March Madness is in full effect and the drama is building. With major upsets coming in every division there are zero perfect brackets left and there is one team to thank for that. Saint Peters university out of Jersey City rocked the world with a colossal win over Kentucky. A lot of people are probably asking themselves who is Saint Peters and how have they made it to the sweet sixteen. Well, this cinderella story comes down to the ability of the team to pull together and out muscle bigger teams. With wins over Kentucky and Murray State this team has proven they belong in this tournament.
While some of the other conferences like the ACC have shown up right in time for the tournament, the Sec has pulled a full choke job. Early exits from Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Auburn showed that the fatigue of the regular season may be a factor. The SEC sent five teams to the tournament with only Arkansas making it to the sweet sixteen. There were many issues to explain this, but an issue that showed across the board was an all-around fatigue caused by such difficult regular seasons these teams faced. The SEC contained several of the hardest schedules in the league and wore itself out way too early in the season to be competitive.
Following the round of 32 we see many unexpected teams in the sweet sixteen. We saw several upsets putting 8 seed UNC over a strong Baylor, 11 seed Michigan muscled past a fan favorite of Tennessee, and an upset battle between Iowa St. and Miami. The chaos truly broke out this year and the fans are more than happy to root for the underdogs. The NCAA tournament is known for its ability to give chances to the smaller teams to show they are just as capable as the big dog schools. While there are still highly seeded teams in the fight, these underdogs are excited for the challenge.
A couple teams continue to show their dominance in each round are UCLA and Villanova. These teams are highly seeded but have remained under the radar due to the absolute madness going on around them. These are a couple teams to watch going forward as they have shown to be good teams in both of their games thus far. With the sweet sixteen games this Thursday and Friday and elite eight the following week there’s a lot of great basketball to come.
