The term “March Madness” is trademarked by the NCAA for it’s men’s basketball tournament. Graphic from the NCAA on Wikimedia .
Sixty-four teams began their quest to win a national championship on Thursday, March 16, and Friday, March 17th. Even accomplishing the goal of making it to the NCAA’s out of nearly 400 teams, will not compensate for the heartbreak that all teams but one will experience when their season comes to an end. Team get put in four separate regions and are ranked 1-16. Only once has a 16 seed defeated a 1 seed, that was in 2016 when UMBC took down the favorites, Virginia. However, that number grew come the weekend.
Friday night, prime time, #1 seed Purdue vs #16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU). David vs Goliath. Purdue came into the tournament as champions of the Big-10 conference while FDU got in by being the top team in the Northeast Conference (NEC). Purdue was a whopping 23 point favorite to win the game, it would take a monumental upset for FDU to move on.
The small quaint campus of FDU in North Jersey. Photo from wikimedia Trinitarian Creek
To everyones besides FDU coach Tobin’s Andersons’ surprise, by the end of the night FDU was victorious 63-58. It rocked the college basketball world, and it felt as if the whole country were now FDU fans. Anderson made a pretty bold statement for the coach of an underdog the day before the game, he said, “The more I watch Purdue the more I think we can beat them”. The classic march-madness cinderella story. The slipper no longer fit for FDU when they were defeated by the #9 seed Florida Atlantic University on Sunday night.
Princeton head coach Mitch Henderson. Photo from wikimedia Tdoran2911
This was the largest but not the only upset of the weekend. #15 seed Princeton took down #2 Arizona on Thursday night as well. The Ivy league champs did not end the mayhem after the win over the arguable top team in the West, they then defeated #7 seed Missouri by a sizable amount, 78-63. A truly special week for head coach Mitch Henderson who was a class of 1998 graduate from Princeton. Special considering this is the best finish Princeton has had in Basketball since Hendersons senior year when they finished the season ranked 8th overall in the nation. The highest an Ivy league team has been ranked in recent history. This Princeton squad will be moving on to the “sweet 16” where the will face off against Creighton on this coming Thursday.
The last relatively large upset of the weekend came between Virginia and Furman, one of the first games of the tournament on Thursday afternoon. Furman coming in as a 13 seed while Virginia was a #4 seed. Virginia was up at halftime, and still up with just seconds left in the game but a crucial mistake and a big shot, pushed the games in Furmans favor. The final, Furman 68, Virginia, 67. The second time in the last five years Virginia has been on the wrong end of a huge upset. Luckily they did climb the mountain rather recently, they can still boast being 2019 National Champions, but still salt in the wound after the upset loss. Furman player Jalen Swanson said postgame “we have known we can play with anybody in the country“. Another showing of these small name teams being better than expected, it usually just does not get shown till March because they don’t get the chance to play high-level opponents in the regular season
UConn head coach Dan Hurley will try to lead his Huskies to a Championship. Photo from wikimedia Liam Enea
Lastly, a quick look at some local teams that made it to the NCAA’s. Only three teams from New England were in the field. From the Big East conference,#4 seed Connecticut and #11 seed Providence College. Then champions of the America East conference, #15 seed Vermont. Only one of three were able to advance to the second round, and then the Sweet 16, and that was UConn. They took down Iona on Thursday then defeated St. Marys of California on Saturday. Vermont fell to Marquette, and on Friday night Kentucky took down Providence. UConn advances to the sweet 16 to face Arkansas, still with a chance to make a run at a National Championship.
Here’s what the Sweet 16 will look like going into next week.
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