NCAA: Reacapping the 1st 2 Rounds of the NCAA Tournament

Posted on | March 23, 2009 | No Comments

March Madness is always awesome. It’s easily the best sports events of the year, second place isn’t even close. So please don’t take this the wrong way. The 1st 2 rounds of the NCAA Tournament were a bit of a letdown. The main reason why? Well, because all the top 3 seeds in each region advanced and half of the 4s advanced too.

That means UConn, Louisville, Pitt, and North Carolina all won as top seeds. The 2 seeds – Duke, Michigan State, Oklahoma, and Memphis – all advanced. So did all the 3 seeds – Syracuse, Villanova, Kansas, and Missouri. Xavier and Gonzaga advanced as 4 seeds, Purdue advanced as a 5 seed, and then Arizona is the lone lower seed at #12. Arizona can hardly be considered a Cinderella.

So that’s the bad news. No Cinderellas in the mix in the Sweet 16. But the good news is that almost every game in the Sweet 16 should be a great game. I fully expect Louisville to roll Arizona and I also expect UConn to take care of Purdue without too much of a problem. But the rest of the games… they are all very well matched.

Looking at it now, the best match-ups appear to be Villanova and Duke, Syracuse and Oklahoma, Michigan State and Missouri, and UNC and Gonzaga.

For all those “media experts” who wrote a blog or an article on how the Big East was so overrated all season: How wrong were you? The Big East is the first conference to land 5 teams in the Sweet 16. They nearly had 6 teams but Marquette lost late. But still, the Big East is a whopping 11-2 right now. Look for there to be at least 1 Big East team in 3 of the 4 Elite 8 games. If Syracuse beats Oklahoma then I think the Big East may be involved in every game in the Elite 8.

But we have a couple days to take a look at all the match-ups before the madness resumes this Thursday.

Related posts:

1. NCAA: Upsets Highlight Day 2 of NCAA Tournament
2. NCAA: An Overview of the NCAA Tournament Bracket
3. NCAA: The South Region
4. NCAA: Big East is Underrated?
5. NCAA: Looking at Possible Big Match-Ups

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