Although my bracket might be toast after the first week of March Madness, the excitement of this NCAA Tournament helped me forget the tragedy of losing to more than 50 of my friends and family. This year’s installment made it easy to forget the bracket and instead sit back and enjoy what has been an electric tournament thus far.
Over the first weekend, there was nonstop action from Thursday afternoon to Sunday night, and we are now down to 16 teams, making it the Sweet 16. Both the University of Iowa Hawkeyes and University of Texas Longhorns, No. 9 and No. 11-seeds, respectively, have knocked off top-three seeds in their regions to excitedly push into the Sweet 16. On top of these two upset stories, there was an unreal moment when Dylan Darling’s buzzer-beating layup propelled the St. John’s Red Storm to victory.
The NCAA tournament consists of four regions housing 16 teams each: the South, East, West and Midwest. The winners of each of these four regions meet in the famous Final Four to compete for a National Championship and games commence over three weeks until a winner is crowned.
The Longhorns and Hawkeyes have given fans arguably the two best and biggest storylines of the tournament during the first two rounds. The No. 9-seeded Hawkeyes took care of the Clemson University Tigers in the first round matchup in the South Region, and then went on to shockingly topple the defending champion and No.1-seed University of Florida Gators. In the West Region, No. 11-seed Longhorns took down the No. 6-seed Brigham Young University Cougars on Thursday. The Longhorns then went on to also knock off the No.3-seed University of Gonzaga Bulldogs on Saturday.
Another great success story from the early rounds was the High Point University Panthers. The Panthers, the West region’s No.12-seed, took down the No. 5-seed University of Wisconsin Badgers in thrilling fashion.
The Panthers came up just short of a March Madness win last year and it was great to see them achieve a satisfying victory. However, despite giving the University of Arkansas Razorbacks some trouble in round two, they ultimately fell short and lost the round.
The first round, as a whole, also came with a lot of “chalk,” as many call it. This means many of the high-seeded favorites took care of business and advanced as expected. However, fans were still treated to big upsets and high-intensity games.
There were several near-upsets in round one, with some of the lowest seeds coming up just short. Highlighting these were the No.14-seed Wright State University Raiders and the No.13-seed California Baptist University Lancers, both staying within 10 points of the No. 3-seed University of Virginia Cavaliers and No. 4-seed University of Kansas Jayhawks.
In the South Region, the No.16-seed Siena University Saints had the No. 1-seed Duke University Blue Devils on the ropes. The Saints took an 11-point lead heading into halftime, but the Blue Devils rallied to take a narrow six-point win and avoid what would have been a historic upset.
Duke followed up the first round scare with a convincing round two win over Texas Christian University Horned Frogs, and they will now face the No. 5-seed St. John’s University Red Storm, who came away with an electric second-round win over the University of Kansas Jayhawks.
Title contenders in each region handled business over the weekend to advance to the Sweet 16, like the University of Arizona Wildcats, University of Michigan Wolverines, Michigan State University Spartans, University of Houston Cougars and Iowa State University Cyclones, among other top seeds.
While the tournament has not been full of upsets as many would hope, March Madness has delivered as it always does, and I can’t wait to see who will be advancing to the Final Four and eventually cutting down the nets as National Champions.
Here’s to hoping my bracket doesn’t get too busted from here on out, but that might be a lost cause this early on.
Jack Muldowney is a freshman studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note the opinions expressed in this column do not represent those of The Post. Want to talk to Jack Muldowney about their column? Email/tweet them at jm760224@ohio.edu or @JackMuldowney1.
