Two quick points for my loyal readers:
1. Yes, this has nothing to do with football. I am soliciting to join a new Internet sports site, harkening back to my old Top of the Key and Sportsbytes.net days, so I am expanding my repertoire of covered sports.
2. I have always loved March Madness, I just haven't written about it since my Top of the Key days.
I won't talk about the surprising and disappointing upsets, as the national news has covered that to death already (although they have only focused on the Big Ten upsets, not those suffered from other conferences, but that's just the national bias and I ignore that). I'm only going to examine the teams who won, those moving on the Round 2, and what we learned from those games.
THE DOMINANTS
Of the 16 first day games, half of them featured very dominant results. I distinguish dominant results from dominant teams, because a dominant result looks solely at the final score, and doesn't consider anything else. After the four close games we had among the Play-in games the night before, it added a pleasant sense of normalcy to have some one-sided games. Most of these dominant games were not surprising: Illinois, Baylor, Arkansas, and Houston. West Virginia, as a #3 seed, was also expected to be dominant, it just took until late in the first half for that dominance to show up. The second half was all theirs, though, so they fall into this category.
There were three games that produced more surprising dominant teams. I'll start with Syracuse, mainly because they are a local team. Because they are local, I heard all about them this season. I felt their #11 seed was a bit low, but wasn't surprising. When Syracuse lost three of their first four ACC games, most national analysts wrote them off. But that is way too soon to write off a team. As has been demonstrated numerous times in previous years, often some of the best tournament performances come from teams who had momentum, who won many tight games later in the season, leading to the tournament. As Michigan State coach Tom Izzo has frequently stated, "It doesn't matter how well the team plays in December, it only matters how they play in March." Syracuse had excellent later games, including two against eventual tournament teams Clemson and Virginia Tech. Yes, Syracuse fell in the second round of the ACC Tournament, but it was against nationally-ranked NCAA defending champ Virginia, and they only lost by two points. I knew Syracuse would do well, I just didn't expect such a dominant performance.
How far can Syracuse go? I believe they might win their Second Round game. That would require beating another dominant team, West Virginia. Could they do it? If the Mountaineers don't improve, it could happen. Some vulnerabilities were exposed in the Mountaineers game against Morehead State. The Eagles couldn't exploit those, but the Orange can.
Another dominant performance came from another example of late season momentum -- Oregon State. In the middle of February, they had an even 10-10 record, and a losing conference record. They then won three of their last five games, but that still left them a poor seed in the Pac-12 Tournament. Determined to prove themselves, they went on a tear in the conference tournament, beating all three opponents (all teams in the NCAA Tournament, by the way) to win the Pac-12 Tournament. That still couldn't gain them a seed higher than twelve. Still, that tournament performance seemed to get their blood boiling. That still makes their defeat of Tennessee surprising, because all of their Pac-12 Tournament victories were close games. The Beavers really shined in their Round 1 game. Can they sustain that? They have to face mighty Oklahoma State in Round 2, and that might prove too much.
The final surprise team was Wisconsin. To be honest, it wasn't a surprise to me -- I picked them to beat North Carolina. After all, leading into the ACC Tournament, the Tar Heels were a "bubble" team, meaning they would be one of the first teams removed from NCAA Tournament contention. Determined to reach the NCAA Tournament, the Tar Heels played two strong games before falling in the semi-finals. Now, it's great that a bubble team did so well in their conference tournament, but failing to be among the top four in the ACC earned them a #8 seed? No, that was based on North Carolina's HISTORY, not 2021 performance. That seed was undeserved, so the Badgers victory was not so surprising when you consider that.
What about the Badgers themselves? Yes, they lost 11 conference games, but eight of those were against the conference juggernauts Ohio State, Illinois, Iowa, and Michigan. More importantly, only two of those losses were by more than ten points, so they were still contending in most games until the very last minute. So, are the Badgers good enough to beat Baylor? Maybe. Offensively, the Bears are better. But has Baylor really had to face a defense the caliber of Wisconsin? Not often enough this season. Moreover, if the Bears players are dumb enough (and these are college students, after all) to believe the national pundits who are claiming that the Big Ten conference is overhyped and not really that strong (despite the fact that the non-conference record of the Big Ten teams is the best of ALL conferences in the tournament), they may not expect a tough battle, and could find themselves in a hole by the time of any halftime corrections (which we are not sure Baylor knows how to do, as they led at the half in nearly all games this season). While I am picking Baylor, I am considering Wisconsin a "likely upset" team.
How about our surprise winners from Round 1? What is the future of our double-digit seeds? Do we have a Cinderella team among them? Well, let's look at them. I've already discussed Syracuse and Oregon State. Syracuse could reach the Sweet Sixteen, but I'm not sure Oregon State will. Those are our current #11 and #12 seeds. We have almost never had a #16 seed in Round 2 (happened only once, in 2018) and no #14 seed made it through Friday, but we have a #10, #13, and #15 seed.
Our #10 team is Rutgers. They overcame Clemson in a tough and hard-fought Round 1 game, so the Scarlet Knights proved they can prevail in close games (ironically, so far the only Big Ten team in the tournament to survive a close game). However, they next face powerful Houston. Hmm, not likely to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. No Cinderella there.
How about #13 North Texas? They prevailed over Purdue in an exciting overtime game. However, as you could see (and was seen by Purdue coach Matt Painter), the Boilermakers were getting tired at the end of the game. Why Painter did not replace some of his players with bench players to start overtime, I do not know. The exhausted Boilermakers could not prevail in overtime. Perhaps Painter knew there was a problem with his bench, so he hoped the excitement of overtime would revitalize his tired squad. Unfortunately, it did not. Against North Texas, the Mean Green will instead find themselves overwhelmed by a strong Villanova team. No Sweet Sixteen for them.
That leaves Oral Roberts, the owners of the first upset in the tournament. Everyone is starting to already award them the "Cinderella" title, but a true Cinderella lasts to the Sweet Sixteen, often the Elite Eight. Oral Roberts is not a balanced enough team to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. Yes, they have the top scorer in the nation, Kevin Obanor, but that's the problem. Obanor is basically the entire team! He is the leading scorer and leading rebounder. Everything about the team, both offense and defense, goes through him. You could see it in the Ohio State game. There were times when other Oral Roberts players had a lane to the basket, but instead of charging to the basket, they first looked to see where Obanor was, to pass the ball to him. In the meanwhile, that lane might disappear. A good defense can just swarm Obanor, forcing the rest of the team to step up, and I don't think they will. They haven't all season; that's why Obanor is the nation's scoring leader. I have no idea why Ohio State did not employ that strategy, but I guarantee you that the Florida Gators will.
I don't think we have seen the Cinderella of 2021 yet (unless Syracuse satisfies that). Perhaps today's games will reveal one.
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