The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament kicked off last week on Tuesday, March 14. The madness will continue through March and culminate on Monday, April 3 at 9 p.m. in Houston, Texas. Two nail-biting First Four matchups got the tournament going and set the tone for what has been an insane tournament thus far. Not even two days into the Round of 64, every bracket that had been made was busted, thanks to numerous upsets that shook the college basketball world. Let’s take a look at some of the best stories from the early rounds of this year’s tournament.
The first round got underway on Thursday, March 16 at 12:15 p.m. with the Maryland Terrapins taking on the West Virginia Mountaineers, but it was the second game of the day that got everyone talking. Just minutes after Maryland beat West Virginia, the first upset of the tournament took place. The #4 seeded Virginia Cavaliers walked into the Amway Center in Orlando, Fla. that day as the favorites over the #13 Furman Paladins. But there is a reason they call it March Madness. The Cavaliers looked to have the game under control late, as they inbounded the ball up two with 12.3 seconds to go. However, the Paladins trapped Cavaliers’ graduate student guard Kihei Clark off the inbound, forcing him to toss an ill-advised pass up court into the hands of Paladins’ junior forward Garrett Hien. Hien then found sophomore guard JP Pegues for the game-winning three, sending the Paladins to the next round with a 68-67 win. Their run ended after a 75-52 loss to the San Diego State Aztecs on Saturday, March 18 in the Round of 32, but the Paladins gave college basketball fans a fun story.
That same evening, the Princeton Tigers began to write a Cinderella story of their own. Up against the #2-seeded Arizona Wildcats, the #15-seeded Tigers were heavy underdogs. The Wildcats, who many analysts picked to make a deep run in March, were 14.5-point favorites over the Tigers. About halfway through the second half, the Wildcats had built up a 12-point lead, but the Tigers would claw back into it from there on out. They found themselves out in front by one with two minutes to go after a contested lay-in found the bottom of the net. The final four and a half minutes was a defensive masterpiece from the Tigers, giving the Wildcats no breathing room, smothering them on a couple of desperation three-point attempts. One last trip to the free throw line for Princeton put the game on ice, as they upset Arizona 59-55. The team continued to make their make in the tournament after upsetting the #7 Missouri Tigers on Saturday in a blowout win, 78-63. Maybe they could follow in the footsteps of St. Peter’s University of last year and be the next 15 seed to make the Elite Eight.
The college basketball world was truly turned upside down on day two of the Round of 64 though. Since the inaugural tournament in 1939, only one #16 seed has taken down a #1 seed: the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) Retrievers who beat the top-ranked Virginia Cavaliers. On the night of March 17, the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights became the second team to achieve such a feat after they shocked the Purdue Boilermakers in Columbus, Ohio. The Knights were simply the better team throughout the night, winning each half, and playing inspiring defense on Purdue’s star, the 7 ‘4” junior center Zach Edey. The Boilermakers had their opportunities in crunch time, but the Knights played unconsciously on the defensive end in the final seconds, blocking shots and congesting the three-point line. As the buzzer sounded, the Knights kept dancing with a 63-58 win. It’s always fun to see an unheralded team make noise in one of the biggest sports tournaments. However, all good things must come to an end, and the Knights’ run ended in the second round on Sunday at the hands of the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Owls, 78-70.
The Sweet 16 is set. The games will continue to dwindle teams down to the Final Four, which hopefully will bring more upsets and entertaining basketball. While top seeds like the Purdue Boilermakers, Kansas Jayhawks, Arizona Wildcats and Marquette Golden Eagles have already been knocked out, favorites like the Alabama Crimson Tide, Houston Cougars and Texas Longhorns have yet to have their title hopes stripped away.
