March Madness Continues to Excite Fans Everywhere
Every year, March Madness finds a way to shock fans across the nation and this year they did it again in many ways by having the second, No. 1 seed to ever lose in the first round to a No. 16 seed.
This March Madness started off with crazy upsets from the No. 1 seed Purdue University losing to the No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson University, as well as a No. 2 seed the University of Arizona losing in the first round. This also marked the first time a No. 1 and No. 2 seed both lost in the same tournament.
Eddie Parry, a Wilmington University student from Levittown said this about the upsets- “I think that every year a top seed is going to fall, but it seems like every year more and more upsets occur, and they are becoming bigger as the years go on.”
These two teams are not only upset because the No. 13 seed Furman University beat the No. 4 seed University of Virginia, as well as No. 11 University of Pittsburgh beat No. 6 seed Iowa State.
Those were all the first-round major upsets, and Harlod Landman, a Bucks County Community College student, 23, from Levittown said they were “Super embarrassing, especially for Purdue. The expectations are high and for one not to win their quadrant (Bracket), just terrible.”
The upsets do not stop there with the No. 15 seed, Princeton University, who beat the No. 2 seed and won two games by upsetting No. 7, University of Missouri. Another No. 2 seed Marquette University was taken down in the second round to the No. 7 Michigan State.
The last second-round upset was the No. 1 seed University of Kansas, who won the championship last year, got taken out by the No. 8 seed, University of Arkansas. Landman said, “It’s difficult to do – they lost a key guard and forward.”
He added, “The transfer portal allowed other teams to increase their talent, so I’m not surprised.”
The last upset came from the Cinderella team, Florida Atlantic University, which made it to the Final Four for the first time in the college’s history. They took down one of the best defensive teams, the No. 4 University of Tennessee, as well as one of the best offensive teams, No. 3 seed Kansas State.
For as fun as Cinderella’s story was, they were taken out by San Diego State University who made the championship. The first team they beat was the No. 12 seed College of Charleston and then beat No. 13, Furman. They took down the No. 1 seed University of Alabama which was given the first No. 1 over the University of Houston, Kansas and Purdue.
Alabama was the heavy favorite to win the championship once they moved past them, they faced Creighton University and just scrapped by winning by one point. Then beat, as mentioned, Florida Atlantic on a buzzer-beater by another one-point win.
On the other side of the bracket was the University of Connecticut which dominated everyone on their path first taking down No. 13 University of Iona in a 24-point win then moved right on by No. 5 Saint Mary’s University in a 25-point dominating victory.
Next came No. 3 Gonzaga University winning by their largest margin of 28 points.
The final two games came against No. 5 University of Miami beating them by 13 points, the smallest margin of victory over a team they had in the entire tournament.
In the championship Game, it was San Diego vs. Connecticut, and Connecticut was in a decent lead for the most part of the first half going into halftime up 36-24.
Eddie Parry said before the game started on who will win- “They (UConn) have a history of being good in the tournament, and this tournament they have blown out all of their opponents.”
It was looking like Connecticut was going to do it early, but credit to San Diego, they went on a 9-0 run cutting the lead down to 6 points. Connecticut answered right back with a 7-0 run of their own with a little less than three minutes left in the game giving them a 12-point lead San Diego was out of time to get back in.
Had they not tried to foul everyone to catch up in this game it would have been a closer score and more interesting but; they lost to Connecticut 76-59 making them 5-0 in the Championship games.