Crazy Start To March Madness

They don't call it March Madness for nothing. There have been crazy starts to the tournament in the past, but I don't think anything like this has been seen in quite some time, if ever. There's no denying that the last four days of college basketball have been flat out nuts. Lots to get to in a recap of the weekend, lots of upsets and surprises. So lets not waste anymore time and get into it right now.

There were a few upsets if you want to call them that, of a nine beating an eight, but we had two eleven seeds win over the six seeds, along with two different thirteen seeds beating four seeds. Those were big upsets which we'll get to in a moment. The biggest story of them all had to be UMBC. Going into the tournament, no #16 had beaten a #1 seed, let alone the #1 team in the coaches polls going into the big dance. The number one seeds were 135-0 going into the tournament. Then everything changed thanks to the Retrievers beating Virginia, the best team in all of the nation. UMBC was embarrassed badly by Albany back in January, losing to the Great Danes 85-39. Once they won the America East tournament, on a last second three no less, they weren't given a prayer. UMBC didn't believe it. They not only beat the best team in the land, they destroyed them, winning by twenty points. Hell UMBC scored almost as many points in the 2nd half (53 points) as Virginia did in the entire basketball game (54 points). Sadly for them, UMBC's Cinderella moment last a mere 48 hours, as they fell by seven to Kansas State. Still the fact that they pulled off the biggest upset ever, and were projected to lose by 20 according to the Vegas odds going into the game, it shows just how monumental this upset truly is.

Oh and while this is the biggest upset in this years tournament, the biggest comeback in the tournament goes to Nevada. On the same day that UMBC lost their dream run, Nevada pulled off the biggest comeback in tournament history over one of the favorites in the tournament in Cincinnati. With 11 minutes left in the game, Nevada was 22 points down and they still managed to pull off the victory, 75-73. It tied Duke’s over Maryland at the 2001 Final Four for the second-biggest ever in the NCAA tournament. Oh yeah, and this was after having to come back from down 14 against Texas two days prior to this, so they had a lot of magic in the bag over the first two games of the tournament. Nevada has trailed at halftime in five straight games and is still in the Sweet 16. Nevada eventually will have to start producing faster starts in order to keep advancing.

UMBC and Nevada had been big surprises, so has Loyola Chicago as the Ramblers were one of only two teams to win twice as an underdog. They were the only one, however, to trail in the final five seconds of both their wins. Donte Ingram’s 3-pointer to beat Miami might have been usurped two days later as the top buzzer-beater of the tournament, but it got a rollicking four days underway. If you thought that was crazy enough, look what happened against the three seed Tennessee. After Tennessee missed a free throw that probably would have iced the game, Loyola-Chicago charged up the court before Clayton Custer hit the game winning three pointer at the buzzer. Its a shock with this and the Nevada and UMBC that the South Region has none of their top four schools left standing in the sweet sixteen. Its going to make for interesting matchups seeing #5 Kentucky play #9 Kansas State and #7 Nevada against #11 Loyola-Chicago.

Kentucky had stopped another magical run of the University of Buffalo. Buffalo had pulled off one of the bigger upsets of the opening round beating #4 Arizona. It wasn't the fact that Buffalo won (which was shocking enough), it was how badly they beat them. A 21 point victory is pretty impressive. In just their 3rd ever appearance in the NCAA tournament, it was the first ever win for the school in the big dance, Beating a team like Arizona for the win made it even more impressive, because Arizona had been considered by some to be one of the heavy favorites.

And we're still not done. Syracuse, who some questioned even being in the tournament. The Orange had to win a playoff game to get back into the big dance. First they beat Arizona State, then followed it up with an opening round win over TCU by five, and finally helped throw off quite a few brackets by beating Michigan State by two. Oshae Brissett, Frank Howard and Tyus Battle have been a huge reason why the Orange are sitting where they are right now, getting ready to face Duke in the next round.

A lot of craziness went down over the last four days. That was only the first two rounds of the tournament. If that was any indication, then the rest of the big dance is going to be very interesting!