NCAA Tournament Recap and Sweet 16 Preview

‘It’s what makes March Madness special and it kills the coaches because it’s so hard and you think you have a great team, ‘ Kansas State coach Bruce Weber said.

They moved on to face the University of Houston, and provided Wisconsin fans with a truly heartbreaking affront to Bucky’s dignity. An entire region left without a Top 4 seed in the Sweet 16 for the first time in tourney history.

But the madness didn’t stop after one of the biggest upsets in tournament history. Now, the Orange face Duke on Saturday at 2:37 GMT and the odds are still not in their favor as Betfair Sports has posted a 5.50 for Syracuse, and 1.14 for Duke. And the Wolf Pack have been even more meticulous with the basketball during March Madness, committing just nine turnovers through their first two games – including a scant two in their upset win over Cincinnati. Villanova ranked 44th in free-throw makes allowed (11.7) and 23rd in attempts surrendered (15.6), and their 16.0 personal fouls per game placed them in a tie for 36th in the country.

This is how sports has manifested itself as a lottery, and the NCAA has done an admittedly brilliant job of making this tournament into a cultural phenomenon.

Those same opening weekend upsets have also lifted the Kentucky Wildcats and Gonzaga Bulldogs, who sit knotted at +700 on the title futures, followed by the Michigan Wolverines at +800 and the Kansas Jayhawks at +850, while West Virginia joins Purdue at +1600. Texas A&M, however, is at +2500 and has a reasonable draw.

Gonzaga is now getting a ton out of redshirt freshman Zach Norvell (21.5 PPG, 7.5 RPG in the tournament) and it’s hard to see that continuing, especially if they do face MI down the road; Charles Matthews would smother the Zags’ emerging backcourt star.

For years, I’ve described the Atlantic 10 as the best 6-foot-10 and under conference in America. Then, out of nowhere to BBN (except to coach John Calipari) the Cats caught fire, winning four of their five remaining regular season games, blasting their way to an SEC Tournament championship and defeating Davidson and Buffalo to advance to the South Regional semis. “I don’t know if that many people would’ve come to the game just on us relying on the marketing department”. The fourth-seeded Wildcats fell at the hands of Buffalo who shot 50 percent from 3, and couldn’t seem to miss when the game was on the line. Long before UB hammered Arizona and UMBC pounded Virginia, the gap had been closing between heavyweights from power conferences and good teams from mid-major or smaller conferences that supposedly stood little chance.

Do you one better. They would need at least two, maybe three, Udoka Azubuikes on the court to deal with Bagley and Carter. As ESPN illustrates with a new story and infographic, college basketball and football coaches are the highest-paid employees in nearly every state. We published them with pride, knowing that we’d get things wrong but also do pretty well. It wasn’t just top 2018 National Basketball Association draft prospect DeAndre Ayton of Arizona either.

Oklahoma State and Baylor both advanced to the second round of the NIT. These are the majority of the stars of college basketball, and now they are gone in the blink of an eye.

The Wildcats remain favored to win the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three seasons. And I like Duke’s zone. “Just having so much fun with this group”. Kentucky, Duke and Kansas do a lot of the heavy lifting here, but there are 106 players on National Basketball Association rosters that came from teams now in the Sweet Sixteen, almost a quarter of the entire league.

The Seminoles were not expected to get past Missouri, whom many thought would actually beat Xavier in the Second Round.

They’re still a longshot to win it all, but a run to the title game is certainly in the realm of possibility.

But after Virginia’s loss to UMBC, nothing can surprise us.