The 2017 NCAA tournament bracket reveal is less than 36 hours away, and when CBS begins taking viewers through the field of 68 on Sunday at 5:30 p.m. ET, nerves will be on edge.

Most of those nerves will belong to teams on the bubble. But even for teams that know they’ll hear their names called at some point, when their names gets called and which names get called immediately before and after them will matter too. Matchups can be the difference between an early exit and a deep run.

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The following is a list of six teams that almost every NCAA tournament team should be hoping to avoid when the bracket is unveiled on Sunday evening.

Duke | Projected seed: 2 | KenPom: 12

The most polarizing team in college basketball is, after a season of controversy, tumult and underachievement, finally playing near its best. Duke always had the pieces to be a title contender, if not a title favorite, and those pieces have clicked into place, first in early February, and now once and for all in the ACC tournament. Luke Kennard looks like a superstar capable of shooting a team through an entire region. Grayson Allen is still wildly inconsistent, but on his day, he’s a game-changing player; on the other days, Frank Jackson has emerged as a potential difference-maker in his stead. And Jayson Tatum is just awesome.

Because those pieces weren’t in place for much of the season, however, Duke likely won’t be a 1-seed; they’ll be a 2, or even possibly a 3 with a loss in Saturday’s ACC final. They’ll also be the inflictor of moans and groans for the fan base of whichever 1-seed draws the Blue Devils in its quadrant of the bracket.

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Michigan | Projected seed: 8 | KenPom: 24

The Wolverines aren’t just the feel-good story of March thus far; they have the potential to be so much more starting next week. Michigan finished eighth in the Big Ten, but was the conference’s second-best team on the balance of the season, and has played better than anybody down the stretch. The only blemishes of the last month were an overtime loss at Minnesota and a Northwestern buzzer-beater. The positives were plentiful: A 29-point beatdown of Michigan State, two wins over conference champion Purdue, and a victory over Wisconsin stand out.

Michigan is one of the most efficient offensive teams in the nation, scoring an adjusted 1.21 points per possession on the season, and that offense will make it a major threat in the tournament. Aside from being a stoic commander of emergency evacuations of airplanes, John Beilein is a darn good offensive coach, and he doesn’t put a player on the floor who isn’t a 3-point threat. Five of those players have taken at least 90 3s on the season and shoot over 37 percent from beyond the arc. Three of them shoot over 41 percent. The Wolverines suck opposing defenses out to the perimeter, then beat them with clever screens and back cuts — in addition to their long-range shooting, they make 79.3 percent of shots within five feet of the basket, by far the highest percentage in Division I.

With the defense having improved too, Michigan is capable of knocking off a top-two seed and making a run to the Elite Eight. Even a Final Four isn’t out of the question.

Oklahoma State | Projected seed: 9 | KenPom: 21

Six games into his first conference season as a Big 12 head coach, Oklahoma State’s Brad Underwood had a dilemma. He knew he had talent in his first-year in Stillwater, and he knew he was agonizingly close to getting a lot out of that talent. But after another disheartening loss, this one at home to his alma mater, Kansas State, his team was 0-6 in conference play. Underwood knew things had to change; he just had to figure out what exactly those changes had to be.

So, during what he recalls as “pretty much a sleepless night,” Underwood drew on his experience as an assistant; he drew on advanced stats; and he drew on his knowledge that a few slight tweaks could turn his team into one of the Big 12’s best to do just that. Underwood pulled back the pressure defense that he had deployed so successfully for three seasons at Stephen F. Austin. He refined a few of the team’s half-court defensive principles. After he did, his Cowboys went on the rampage, winning five in a row and 10 of 11. Their defense still wasn’t and isn’t great, but it has been mostly serviceable.

During that six-game losing run in early January, and over the season’s final two weeks, Oklahoma State came up just short in big game after big game, so it will be underseeded. And, therefore it will be dangerous. For all the talk of UCLA’s dynamic offense this season, it’s the Cowboys who rank No. 1 nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency. Jawun Evans, a lightning-quick point guard, seems unguardable at times. It’s this offense that could run around, through and over a Final Four-favorite in the round of 32.

Wichita State | Projected seed: 9 | KenPom: 9

The Shockers are a 4-seed masquerading as a 9-seed because they simply haven’t had the chance to prove they’re a 4-seed over the past two months. They dominated a weak Missouri Valley Conference outside of one Saturday afternoon in January, and have a coach and players who in the past have proven capable of pulling off a ground-shaking NCAA tournament upset or two. This Wichita State team is no different. It will give rise to fear in any team, 10-seed, 8-seed or 1-seed, that gets drawn alongside it.

Miami | Projected seed: 8 | KenPom: 33

Miami is the one team on this list that isn’t careening toward Selection Sunday on a hot streak. It has lost three of four, and was easily discarded by North Carolina in the ACC quarters. But Jim Larranaga’s team can be a defensive force. It’s a team that can muddle up a game against a more talented opponent, and one that, if Davon Reed and Bruce Brown are hitting their shots, can win a few 60-55 games in the Big Dance.

Vanderbilt | Projected seed: 11 | KenPom: 32

The Commodores are playing outstanding basketball at the moment, and are exactly the type of 11-seed that could take out a 6- and a 3-seed in a span of three days. Their third victory over Florida this season likely punched their ticket to the tournament, but it’s their body of work over the past month that shows how dangerous they can be. Their only loss since Feb. 11 came in Lexington, when the Commodores bolted out to a double-digit lead before falling late to Kentucky. They have a perimeter-oriented offense that features a 7-foot-1, 3-point-shooting center in Luke Kornet and three guards who are deadly from beyond the arc.

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