluntarily drop his lawsuit to get eligible, some much, MUCH worse news came along.

That’s because on Monday, Alabama starting guard Aden Holloway was arrested after authorities allegedly found over a pound of marijuana at his apartment.

We’ll certainly let the legal process play out, but it feels fair to assume that Holloway won’t be playing for Alabama any time soon. Late Monday, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported that Holloway has been “removed from campus.”

And later on his coach’s show Nate Oats admitted that Alabama is “preparing to play without” Holloway this weekend.

From a purely basketball perspective, Holloway’s loss is brutal as he’s averaging nearly 17 points per game on over 43 percent shooting from three.

However, the NCAA Tournament is the least of his concerns right now.

We’ll continue to update this story as more details become available.

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With the main draw of the NCAA Tournament opening up on Thursday, it feels like every single analyst is talking about the same two or three upsets (including Torres).

Below are the seemingly near-universal upset picks of everyone with a microphone this week. To be clear, we’re not telling you that you should pick them. Just that everyone else is (all odds provided by BetUS Sportsbook):

No. 11 South Florida vs. No. 6 Louisville (-5) - Thursday, 1:30 p.m. ET, East Regional: Of all the obvious upset picks, this one seems to be gaining the most steam and with good reason.

South Florida enters the NCAA Tournament as one of the hottest teams in college basketball, having won 11 straight games, on their way to American Conference regular season and conference tournament championships. Meanwhile Louisville has injury concerns (as of publish, we still don’t know if star freshman Mikel Brown Jr. will play at all) and the Cards also have no great wins of note all season.

Oh, and if South Florida does win, they could easily become an emotional favorite of everyone tuning in for this March Madness.

No. 11 VCU vs. No. 6 North Carolina (-2) - Thursday, 6:50 p.m. ET, South Regional: North Carolina might be playing a de-facto home game in Greenville, South Carolina, but it seems like the public is backing VCU in this one.

For starters, it feels like the air has simply come out of the North Carolina program since Caleb Wilson’s season-ending injury. After Wilson initially injured his hand in mid-February, the Tar Heels managed to win five of six. But after Wilson was officially ruled out with a separate injury they have gone 0-2, losing in their ACC Tournament opener.

Then there is VCU, which have quietly won 16 of their last 17. The only loss during that stretch was against fellow NCAA Tournament team Saint Louis on the road.

So those are the stakes on Thursday night, with even bigger stakes for the future of the UNC basketball program. While Hubert Davis has coached himself off the hot seat in Chapel Hill, the pressure could ramp right back up heading into the 2026-2027 season with an opening round loss here.

No. 10 Santa Clara vs. No. 7 Kentucky (-3) - Friday, 12:15 ET, Midwest Regional: Speaking of hot seats, coming off of a disappointing regular season, the last thing Mark Pope needs is an opening round NCAA Tournament loss to Santa Clara.

Yet the betting markets expect it to be competitive, with Kentucky sitting at just a three-point favorite. Put simply the Broncos aren’t a team Kentucky should overlook. Playing in their first NCAA Tournament since 1996 they average over 82 points per game, and forward Allen Graves is a trendy draft prospect for the Broncos.

Torres expects Kentucky to win - but this game will hardly be a runaway for UK.

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