This year’s NCAA March Madness tournament has been chaotic, to say the least.
Everyone’s brackets have been broken, and upsets have been the trend. The guessing game of this tournament is the best part of it, because college basketball fans and non-fans can come together for some competitive fun and betting if they so choose.
The month of March is a whirlwind for the NCAA teams who make the tournament, full of thrill and heartbreak.
The first major shocker of the tournament was the #4 Arizona Wildcats losing to the #13 Buffalo Bulls. The game wasn’t close, with Arizona losing 89-68, shocking many college basketball fans, many of whom had Arizona making it to either the Final Four, the championship game, or even selecting them as national champions.
Arizona has what is believed to be a top five pick in this year’s upcoming NBA draft, freshman center DeAndre Ayton, who averaged 20.1 points and 11.6 rebounds on the season. Many fans had faith in him to be able to lead Arizona to a championship, but it just didn’t work out that way.
If that upset sounded insane, the next upset was even better, and a historic one. It was the first time ever in the history of the NCAA March Madness tournament that a #16 seed beat a #1 seed.
The University of Maryland Baltimore County, UMBC, routed top overall seed Virginia 74-54 in a game where UMBC was crazy hot shooting from the field at 54%, and 50% from three. This was also a major upset in the fact that Virginia came into the tournament as the number one defensive team in the country throughout the regular season.
Teams upsetting favorites like this is why March Madness is such a great time of year, because the fans and those with brackets never know what’s going to happen.
Our very own San Diego State made the tournament this year as an 11 seed, and faced sixth seeded Houston.
SDSU lost in a heartbreaker, with senior guard Trey Kell barely missing what would have been the game-wining three pointer at the buzzer after receiving a nice full court pass with 1.1 seconds left.
SDSU played a great game against Houston, but even with junior guard Devin Watson coming up with a few clutch buckets down the stretch to keep it close, SDSU wasn’t able to overcome Houston’s senior guard Rob Gray and his 39 points.
With the first and second rounds wrapping up this past weekend, we now go into the Sweet Sixteen which starts on Thursday. Here is how the matchups are set for the road toward the Final Four:
(11) Loyola-Chicago vs. (7) Nevada
(7) Texas A&M vs. (3) Michigan
(9) Kansas State vs. (5) Kentucky
(9) Florida State vs. (4) Gonzaga
(5) Clemson vs. (1) Kansas
(5) West Virginia vs (1) Villanova
(11) Syracuse vs. (2) Duke
(3) Texas Tech vs. (2) Purdue
Photo courtesy: theringer.com
Photo of Michigan freshman shooting guard Jordan Poole being chased by teammates after hitting a game winning three pointer at the buzzer to defeat Houston in the second round.
Cade Michaelson 
Steve Anderson