Loyola of Chicago reached the “Sweet 16” of the NCAA Tournament and defending champion North Carolina did not.
Also gone from the bracket are No. 1 overall seed Virginia, No. 1 seed Xavier, No. 2 seed Cincinnati and No. 3 seed Michigan State. That’s a lot of royalty to unseat during one frantic weekend of college basketball.
Loyola rolled to the Missouri Valley Conference regular season title, then won the league’s tournament, then advanced by upsetting No. 6 seed Miami and No. 3 seed Tennessee.
At 30-5 with a regular season victory at SEC power Florida this season, the Ramblers aren’t a fluke. They are a serious threat to reach the Final Four.
“This group is resilient,” Loyola coach Porter Moser said Saturday during his team’s news conference. “They believe. We’ve come back from deficits. We’ve lost leads and found ways to win games. You know, they just kept believing.”
And look at the other mid-major teams that believed, too, and won first-round games in this tournament: No. 16 seed UMBC (over Virginia) and No. 13 seeds Buffalo (over Arizona) and Marshall (over Wichita State).
UMBC’s victory was the first by a No. 16 seed over a No. 1 seed in 136 attempts.
Then there were teams that rose from the middle of their conference pack to reach the tournament’s second weekend: No. 11 seed Syracuse, No. 9 seeds Florida State and Kansas State and No. 7 seed Texas A&M. Whew!
This is why Glenda from accounting is winning your office bracket right now. The NCAA Tournament always produces crazy upsets — hence its appeal to casual fans — but there has been more madness than usual this time around.
FACTORS LEADING TO PARITY
College basketball still has its superpowers. Surviving No. 1 seeds Villanova and Kansas are loaded again this season, as are No. 2 seed Duke and under-seeded (No. 5) Kentucky.
So why do we see so many upsets? With elite players just passing through college en route to the NBA, some of the best college teams are also some of the least experienced.
Restless players are also transferring at a record clip. That allows the mid-majors to rescue high-end talent stuck on a power school’s bench. Loyola guard Clayton Custer, who hit the game-winning shot against Tennessee, came from Iowa State.
The single-elimination format puts massive pressure on favored teams. Between all the timeouts and video reviews, college games are still short.
Any team can get hot (UMBC!), any team can go cold (Virginia) and sometimes a desperation three-point shot will fall at the end of a game.
LEONARD HAMILTON EXPLAINS
After leading Florida State past Xavier, Seminoles coach Leonard Hamilton spoke eloquently about this competitive landscape.
“I think what you see happening in college basketball, it’s almost like a revolution,” he said during his Sunday news conference. “And what happens is you start categorizing people by the reputation that their players get going into college. But in reality, kids are playing basketball all over the country and teams are getting better.
“Just because maybe they might not be in one particular conference or maybe they’re not considered to be one of the more traditional rich schools, people are playing basketball. And I really don’t think at this level that you can really call them as much upsets as it’s just what they call March Madness.
“See, sometimes the team that’s the most talented might not necessarily win the game. It’s the team that’s playing well at that particular time. I can’t say that we maybe are extremely — are much better than Xavier, but we were much better than Xavier in the last two and a half minutes of the game. Sometimes when the games are close, that’s all that’s important.
“I think that’s what you see happening there. There are teams that find a way in that moment to get that message and emotional challenge or advantage and they make plays, and that’s why I think the NCAA tournament is the greatest sporting event of all sports.”
Loyola fans would agree, but we’re guessing Virginia coach Tony Bennett is less thrilled with this unpredictability.
