Come NCAA Tournament time, there are always a few teams in the running that you didn’t think would be in the running.

Last year, the Final Four included two No. 1 seeds — Purdue and UConn — but also had a 4-seed in Alabama and an 11-seed in North Carolina State. 

Which programs will surprise us this season?

Here are four sleeper teams that I think have a chance to produce a deep NCAA Tournament run.

Georgia 

Coach Mike White is in Year 3 with the Bulldogs, and this is his best team. 

Georgia (+25000 to win national title) has wins over St. John’s, Kentucky and Florida. It went through a brutal stretch with nine losses in 11 games between January and February. It is a great offensive rebounding team (19th in the country), which is huge for teams that don’t shoot well (200th in 3-point shooting). 

Georgia is a formidable defense and extremely battle-tested in the rugged SEC. With the right draw and a good whistle, the tenacious Bulldogs are a team that could make a run at the Final Four.

St. John’s

At 27-4, boasting the third-best defense in the country, and with a Hall of Fame coach in Rick Pitino, why are the Johnnies on the sleeper list? 

Well, the Red Storm are offensively challenged. 

There are 364 teams in college basketball; St. John’s ranks 345th in 3-point shooting. It is 295th in free-throw shooting. 

Those are extremely troubling numbers, and it’s frustrating to back teams that can’t score in March, so I’m reluctant to get on board. 

The good news? The defense is extraordinary, and as long as the refs don’t call it extremely tight, the Red Storm (+2200 to win national title) should be able to hang with anyone; and if the offense shows up, beat anyone. 

Losing in the first round is on the table — so is making a run to the Final Four.

Xavier

How many times have we seen a team get hot from deep and make a long run in March?

Xavier (+30000 to win national title) didn’t look like a good team in early-January, but since Feb. 1, the Musketeers have one loss (at Villanova). Because the Big East is down a bit, they haven’t stacked many great wins — the road win at Marquette was nice — but I’m bullish on Xavier as a darkhorse because of its 3-point shooting. It is 11th in the country in 3s, and 10th in free throws. 

If it’s a close game, Xavier is in good shape. If experience matters to you, it is second in Division I experience, with six of its top eight players being seniors.

UC San Diego

They’ll be seeding in the 13-16 range, but nobody is going to want to play them. 

Eric Olen has taken a hodgepodge of Division II and III players and turned them into a juggernaut in the Big West, winning 13 straight games. UCSD’s no-middle defense — made popular in recent years by Texas Tech — confounds opponents, and the Tritons force the second-most turnovers in the country. 

The Tritons (+40000 to win national title) are a very good shooting team (47th in 3-pointers, 35th in 2-pointers) but lack size (only one rotation player over 6-foot-7) and depth. UCSD is as scrappy a team as you’ll find. As long as it doesn’t face an SEC team in the first round, I’ll be betting on it.

Jason McIntyre is a FOX Sports betting analyst who also writes about the NFL and NBA Draft. Before arriving at FOX, he created the website The Big Lead. Follow him on Twitter @JasonRMcIntyre.

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