CLASH OF THE TITANS
With opening rounds in rearview, top seeds still intact for Sweet 16
IT’S THE NCAA Tournament of Goliath. David only lasted a few days.
For the first time since 2019, the top eight teams by seed all advanced to the Sweet 16, and there were only a few close calls.
Houston, the No. 1 seed in the South, was taken to overtime by No. 9 Texas A&M in the second round Sunday night. No. 2 Marquette needed to make some big plays late to get past dogged 10-seed Colorado in the Midwest. Lastly, No. 2 Tennessee nearly blew a 12-point second-half lead against No. 7 Texas in the Midwest, but survived.
The other five hardly broke a sweat. Even two of the No. 3 seeds, Creighton and Illinois, moved on. The seed total of 53 is the seventhlowest in tournament history.
Eight double-digit seeds reached the second round, but the only one to advance is hardly a Cinderella. N.C. State of the ACC, seeded 11th, was the only one to make it through.
Everyone loves upsets, to see the little guy punch above his weight class. But there is a downside to that: blowouts later in the tournament.
Take last year’s dance, for example, when four of the top eight seeds failed to reach the second weekend. Of the 12 Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games, only four were decided by five points or less. It was mostly a bore.
There is the potential for classics starting on Thursday, powerhouses meeting powerhouses. A series of heavyweight showdowns that are unlikely to disappoint.
Other thoughts from the first weekend of the tournament:
Snubble trouble
While much has been made of the Big East going 6-0 after receiving only three bids, the ACC may have authored the even more impressive performance by a conference.
The Big East’s three teams, Connecticut, Marquette and Creighton, were seeded first, second and third, respectively, and only the Huskies faced a singledigit seed in No. 9 seed Northwestern on Sunday.
The Big East was ranked second by KenPom.com, after all. The ACC was fifth, and was dismissed most of the year for continuing its downward spiral of recent years.
But the league has the most representatives in the Sweet 16: No. 1 North Carolina, No. 4 Duke, No. 6 Clemson and N.C. State, a bidstealer who has caught fire.
Clemson produced the most impressive win with its upset of third-seeded Baylor on Sunday, while North Carolina and Duke both cruised with a pair of easy victories. Only Virginia, which didn’t deserve a bid and showed why in an ugly First Four loss to Colorado State, disappointed.
Unstoppable force vs. immovable object
Of all the Sweet 16 matchups that piqued my interest, and there are several, the game that stands out the most is the East Region semifinal between No. 2 Iowa State and No. 3 Illinois in Boston. It features the No. 1 offense in Illinois against the No. 1 defense in Iowa State.
The Cyclones allow 61.2 points per game, the fourth-fewest in the country. The Illini score 84.6, the 12th-most.
Watching Illinois superstar Terrence Shannon Jr., who is averaging 31.6 points in five postseason games, face Iowa State’s suffocating perimeter defense will be must-see stuff.
Mountain strange
It wasn’t just that five of the six Mountain West teams lost this weekend after what was a banner year for the conference. It was the fashion in which they were eliminated.
Ninth-seeded Utah State looked like a No. 16 seed in the second round against No. 1 Purdue on Sunday in a 39-point shellacking. No. 11 New Mexico, a trendy upset pick, was stomped by Clemson. Experts felt Boise State deserved better than the First Four, and it got manhandled by Colorado. Colorado State was given the gift of facing Virginia in Dayton, but then managed just 44 points in an ugly loss to Texas in the first round. No. 10 Nevada blew a 17-point lead in the final seven minutes against No. 7 Dayton.
Only fifth-seeded San Diego State survived the weekend, and that was after a first-round scare against No. 12 UAB. If you take away the Aztecs, the Mountain West is 2-14 in the tournament since 2019. This certainly didn’t look like a league that deserved more bids than the Big East and the ACC.
Out of their league
Sweet 16 breakdown by conference:
ACC: 4; Big East: 3; SEC: 2; Big Ten: 2; Big 12: 2; Pac-12: 1; Mountain West: 1; WCC: 1.