March Madness started on March 20th, where 64 teams all have a chance to go to San Antonio and compete in the National Championship. The teams are seeded from best to worst in four different regions. There are currently four teams left: Florida, Houston, Auburn, and Duke. This is the first time since 2008 that the Final Four has all one seeds remaining. Only one team will be able to go home a winner on April 7th.
The first round did not turn out to have many upsets. The ones that stood out are 12 seed McNeese beating five seed Clemson, 11 seed Drake beating six seed Missouri, and 12 seed Colorado St beating five seed Memphis.
The nine versus eight seeded games are usually the hardest to predict because statistically, it is the most even matchup. In the four games where these seeds play each other, it resulted in Baylor, Uconn, Creighton, and Gonzaga winning.
Also, in the first round, all one, two, there,e and four seeds ended up winning their games.
Next is the second round, where only 32 teams remain. There were a total of three upsets in this round. The biggest one was ten-seed Arkansas beating two-seed St. Johns, a team who had a nice shot to win the tournament. The other upsets are sixth seed BYU beating three seed Wisconsin and sixth seed Ole Miss beating three seed Iowa State.
Some of the top teams in the bracket, like Houston and Florida, almost lost in this round. Houston beat eight-seed Gonzaga by five points, and Florida came back at the end of the game to beat eight-seed Uconn by two points.
The third round in the tournament is called the Sweet 16. Purdue versus Houston was the closest game of this round. Houston was able to squeak out a win by only two points. A big part of Houston’s success came from Milos Uzan, who had 22 points and six assists. Another close game was Michigan State versus Ole Miss. The whole game was very close, but Michigan State was able to come back from a ten-point deficit to eventually win by two. All the teams that moved onto the next round are Florida, Duke, Alabama, Texas Tech, Auburn, Houston, Michigan State, and Tennessee.
The elite eight consisted of some close games and some other non-close games. Florida versus Texas Tech was a nail-biter the whole time. Texas Tech could not find an answer for Florida’s senior guard, Walter Clayton, who ended the game with a whopping 30 points. The other close game was Michigan State versus Auburn. Auburn’s star player Johni Broome has 25 points and 14 rebounds. Michigan State was led by Jaxon Kohler, who had 17 points. On the other hand, Duke and Houston easily won their games.
There are now three games left until the tournament is over. One seed Florida versus one seed Auburn, and one seed Houston versus one seed Duke. Both of these games will be very close and hardly fought. The winner of these two games will play each other for the National Championship.
