Big upset day in NCAAs: Has the mid-major revolution begun?

In any other college basketball season, four upsets in the eight second-round games played at the NCAA Tournament would be a sign that something big is brewing.

Were those the opening shots in the long-rumored mid-major revolution? Have enough talented kids and smart coaches finally taken up residence at programs outside the Big Six to nudge the balance of power?

Hard to say. Because this one isn't like any other season.

Just two of the teams that won Sunday qualify as mid-majors: eighth-seeded Loyola of Chicago, which manhandled No. 1 seed Illinois from the get-go and won 71-58; and 15th-seeded Oral Roberts, which used a late run to squeeze past Florida 81-78. The other two upsets were No. 12 Oregon State fending off fourthseeded Oklahoma State 80-70, and No. 11 Syracuse smothering third-seeded West Virginia just enough to win 75-72.

But it felt like the little guys' day. After becoming only the second No. 15 seed to make the Sweet 16, ORU coach Paul Mills updated his numbers-don't-mean-anything postgame speech from the upset over Ohio State.

"We," Mills said bravely, since his Golden Eagles will face No. 3 Arkansas in the next round, "are not capitulating to anybody here."

Meanwhile, four more of the 16 teams in action Monday can call themselves mid-majors, including overall top seed Gonzaga, and two more, Creighton and Ohio, who are playing each other. If Abilene Christian somehow manages to pull the rug out from under UCLA, that's three more mid-majors for a total of five in the Sweet 16. Which would indeed be something big.

But it's possible, too, that something a bit more subtle is going on.

Because of the pandemic, teams had to navigate a stop-and-start regular season, then slapdash conference tournaments and then get seeded by an NCAA selection committee that, lacking the usual comparisons, might as well have been playing "Eenie meenie miney mo."

Mid-majors are used to being treated as an afterthought. In normal seasons, they don't have the budget to smooth out all the rough spots, and because they're always farther back in the recruiting line, their players stick around because precious few are good enough to turn pro early. Nearly every time they venture out the conference, they do so as underdogs.