This weekend was undoubtedly, unequivocally the best weekend in sports.
The opening weekend of the NCAA tournament is non-stop action in top level basketball— on which it may or may not be possible to place bets.
Middle Tennessee Darnell Harris (0) and Perrin Buford (2) celebrate as they walk off the court after winning a first-round men’s college basketball game against Michigan State in the NCAA Tournament, Middle Tennessee won 90-81. (Photo by: Associate Press (Charlie Riedel))
Maybe some of us set up four TVs to make sure we didn’t miss a second of the action. Maybe some of us didn’t go to sleep until the wee hours of the morning, instead watching the fourth session of the tournament. Maybe some of us caused a scene at Funky’s when Paul Jesperson hit a half-court shot to beat Texas on Friday night. That Northern Iowa money line was free. So free.
This tournament was destined to ruin brackets from the first day. When Yale upset Baylor on Thursday morning, it was only a sign of times to come for the rest of the tournament.
Later that afternoon, the University of Arkansas Little Rock upset Purdue after being down 12 with three minutes left.
Then, on Friday, Middle Tennessee State decided they’d just wreck everyone’s bracket by upsetting Michigan State. Then Northern Iowa beat Texas. It was an opening weekend full of craziness, wrecked brackets and buzzer-beating shots— or non-buzzer-beating shots, in Cincinnati’s case.
The thing with upsets, however, is that they don’t usually last.
For every 2013 Florida Gulf Coast that advances to the sweet 16 as a 15 seed, there’s a Arkansas Little Rock and a Middle Tennessee State to match them. While, sure, those teams pulled major upsets in the first round and sent everyone to the shredder with their bracket, they were completely mismatched in their second round games. Arkansas Little Rock lost by 17 to Iowa State on Saturday. Middle Tennessee lost by 25 to Syracuse on Sunday. Neither game was that close.
There’s two teams higher than a 10 seed playing in the Sweet 16 next week. Those two teams? Syracuse and Gonzaga. I know that nobody has ever heard of those two teams. They’re the “Little Engine that Could.” Also, both of them played in the elite eight the past three years.
The point, and the reality, is that these upsets are fun. They are. We enjoy the little guy getting spunky and winning a game they shouldn’t— but, on the other hand, these upsets don’t last.
They don’t. Yes, sure, George Mason happened in 2006, but they didn’t win it. Florida ran them off the floor in route to their first of two back to back tittles.
So, we enjoy them. We root for them, but in most cases— pretty much all of the cases— the big boys are winning the championships.
The upsets wreck your brackets, sure, but at the end of the day some big name power conference team will walk off the floor in Houston in two weeks as national champions.
– Collin Brister
