Meet Murray State. Can the red-hot Racers upset West Virginia?

Murray State is no stranger to the NCAA tournament. In the past 30 years, the Racers have laced up their dancing shoes 14 times. They’ll start the 2018 tournament with a round-of-64 game against West Virginia on Friday (4 p.m. ET, TNT).

But despite the Kentucky school’s familiarity with March Madness, they’ll be an overlooked component of this year’s competition. The Ohio Valley Conference champions are a mid-major stalwart forced to compete for the nation’s respect — or at the very least the consideration of amateur prognosticators hurriedly slotting their picks into $5 brackets.

With 13 straight wins, Murray State is one of the hottest teams in the nation — only Gonzaga will enter the NCAA tournament with a longer streak. The Racers carved up the OVC this winter, recovering from early losses to Jacksonville State and the league’s other title favorite Belmont before cruising to an impressive finish. All but two of the team’s wins in that months-long streak came by double digits.

At 26-5, they’ll bring one of the nation’s most impressive records to the tournament. While Murray State has been relatively untested — it played just two teams in the RPI’s top 80 this winter — but acquitted itself well in rare big games. SEC champion Auburn needed a late surge to put away MSU in an 81-77 win. Middle Tennessee State needed a jumper with 28 seconds left to fend off the Racers’ comeback.

While Murray State has forged a .500 record in its last two trips to the tourney, NCAA success has historically been tough to find. Before 2010, the program had a 1-13 record at the Big Dance, earning a seed higher than 12th just once. Rolling with the Racers isn’t exactly going to make you a front-runner.

And then there’s the campus. The city of Murray, Kentucky is home to an estimated 19,000 people. If everyone in town was enrolled in the university, it would still only be the fourth-largest public school in the state of Kentucky. If you meet someone at the bar who claims they’re from Murray, they’re probably lying.

Which is too bad, because Murray is a charming city. The Dickens Alley celebration turns downtown into 19th-Century England each December. Musician Joe Buck is from there, and since he’s not the sportscaster who once worked himself into a panic over Randy Moss’s fake-mooning of the Packers, the city can claim it’s home to the good Joe Buck.

So, if you like classic Americana, slightly less grating men named Joe Buck, or classic literature, Murray State is the team for you.

Jonathan Stark was the 2017-18 OVC player of the year after a season in which he refused to be denied his shot at the Big Dance. The former Tulane transfer has been a dynamo in his two seasons in Murray, leading his new team in scoring each year. He’s saved his best for last, too; the senior has scored more than 26 points per contest over his team’s last eight games.

The arrival of 6’8 forward Terrell Miller has helped take some of the Racers’ scoring load from Starks’ shoulders. The Southwest Mississippi Junior College transfer has provided a solid inside-out presence with his combination of bulk and shooting, He’s grabbing more than eight rebounds per game and making nearly 40 percent of his three-pointers (2.1 per game) to stretch the floor and clean the glass.

And if that pairing doesn’t do anything for you, Ja Morant is the third Murray State player to earn first-time All-OVC honors this winter. The rail-thin freshman guard is a triple-double threat on the court, and the NCAA tournament could provide the bright spotlight he’s been waiting for.

It’s been six years since the Racers won an NCAA tournament game and eight since they’ve pulled off an upset. Murray State dispatched Colorado State in a lopsided 2012 first-round contest before having its season ended by Big East champion Marquette in the Round of 32. Two years earlier, a wild buzzer beater sent the 13th-seeded Racers to an upset win over No. 4 Vanderbilt, but MSU would fall agonizingly short in their next game — a two-point loss to eventual national runner-up Butler.

A quiet, but successful five years followed the team’s last tournament appearance. Murrary State won four straight OVC West titles from 2013 to 2016 and won the conference’s regular season title in 2015 with a 16-0 league record. Unfortunately, those solid campaigns all fell short in the postseason, where the Ohio Valley couldn’t escape its reputation as a one-bid conference.

Now they’re back, and they’re here to mess up your bracket.

Dunker the Horse. He’s got a bowl cut, for some reason. He’s ... fine.

A first-round game against West Virginia is tough, but winnable. A potential second-round matchup against AAC champs Wichita State is less so. But the Racers have a solid inside-out game and can shoot their way past anyone on the right night.