By Josh Messmer / Staff Writer
By Josh Messmer / Staff Writer
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament is well under way and with the first two rounds over, the name, March Madness, is a huge understatement.
Experts and sports fans all around the country are left scratching their heads after some of the greatest and baffling outcomes at the end of the last week’s games.
All projections said this year is going to be one of the most wide open tournaments in recent years with there being so much talent in the lower ranks. No one could have predicted the first two rounds; many of the elite teams were sent home by lower seeds.
The first round of the tournament began March 18. It jumped off to an exciting pace, setting the tone for the many upsets to come, and started with Old Dominion University beating University of Notre Dame 51-50.
Another game that left spectators on the edge of their seat was the Murray State University and Vanderbilt University game, because it was close throughout.
With 4.2 seconds left in the game, Murray State ran a play that the team has never attempted before, and it paid off with a textbook buzzer beater.
Other notable games include Wake Forest University overcoming a six-point deficit in overtime to beat the University of Texas, and Villanova University holding off an upset minded Robert Morris University; beating them in overtime as well.
On March 19, we saw the conclusion of the first round come to an end, and also a little more order restored to the tournament.
Closing out the first round, the top seeded teams showcased their dominance against its opponents, as Duke University and Syracuse University, both ranked No. 1 in their regions, crushed its opponents.
Other favorites to make it further in the tournament include Michigan State University, Gonzaga University, and Purdue University. These teams all won but should be very concerned about their play moving forward
The second round of the tournament started on Saturday and was a chance to see who has the talent to make a real run at the national championship and who was just lucky.
The one team that no one even gave chance at being good or lucky is Northern Iowa University, as they were slated to go against basketball powerhouse, Kansas University, in the second round.
No one informed Northern Iowa that they were supposed to lose, they provided the tournament with one of the biggest upsets in the past few years, as Northern Iowa knocked Kansas out of this year’s tournament and secured their spot in the Sweet Sixteen.
The other teams that saw their tickets punched to the Sweet Sixteen include the University of Tennessee, Butler University, Kansas State University, the University of Kentucky, University of Washington, Baylor University, and Saint Mary’s University.
On March 21, the Big Ten Conference had four teams playing, and three out of the four made it to the next round.
The only Big Ten school not to move on was the University of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin lost to this year’s Cinderella story, Cornell University, which out of the final 16 teams is a the lowest seed remaining and the first Ivy League school to make it to the Sweet Sixteen since 1979.
The remaining teams that are joining Cornell in the Sweet Sixteen, are Michigan State, Ohio State University, Syracuse, Xavier University, West Virginia University, Duke University, and Purdue.
The Sweet Sixteen will be played March 25 and March 26 on CBS.
The first two rounds provided fans with some of the best college basketball in recent memory, with the most important games still left to play.
Bring on the rest of the madness!
