NCAA Basketball Tournament is Down to 16 Teams

Interview with a Middle School Basketball Coa...

So far in the NCAA tournament, there have been 48 games played. That's 48 chances for an upset... 48 chances for some Cinderella team to irrevocably screw up your bracket... 48 chances for some unknown team to become the nation's darling. So, how are your brackets doing?

If you're the NCAA selection committee, you've done pretty well. Of the 48 games, only 10 have been won by the lower seeded team. And of those 10 games, three were in the first round, in the 8-9 match-up, which is hardly an upset at all. In the second round, three of the upsets were between #4 and #5 seeds, which - again - can hardly be considered an earth-shattering upset. The biggest upset of the tournament happened Sunday afternoon, as #7 seed UNLV got their second victory in the NCAA tournament since 1991, upsetting #2 seed Wisconsin. Wisconsin had been in the running for a #1 seed up until the end of the regular season, and had legitimate hopes of making the Final Four, so their loss definitely puts a spin on the Midwest bracket, leaving it wide open for Florida, or for a team like Butler or UNLV to make an even bigger splash.

Although the tournament has been relatively free of upsets, in addition to the UNLV win there have been some impressive victories. In the first round, Winthrop won its first NCAA tournament game - ever - with a victory over Notre Dame. And it's hard to ignore the victory by Virginia Commonwealth (like Winthrop, VCU was seeded #11), and their victory over perennial powerhouse Duke Blue Devils. Sure, this was a bit of a down year for Duke, but the Blue Devils still managed a 22-10 record, and they're still Duke, so props have to be given to VCU.

But the biggest surprise of the tournament could be in the match-up between the #12 and #5 seeds. This has historically been the biggest chance for an upset in the early rounds. In fact, in the last six years, there has been at least one victory in this game by the lower seed. But this year, every single #5 seed won.

And kept winning. Three of the #5 seeds managed to defeat their opponents, and will now be faced with the daunting challenge of facing one of the #1 seeds in the third round, for a spot in the Elite Eight. Those four teams (Ohio State, Florida, Kansas and North Carolina) are still in it, so for the seeding committee, there's still a chance for their four picks to make it to Atlanta and the Final Four.

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