This year's NCAA tournament has not necessarily given the magical, 'feel good' moment that have occurred in other seasons with an underdog team....No MID MAJOR or LOW MAJOR D1 schools left in the tournament.. This year's tournament has held to form with a few upsets along the way.. Villanova and Duke leaving this early was somewhat shocking... I say Duke just because they started getting hot toward the end of the season.
If you go with a straight logical approach on how the tournament should play out and go by seeding, after the first weekend there should not be a seed higher than a 4...If the top 4 seeded teams made it from each region, that would be your 16 teams going into the 2nd weekend. That has not happened that I am aware since going to a 64 team field. This year was one of the closest though.. 12 of the 16 teams that made it through to the 2nd weekend were seeded 4 or better. Of the 4 teams who "outplayed their seed"(5th seed or lower), 2 of those teams were the participants in the Big Ten championship game, Michigan and Wisconsin. Another, South Carolina, finished 3rd in their conference, and Xavier is a team that is just getting hot. Xavier is the low seed left in the tournament but certainly not a team that fans of the college game are unfamiliar. What is interesting is the Big Ten had its 2 tournament finalist teams and regular season champion as its teams making it through... As mentioned (Michigan, Wisconsin) plus Purdue.
The shocker for me is there is only 1 ACC team(North Carolina) left in the tournament... They usually are up there in terms of teams left.. The power conferences of NCAA basketball have risen to the top with 15 out of the 16 teams left from those conferences..The Big Ten, PAC 12, BIG 12, and SEC all have 3 teams remaining and the Big East has 2....The ACC and West Coast have 1 each The outlier is Gonzaga, from the West Coast Conference, but they have been a national power for some time and this year is no different. The breakdown of teams left, by conference.
Big Ten - Michigan, Wisconsin, and Purdue
Big 12- Kansas, Baylor, West Virginia
PAC 12- Arizona, Oregon, and UCLA
SEC - Kentucky, Florida, and South Carolina
BIg East - Butler and Xavier
ACC - North Carolina
WCC - Gonzaga.
I am always interested in the lower seeded teams and the ones we dont hear about much.... Obviously, with that attitude I am going to cheer for the last double digit seed in Xavier. I think their coach, Chris Mack, is a very good coach and has been for awhile.... The South Carolina team interests me a lot... They have some athletes and can play some defense...
We dont normally hear about South Carolina. I remember years ago, they had 2 players named Alex English and Brian Winters that were pretty good. Frank McGuire was really the coach that started the NYC hs player pipeline at NORTH Carolina then turned the program over to Dean Smith. McGuire then coached a state further south and maintained that same NYC pipeline to SOUTH Carolina.. That is where guys like Winters, John Roche, and Bobby Cremins fit in to the NYC area prospects that went to school in the south, many years ago...Nothing of note heard of them since then in basketball but they beat Duke in this tourney, which will get people's attention.
Frank Martin, South Carolina's coach, is known for previously coaching at Kansas State..He is also known for a stare/scowl on his face that intimidates players and referees alike..Martin is one of the real characters of the basketball world in college..Son of Cuban immigrants .He was a bouncer in a Miami bar while in college at Florida International.. He had been shot at by 3 people whom he kicked out of a gym at a HS game. He actually made his name coaching in his hometown Miami, Florida, where he coached 3 straight Florida HS state champion teams led by Udonis Haslem and Steve Blake, both of whom have had long NBA careers and NCAA championships at Florida and Maryland respectively. I will be cheering for South Carolina and Xavier just because they are lower seeded or different, now that Minnesota is out of the tournament.. This has been much more, the "year of the high seeds" with more "name teams" going into the 2nd weekend than I have ever remembered in the past.. No real Cinderellas except maybe South Carolina and Xavier... Still, it will be fun as it usually is this time of year.
If you go with a straight logical approach on how the tournament should play out and go by seeding, after the first weekend there should not be a seed higher than a 4...If the top 4 seeded teams made it from each region, that would be your 16 teams going into the 2nd weekend. That has not happened that I am aware since going to a 64 team field. This year was one of the closest though.. 12 of the 16 teams that made it through to the 2nd weekend were seeded 4 or better. Of the 4 teams who "outplayed their seed"(5th seed or lower), 2 of those teams were the participants in the Big Ten championship game, Michigan and Wisconsin. Another, South Carolina, finished 3rd in their conference, and Xavier is a team that is just getting hot. Xavier is the low seed left in the tournament but certainly not a team that fans of the college game are unfamiliar. What is interesting is the Big Ten had its 2 tournament finalist teams and regular season champion as its teams making it through... As mentioned (Michigan, Wisconsin) plus Purdue.
The shocker for me is there is only 1 ACC team(North Carolina) left in the tournament... They usually are up there in terms of teams left.. The power conferences of NCAA basketball have risen to the top with 15 out of the 16 teams left from those conferences..The Big Ten, PAC 12, BIG 12, and SEC all have 3 teams remaining and the Big East has 2....The ACC and West Coast have 1 each The outlier is Gonzaga, from the West Coast Conference, but they have been a national power for some time and this year is no different. The breakdown of teams left, by conference.
Big Ten - Michigan, Wisconsin, and Purdue
Big 12- Kansas, Baylor, West Virginia
PAC 12- Arizona, Oregon, and UCLA
SEC - Kentucky, Florida, and South Carolina
BIg East - Butler and Xavier
ACC - North Carolina
WCC - Gonzaga.
I am always interested in the lower seeded teams and the ones we dont hear about much.... Obviously, with that attitude I am going to cheer for the last double digit seed in Xavier. I think their coach, Chris Mack, is a very good coach and has been for awhile.... The South Carolina team interests me a lot... They have some athletes and can play some defense...
We dont normally hear about South Carolina. I remember years ago, they had 2 players named Alex English and Brian Winters that were pretty good. Frank McGuire was really the coach that started the NYC hs player pipeline at NORTH Carolina then turned the program over to Dean Smith. McGuire then coached a state further south and maintained that same NYC pipeline to SOUTH Carolina.. That is where guys like Winters, John Roche, and Bobby Cremins fit in to the NYC area prospects that went to school in the south, many years ago...Nothing of note heard of them since then in basketball but they beat Duke in this tourney, which will get people's attention.
Frank Martin, South Carolina's coach, is known for previously coaching at Kansas State..He is also known for a stare/scowl on his face that intimidates players and referees alike..Martin is one of the real characters of the basketball world in college..Son of Cuban immigrants .He was a bouncer in a Miami bar while in college at Florida International.. He had been shot at by 3 people whom he kicked out of a gym at a HS game. He actually made his name coaching in his hometown Miami, Florida, where he coached 3 straight Florida HS state champion teams led by Udonis Haslem and Steve Blake, both of whom have had long NBA careers and NCAA championships at Florida and Maryland respectively. I will be cheering for South Carolina and Xavier just because they are lower seeded or different, now that Minnesota is out of the tournament.. This has been much more, the "year of the high seeds" with more "name teams" going into the 2nd weekend than I have ever remembered in the past.. No real Cinderellas except maybe South Carolina and Xavier... Still, it will be fun as it usually is this time of year.
Last edited:
