Teams on Upset Alert in Day 1 of the 2024 Men's NCAA Tournament

The first full day of the 2024 men's NCAA tournament is upon us, and that means a new year of upset possibilities.

It's difficult to call a No. 9 or No. 10 seed winning its first game much of an upset, so the prime candidates for a Cinderella run every season generally live on the Nos. 11, 12 and 13 seed lines, though last year we also saw No. 15 Princeton and No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson survive their first-round matchup.

There are a pair of No. 11 seeds, one No. 12 seed and one No. 13 seed that all look like prime candidates for a potential upset bid during Thursday's action.

Ahead we've highlighted the four better seeds from those matchups as teams on upset alert, with a breakdown of what the favorite needs to do to win and what the upset-minded team needs to do to stay alive. We've also included the moneyline as of Wednesday for each game via DraftKings.

Which programs will survive Thursday's upset watch?

Opponent: No. 12 McNeese State

Moneyline: Gonzaga (-285)

The Gonzaga Bulldogs are slotted below the top four seed lines for the first time since the 2016 NCAA tournament, and entering March Madness with a bit less hype could play to their favor after some disappointing early exits in recent years.

At the same time, there is a reason this year's team was not viewed as part of the top tier of contenders by the selection committee.

The Bulldogs did not pick up their first Quad 1 victory of the season until they beat Kentucky on Feb. 10, and they lost two of three to rival Saint Mary's, including falling 69-60 in the WCC title game.

With former LSU coach Will Wade at the helm, McNeese State will come ready to play after racking up 30 wins during the regular season, and its biggest weakness does not necessarily line up with a strength for the Bulldogs.

The Cowboys don't do a good job of chasing opponents off the three-point line, and all three of their losses came in games where the opposition hit at least 10 shots from distance. Meanwhile, the Bulldogs rank near the bottom of the nation in made threes (6.8, 236th in NCAA) and three-point attempts (19.3, 285th in NCAA) per game.

Opponent: No. 13 Samford

Moneyline: Kansas (-285)

The Kansas Jayhawks opened the 2023-24 season at No. 1 in the AP poll, and they were still in the conversation for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament in late February.

However, they lost three of four to close out the regular season and then got demolished by the Cincinnati Bearcats in their Big 12 tournament opener. Between that Cincinnati loss and another lopsided game against Houston to wrap up the regular season, they have lost their last two games by a combined 50 points.

Making matters even worse, they will be without Big 12 leading scorer Kevin McCullar Jr. (18.3 PPG, 6.0 RPG, 4.1 APG) for the entire NCAA tournament, and they also don't know what to expect from Hunter Dickinson (18.0 PPG, 10.8 RPG) after he suffered a dislocated shoulder in the loss to Houston.

Already playing with a thin rotation before those injuries, they now have the unenviable task of facing off against a Samford Bulldogs team that plays an all-out, full-court press style on defense and rains threes on offense, which leaves one of the nation's blue bloods primed for an upset.

Opponent: No. 11 Oregon

Moneyline: South Carolina (-105)

The South Carolina Gamecocks are in the Big Dance for the first time since 2017 when they reached the Final Four as a No. 7 seed, and while they climbed as high as No. 11 in the AP poll earlier this year, it's hard to know what to make of their tournament upside.

They have Quad 1 wins over Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, Mississippi State and Texas A&M, but they also suffered Quad 3 losses to Georgia and LSU at home, and they looked completely overmatched in an 86-55 loss to Auburn in the SEC tournament.

They also had a habit of playing down to their competition, with six single-digit wins against Quad 3 and Quad 4 opponents. As they're slotted at No. 49 in the KenPom rankings, there is an easy case to be made that they are overseeded based on predictive metrics.

Now they will need to prove they belong against an Oregon Ducks team that is not far behind them at No. 55 on the KenPom rankings. The Ducks knocked off UCLA, Arizona and Colorado en route to winning the Pac-12 tournament to secure the automatic bid, and momentum is on their side.

Opponent: No. 11 NC State

Moneyline: Texas Tech (-218)

The Texas Tech Red Raiders tallied six Quad 1 wins thanks to the ample opportunities that Big 12 play presented, and while they went 0-3 against Houston and Iowa State, they did pick up two wins over BYU and one win each against Baylor, Kansas and Texas.

However, they did not face much in the way of quality competition during nonconference play, with their best wins coming against Northern Iowa (NET: 109) and UT Arlington (NET: 129).

They went 4-10 in games where they allowed at least 75 points, and the defense as a whole is a shell of what it was under Chris Beard. On the offensive end, they are a bit overreliant on the three ball, but when it's falling, they can bury teams.

Their opening matchup is against an NC State team that lost four in a row to wrap up the regular season but caught fire in the ACC tournament with five wins in five days. The Wolfpack don't look great on paper, but after beating Duke, Virginia and North Carolina in consecutive days, this is a different team than the one that showed up most of the year.