Xavier Roger
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The NCAA men’s basketball tournament has already packed a month of madness into a single weekend.
Surprises and upsets defined the first two rounds of tournament play, sending some of college basketball’s biggest names packing – including Kansas, Purdue, Duke, Virginia and Kentucky – as Fairleigh Dickinson beat Purdue and Princeton topped Arizona and Missouri to write two of the top Cinderella stories in recent tournament history.
Amid this flurry of unpredictability, what happens next is anyone’s guess. Even picking top seeds Alabama and Houston to end up in the Final Four seems premature; if the past few days are any indication, this year’s national champion might be a team that entered tournament play off the radar.
With the Sweet 16 set to begin Thursday, these are the eight things we learned from the first weekend of the tournament:
Welcome to March Madness
Follow the madness: Latest Men’s NCAA Tournament College Basketball Scores and Schedules
Using the NCAA definition of a tournament upset – games won by teams seeded five or more spots below the favorite – there have been seven through the first two rounds:
- No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson 63, No. 1 Purdue 58
- No. 15 Princeton 59, No. 2 Arizona 55
- No. 15 Princeton 78, No. 7 Missouri 63
- No. 13 Furman 68, No. 4 Virginia 67
- No. 11 Pittsburgh 59, No. 6 Iowa State 41
- No. 8 Arkansas 72, No. 1 Kansas 71
- No. 7 Michigan State 69, No. 2 Marquette 60
While the number could grow, this isn’t yet the most upset-heavy tournament in recent history; there were 14 such upsets in both the 2020 and 2021 tournaments. But projected to be among the most unpredictable in years, this bracket has already lived up to expectations by sending several high-profile contenders packing and providing upsets certain to linger in tournament memory.
This list of unforgettable upsets begins with Fairleigh Dickinson, which joined Maryland-Baltimore County in 2018 as the only No. 16 seeds to defeat a No. 1 before falling to No. 9 Florida Atlantic in the second round. Princeton is the fourth No. 15 seed to ever reach the Sweet 16 and the second in as many years after St. Peter’s last March.
HIGHS AND LOWS:Winners and losers from Sunday’s NCAA Tournament play
POSTSEASON LINEUP:Complete men’s tournament schedule, results
Where does Fairleigh Dickinson rank among all-time upsets?
While UMBC was the first to make history, the Knights are in many ways the most incredible underdog story in tournament history despite getting knocked out in the second round.
Begin with the fact that FDU might’ve been the weakest team on paper in this year’s bracket. The Knights ended the regular season 301st in the NET rankings of all 363 Division I teams and lost 12 games to Quad 4 competition. One of those losses was to Hartford, which ended the year ranked dead last in the NET.
FDU has the shortest starting lineup in Division I with an average height of 6-foot-1 and no player in the rotation taller than 6-foot-6 freshman Jo’el Emanuel. That didn’t stop the Knights from battling Purdue and 7-foot-4 center Zach Edey to a draw in the paint.
And then there’s this: FDU lost the Northeast Conference tournament championship game to Merrimack and only received the league’s automatic bid because Merrimack was ineligible for postseason play while transitioning up from Division II.
First-year coaches shine
While the tournament is typically ruled by veteran teams led by veteran coaches with extensive postseason experience, this year’s Sweet 16 includes three first-year coaches:
- No. 2 Texas interim coach Rodney Terry has done a masterful job steering the Longhorns through former coach Chris Beard’s dismissal in early January and into the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2008.
- In his second stint with the program, No. 3 Xavier coach Sean Miller has the Musketeers back in the second weekend for the first time since 2017.
- Longtime Baylor assistant Jerome Tang led No. 3 Kansas State to the second-highest tournament seed in program history. The Wildcats beat No. 6 Kentucky 75-69 in the second round behind 27 points from senior point guard Markquis Nowell.
Steve Fisher of Michigan is the lone first-year coach to win a national championship during the tournament era, though he was an interim coach and only took over after the regular season was completed. Four others have reached the championship game, however, most recently North Carolina’s Hubert Davis last season.
Could the tournament have a first-time champion?
There has been a recent trend of first-time champions: Virginia did so in 2019 and Baylor in 2021. To find a new member of the national-champion club before that, you’d have to go back to the first of Florida’s back-to-back crowns in 2006.
The odds are rising that a newcomer will join this group early next month. Of the 16 teams still alive in the men’s bracket, 12 have never won it all: No. 1 Alabama, No. 1 Houston, No. 2 Texas, No. 3 Xavier, No. 3 Kansas State, No. 3 Gonzaga, No. 4 Tennessee, No. 5 Miami, No. 5 San Diego State, No. 6 Creighton, No. 9 Florida Atlantic and No. 15 Princeton.
Seven teams in the Sweet 16 have never reached the Final Four: Alabama, Xavier, Tennessee, Miami, San Diego State, Creighton and Florida Atlantic.
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Bluebloods AWOL from the Sweet 16
For just the second time since 1980, the Sweet 16 will not include at least one of Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina. While the Tar Heels’ disappointing season ended almost two weeks ago, the Blue Devils, Jayhawks and Wildcats were jettisoned in the second round to leave an almost blueblood-free second weekend.
The bloodshed doesn’t end there for some of college basketball’s biggest brands:
- No. 1 Purdue suffered the historic upset against Fairleigh Dickinson despite the best efforts of center Zach Edey, who scored 21 of the Boilermakers’ 58 points.
- No. 2 Arizona headed into tournament play as the Pac-12 tournament champions but went just 3 of 16 from deep in the first-round loss to Princeton.
- No. 3 Baylor lost in the second round for the second year in a row after winning the 2020 national championship.
- No. 4 Virginia was knocked out by a double-digit seed for the third time in the past four tournaments, sandwiching the program’s championship in 2019.
Miami carries the flag for the ACC
For the second March in a row, the ACC sent five teams into the tournament. In contrast to last year, however, when the league put three teams in the Elite Eight and two in the Final Four, the ACC will have only a single representative in the Sweet 16.
- Virginia and No. 11 North Carolina State lost in the first round. The Wolfpack made the tournament for the second time under coach Kevin Keatts but haven’t advanced to the second round since making the Sweet 16 in 2015.
- No. 11 Pittsburgh stifled No. 6 Iowa State in the first round but was then blitzed by No. 3 Xavier, which led by 14 points at halftime and won 84-73.
- And most painfully, No. 5 Duke entered the tournament as one of the hottest teams in the country and showed that in the first round — destroying No. 12 Oral Roberts by 21 points — before getting swamped by No. 4 Tennessee’s defense and clutch shooting in the second round.
That leaves No. 5 Miami carrying the flag for the ACC. After reaching the Elite Eight for the first time last season, the Hurricanes are back in the Sweet 16 after beating No. 4 Indiana 85-69. The best sign from that second-round win was the play of All-America guard Isaiah Wong, who bounced back from an uneven game against Drake to score a team-leading 27 points with eight rebounds against the Hoosiers.
How far can underdogs advance?
Sixteen double-digit seeds have advanced to the Elite Eight and five have gone all the way to the Final Four, most recently Loyola-Chicago in 2018 and UCLA in 2021.
With so many pre-tournament favorites already out of the mix, a path has opened for a similar out-of-nowhere Final Four run from one of this year’s surprise teams. But matchups matter, and outliers such as Florida Atlantic and Princeton will be underdogs in games against Tennessee and Creighton, respectively – though being the underdog isn’t new for either team, of course.
Sometimes, the stage simply becomes too much for teams in the Sweet 16 spotlight. There’s also the matter of no longer flying under the radar and catching opponents sleeping; winning two games this weekend has erased the element of surprise for the Owls and Tigers.
This year’s championship race is wide, wide open
And here are the three biggest takeaways from the first week:
- This year’s NCAA tournament is wide open for the taking.
The lack of perennial powers and the growing number of upsets makes this the most unpredictable Sweet 16 in recent memory.
- Good luck predicting what happens this weekend.
Still, Alabama and Houston have to be considered the favorites given how both dominated the regular season, even if the Cougars have looked vulnerable at times in wins against No. 16 Northern Kentucky and No. 9 Auburn.
- Yeah, our brackets have been demolished.
This so-called expert picked just seven of the Sweet 16. And that’s not too bad! There were more than 20 million brackets filled out online, according to the NCAA, and none were perfect after Purdue’s loss to Fairleigh Dickinson. So while your bracket is a red-lined mess, take solace in the fact you’re not alone.
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