Jay Bilas explains why Duke is on upset alert vs 12-seeded James Madison

James Madison has already pulled off one upset in the NCAA Tournament, taking down No. 5 seed Wisconsin in its opener. ESPN analyst Jay Bilas believes JMU is capable of pulling off another upset and taking down Duke in the second round of the tourney.

Bilas was asked Sunday morning on SportsCenter which No. 12 seed between James Madison and Grand Canyon has a better chance of advancing to the Sweet 16. He feels that it’s the Dukes.

“I think it’s James Madison,” Bilas said. “James Madison’s on a 14-game win streak that’s the longest in the country. It’s their second 14-game win streak of the season. And they have really good players. Their best player is Terrence Edwards, who’s about 6-6. Can get to the basket, get to the free throw line. He’s a really good scorer.”

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Edwards leads JMU at 17.3 points per game, while T.J. Bickerstaff and Noah Freidel also average double figures.

Duke has plenty of fire power, too, but Bilas believes James Madison has a real shot of winning the game.

“T.J. Bickerstaff is one of their big guys. He played at Boston College. Major conference player. Noah Freidel can shoot 3s,” Bilas said. “They are very good defensively. [Head coach] Mark Byington does a great job with his defense, and they do a good job of guarding the 3-point line, and that’s where Duke scores a lot of points. They’re a good shooting team.”

The Blue Devils struggled from the field on Friday against Vermont, shooting 42 percent from the field and 33 percent from the 3-point line, but they did enough on both ends of the court to cruise to a 17-point victory.

If Duke plays well against James Madison, Bilas expects the Blue Devils to advance to the Sweet 16, but if Jon Scheyer‘s club isn’t at its best, James Madison will have a shot.

“They’re going to have to do a really good job of getting out on shooters, but especially of dealing with Kyle Filipowski,” Bilas said. “Filipowski only had 3 points in the opening game and he had 12 rebounds, 4 assists. I thought Vermont did a really good job of trying to take him away. They gave him a lot of attention and that opened other guys up, but Duke’s defense is going to be the key. Are they going to guard James Madison to the same level that they guarded Vermont? If they do that, Duke will advance.”