As college basketball moves deeper into conference play, Western Kentucky, 6-1 in Conference USA through Jan. 22, is popping into projected brackets. Which is great news if you love March upsets -- not just because the Hilltoppers are good enough to take on top seeds but also because they are volatile enough to have beaten Purdue and SMU yet lost to Ohio and Belmont.
Inconsistency pays for underdogs. After all, if a team such as WKU makes the NCAA tournament, nobody will care if it loses its opening game by 1 or 51. So it needs to amp up the variability of its play, taking extra chances to boost its odds of eking out a win.