The first two rounds of the men’s NCAA Tournament wrapped up Sunday, leaving 16 teams remaining. There were 48 games played the past four days, some upsets, some blowouts and some electric finishes. The tournament always delivers, and this weekend certainly wasn’t an outlier. While there may have been fewer Cinderella stories as fans had wished, there were still enough shocking results that left everyone's brackets imperfect.
East Region
Before the tournament began the East region stood out as a blue blooded and elite coaching region. Featuring Duke, UConn, Michigan State, Kansas, St. John’s and even UCLA, the region was loaded with championships and elite coaches. One of the matchups that had fans salivating at the potential sight was Bill Self’s Kansas and Rick Pitino’s St. John’s didn’t disappoint this Sunday afternoon. The game was a defensive and physical battle all game long and ended in Dylan Darling hitting a buzzer beater to get his Johnnies moving on, with a 67-65 victory over Kansas. St. Johns will face off against No. 1 overall seed Duke in the Sweet 16.
Duke had a bit of a scare against 16 seed Siena who led Duke by 11 at halftime. Siena head coach Gerry McNamara had his players play all 40 minutes, but just came up short as they couldn’t hit shots down the stretch, and fell to Duke.
The Sweet 16 matchups feature four of the top five seeds in the east region as it ends up being the most chalky region. No Cinderella or major upsets happened in the region but it set up amazing Sweet 16 and Elite Eight matchups. St. John’s vs Duke will be a great matchup between the coaching genius of Pitino, and the talent level of Duke. Michigan State vs UConn will be an amazing matchup of elite coaching in Tom Izzo and Dan Hurley. These matchups will get fans excited, despite not featuring an underdog story.
West Region
The West region is probably the region that had the most fireworks or flare to it, as it features the only double-digit seed to make the Sweet 16 in 11 seed Texas, and it almost created a Cinderella story in 12 seed High Point. Texas has gone from the first four to the Sweet 16, winning three games in five days along the way. Sean Miller has his Texas squad playing their best basketball in the tournament in his first year as head coach, a great success so far. They will face off against Purdue on Thursday night.
High Point had all the signs of a Cinderella in this tournament, but unfortunately came up short against Arkansas in the round of 32. High point pulled off the upset against five seed Wisconsin with a game-winning layup by Chase Johnston. Sharp shooter Johnston hit his first two pointer of the season with this layup, and sent Wisconsin packing. Johnston immediately became an internet sweetheart and High Point had all the signs of a Cinderella. All they had to do next was take down John Calipari’s Arkansas team featuring star freshman Darius Acuff Jr. Acuff proved to be too much for High Point to deal with as he put up 36 points on 50 percent shooting, while Arkansas escaped the upset in a 94-88 victory.
Arizona showed up as the dominant force that they have been for most of the season, and they will get their toughest test yet against this Arkansas team. Arizona’s size and versatility will be challenged by the scoring ability of Acuff and this Arkansas team.
Midwest Region
This region feels like it is on an inevitable collision course between Michigan and Iowa State, as both teams have dominated so far in the tournament. This region has had so many different blowouts, with its best game easily being the Kentucky vs Santa Clara game. The game featured a logo 3 to send the game to overtime from Kentucky's star Otega Oweh. Mark Pope’s squad then faced Iowa State in the round of 32, which ended their season.
Alabama had a slow first half against Hofstra, potentially shaking off some demons after guard Aden Holloway was suspended after being arrested just days before the tournament began with 2.1 pounds of marijuana found in his apartment. After they got going again though they continued to roll the momentum into the round of 32 when they routed Texas Tech 90-65 Sunday night. Alabama is heating up and they will face off against Michigan which has been a dominant force out of the Big Ten all season long.
Iowa State had an extremely slow start against Kentucky as they felt the loss of star forward Joshua Jefferson, who exited their first round matchup against Tennessee State early with an ankle injury. Once their offense got into a rhythm again, they started to take over against Kentucky, and never looked back.
Tennessee has had an overall quieter season than what we are accustomed to with Rick Barnes’ Tennessee teams. While this is true, they still have found themselves in the Sweet 16 while taking down three seed Virginia. Tennessee will have an extremely difficult time facing off against the Iowa State defensive pressure, but if they can get past it, then they will look for their first ever Final Four appearance.
South Region
The South region is probably the most compelling region now that Iowa took down the reigning champions, the one seed Florida. Three out of the four teams remaining are Big Ten teams with Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois. The other team remaining is Houston who has been cruising in this tournament so far.
Iowa taking down Florida shocked the nation Sunday night, which set up the Sweet corn 16 game against Nebraska. Iowa presented a stylistic mismatch for Florida, as they were able to slow the game down, and defend Florida in a way that made Florida extremely uncomfortable. Bennet Stirtz had a rough shooting night, but despite that, the Hawkeyes were still able to quiet the storm, and succeed in the final 10 seconds of the game. The moment was never too big for Iowa, and they had the largest upset of the tournament. Last season all four one seeds made the Final Four, this year it is already confirmed that this will not repeat.
Nebraska had never won a tournament game ever before, but this season has now won two games. Nebraska handled Troy easily and was able to escape in a narrow victory over the Vanderbilt Commodores as Tyler Tanner’s full court heave bounced out of the rim. It was heartbreaking for Vandy, but Nebraska’s best season in history continues.
Both Illinois and Houston have had zero problems in the tournament so far, as they advance to the Sweet 16. Illinois represents one of six remaining Big Ten teams, and looks to keep their run going. Illinois lives on the 3-point line with a very dynamic and efficient offense when they are hitting shots. Houston lives on the defensive end, playing physical and trying to cause turnovers. The game should be a great clash of great offense vs great defense.
This region also held the best game of the tournament so far with VCU’s epic comeback and overtime win over the blue blood program North Carolina. North Carolina now has serious questions about their head coach Hubert Davis. They have said that they will have an answer about the position later this week. VCU continues its trend of being a consistent mid-major program who is always a threat in the tournament, but ran out of steam in a 20-point loss to Illinois on Sunday.
Other Storylines
The Big Ten has six of its nine teams in the tournament still remaining alive in the Sweet 16. The Big Ten hasn't had a champion since 2000 when Michigan State beat Florida. The conference seems to have its best chance to win a title in a long time, and doesn’t want to squander the opportunity. With Michigan, Michigan State, Illinois, Purdue, Iowa and Nebraska, the conference certainly has a great chance to end the streak.
The largest storyline coming out of the tournament seems to be that for the second straight season we have no Cinderella stories in the tournament. High Point was close, but didn’t get the job done in the round of 32. Many believe that NIL has killed the modern day Cinderella, because all the players that succeed in smaller schools, simply enter the transfer portal the next year and collect NIL money at bigger schools. This has funneled the talent even more to the top. I believe that while this is somewhat true, I think Cinderellas will come back because some of the best mid-major schools that could’ve been sneaky, failed to win their conference tournaments. There also were a lot of teams that were really close to major upsets such as High Point, Siena and USF. I strongly believe that a Cinderella will rise up again in another tournament.
