March Madness indeed
I do love me some March Madness, and it got under way Thursday with a flurry of NCAA games throughout the course of the weekend.
I was over-served with basketball games for four days, flipping my television channels from one game to another, and I couldn’t have been happier.
As per usual, I filled out a couple of brackets this year — one with favorites winning their way to the championship, and the other with some favorites and some long shots, too.
After the field of 64 teams was whittled down to 16 on Sunday night, both of my brackets went south.
Literally.
As I watched the games play out, and watched lower seeds get the better of top seeds, I cringed as almost my entire south region bracket became busted!
As I sat there on Sunday night at 9:25 p.m. with 10.1 seconds to play in the Houston/Texas A&M game (Houston being the No. 1-ranked team in the south), and with the Cougars only leading the Aggies by three points, my heart was racing.
The only south team I had left on my favorites bracket (also my best bracket) was Houston making their way to the championship. If they lost, I knew there was no hope for a decent finish.
Granted, I also know that the strange turn of events in the south region has messed with a LOT of people’s brackets, but on my long-shot bracket, I already lost one of the teams in the championship (Wisconsin), and if Houston lost, I’d lose another one on my favorites bracket.
So, with 1.2 seconds to play, I was on the edge of my seat with my eyes glued to the TV.
The Aggies were inbounding the ball under their own basket. Houston was all over their best three-point shooter, denying him the ball. The ball was entered and passed, and Andersson Garcia let it fly on a fadeaway shot from the top of the key. He released, the buzzer blew, and the ball found the bottom of the net, sending the game into overtime.
When Garcia made the shot, though I still wanted Houston to win, I had to admit that I wouldn’t have been mad if Texas A&M pulled out the upset.
After all, Cinderella stories are what make this time of year a little bit magical.
Houston went on to pull out the win, so saved what was left of my bracket, but it was a great game to watch!
Saturday night’s last game of the night was also one for the history books. This one was in the midwest bracket and it had the No. 3-ranked Bluejays of Creighton battling it out into double overtime to defeat the No. 11-ranked Oregon Ducks in what has been deemed the best game of the tournament (the Houston game notwithstanding).
The Ducks were in control of the game for most of the contest, but there was never more than a six point differential between the two teams throughout regulation and overtime number one. Creighton was down two, but hit a shot to force the game to its first OT, then Oregon hit a well-contested three-pointer to send the game into double OT.
By that time, the Ducks had run out of gas against a much deeper Bluejay bench, so Creighton extended their lead to take the hard-fought victory.
But, again, it was a fantastic game that had fans on the edges of their seats waiting to see if there could be an upset sending Oregon to the Sweet 16.
After the dust from the weekend settled and with all of the upsets and unexpected drama played out, a pretty rare situation is unfolding in the NCAA tournament, and could bode well for my favorites bracket.
Even after 11 of the lower seeds got first round upset wins (five of those being in the south bracket), for only the fifth time since the NCAA tournament began seeding in 1979, all eight teams seeded number one and number two are advancing to the Sweet 16.
I can’t wait for Thursday to see how much madness this next round has in store for us.