This week, we'll take a look at three teams that are currently "flying under the radar." For the most part, they struggled early, thereby avoiding the "early warning systems" that bring teams like Xavier or South Dakota State to public consciousness. Since then, however, they have been flawless in conference play. Assuming they don't get upset in their own conference tournaments and wind up getting snubbed by the selection committee, these are teams that are capable of pulling off an upset or two in the NCAA tournament. Coaches and their scouts in the Top 25 would be wise to take notice.

The most interesting team is Utah. Utah was picked to win the Mountain West Conference, a league that generally gets three or more bids for the NCAA tournament and is considered the seventh major. But the Utes had a terrible start, losing four of their first five. While those games were all against quality competition (South Dakota State, Louisville, Virginia and Gonzaga), this was not the start they wanted. A few weeks later Utah lost at Weber State, the bottom team in the Big Sky, and followed that with a home loss the next day to Mississippi State. That left the Utes 4-6 and the nation forgot about the team from Salt Lake City.

Utah is now on a 12-game winning streak, having gone through the first half of the Mountain West season undefeated. This includes wins over TCU (who beat both Maryland and California earlier in the season), San Diego State (who beat Texas) and New Mexico (who beat DePaul). Morgan Warburton is a senior guard who leads the Utes with 19 points per game. Warburton was picked as the preseason player of the year. Kalee Whipple is a junior forward averaging 17 points per game. Katie King and Halie Sawyer also play in the front court. All four players are averaging more than 34 minutes per game in conference play.

Utah is hurt by the poor performance of the Mountain West in the RPI. (Next week I will address some of the reasons why the RPI underrates the MWC.) But this is a quality squad that should win at least one NCAA tournament game this season.

Middle Tennessee State is also a quality team flying underneath the radar. The Blue Raiders started off well this season at 5-1, losing only to Oklahoma while beating both Indiana and LSU. At the start of December, fortunes turned with a three-game losing streak. Never mind that two of those losses were to Louisville and Tennessee with a bad loss at Western Carolina sandwiched in between; that stretch took the Blue Raiders off most people’s radar.

Middle Tennessee now has a 15-game winning streak, with a five-game lead in the Sun Belt East. All but one of those wins has been by double digits; the lone exception was an overtime victory at Arkansas-Little Rock. Alysha Clark leads the Blue Raiders. Clark is a junior transfer from Belmont University where she scored 1,000 points in two seasons and led Belmont to an NCAA appearance. She is averaging 24.6 points per game, second in the nation, as well as 9.6 rebounds. She scored 40 in a win over Louisiana-Monroe earlier this season. If she stays on pace, she could score 1,000 points for Middle Tennessee by the middle of next season, and I don’t recall any other player who has reached that mark for two different schools. Brandie Brown, Jackie Pickel and Anne Marie Lanning combine to average more than six treys per game and are all hitting at 39-40%.

The Blue Raiders are a dangerous team, who have probably already earned their NCAA berth. The Sun Belt is not as strong as it has been in previous seasons, but going undefeated in conference play is still an impressive feat. This will be a tough opening matchup for anyone, and based on their high RPI (27) an eight or nine seed is possible.

Bowling Green has the second-longest winning streak in the country. The Falcons dropped their opening two games this season at Temple and Valparaiso, but have reeled off 20 straight wins since then. The schedule has been weak, but does include victories over St. Bonaventure, Hartford, Dayton, Ball State and Miami-Ohio--all ranked in the RPI Top 100. Sophomore guard Lauren Prochaska leads the Falcons in points (17.2) and rebounds (6.1). As a freshman Prochaska was the first to score 500 points in BGSU history.

The Falcons are a solid, fundamental team. Each of their top 10 scorers is shooting at least 40% from the field. They do not have the athleticism to make too long a run in the NCAA tourney, but an overconfident team could get clipped if they are not careful.