Northwestern NCAA Tournament rooting guide

The NCAA Tournament bracket is out! Northwestern isn't in it. I know! Again, right?

However, there's a lot of teams that, are, um, similar to Northwestern in various ways, I guess? Here's the NCAA Tournament rooting guide, based on category, for your bracket-filling-out pleasure.

Big Ten (obviously)

No. 1 Indiana, vs. No. 16 LIU/James Madison
No. 2 Ohio State, vs. No. 15 Iona
No. 3 Michigan State, vs. No. 14 Valpo
No. 4 Michigan, vs. No. 13 SDSU
No. 5 Wisconsin, vs. No. 12 Ole Miss
No. 7 Illinois, vs. No. 10 Colorado

Never-Made-The-Tourney Club

No. 15 Florida Gulf Coast, vs. No. 2 Georgetown (just 1-for-50!)

"Wildcats"

No. 4 Kansas State, vs. No. 13 Boise State or La Salle
No. 6 Arizona, vs. No. 11 Belmont
No. 9 Villanova, vs. No. 8 UNC
No. 14 Davidson, vs. No. 3 Marquette

"Northwestern"

No. 14 Northwestern State, vs. No. 3 Florida

Purple

No. 4 Kansas State, vs. No. 13 Boise State or La Salle
No. 14 Northwestern State, vs. No. 3 Florida
No. 15 Albany, vs. No. 2 Duke
No. 16 James Madison, vs. No. 16 LIU-Brooklyn

KYLE ROWLEY

No. 12 St. Mary's, vs. No. 12 Middle Tennessee State

And of course, the "We want your coach to lose so we have a better chance of hiring him" index of teams Northwestern wants to lose:

No. 2 Duke (Chris Collins) vs. No. 15 Albany
No. 11 Bucknell (Dave Paulsen) vs. No. 6 Butler
No. 14 Valparaiso (Bryce Drew) vs. No. 3 Michigan State
No. 15 Iona (Tim Cluess) vs. No. 2 Ohio State
(Harvard not included, since Tommy Amaker apparently isn't interested in leaving)