The 2018 NCAA Tournament is shaping up as the most wide-open tournament in years. You can bank on upsets, a ton of them. But which long shots should you back? If you want to go big, consider picking 14-seed Stephen F. Austin over 3-seed Texas Tech in the East Regional. 

The Lumberjacks, the champions of the Southland Conference Tournament, come into March Madness red-hot, having won five in a row and 10 of their last 11 overall.

And this isn't a program that will be intimidated by the big stage. The Lumberjacks have been in the NCAA Tournament in four of the past five years and have pulled off several stunners, like when they beat 3-seed West Virginia by 14 points in 2016.

That was no fluke. Stephen F. Austin has also knocked off 5-seed VCU in the NCAA Tournament, and this year during the regular season SFA beat LSU and only lost to Mississippi State and Missouri -- two SEC teams that made the postseason -- by an average of three points.

That could spell huge trouble for Texas Tech (24-9), which enters the 2018 NCAA Tournament with five losses in their last seven games. The Red Raiders haven't won an NCAA Tournament game since 2005 and they average only 75.2 points.

Their high seed came primarily because of a hot start, but the Red Raiders didn't justify it late in the season.

The computer recognized this and has labeled them as by far the most likely 3-seed to fall in the opening round. Back Stephen F. Austin to pull off another big upset on Thursday.

Also in the East, the model loves No. 10 Butler over No. 7 Arkansas. That's not even an upset -- Butler is favored by 1.5 and wins over 62 percent of computer simulations.

So what's the optimal NCAA Tournament 2018 bracket? And which underdogs shock college basketball? Visit SportsLine to see the optimized NCAA Tournament bracket, and see which underdogs to lock in now, all from the model that nailed nine of 12 upsets by double-digit seeds the past two years.