Sweet 16 of Single-Digit Seeds

Time to review and preview the March Madness:

Best 1st round Buzzer Beater – The Miami Redhawks’ game-ending half-court heave against Oregon. Of course, the Miami Redhawks needed a 5-pointer, not a 3-pointer, so the heave didn’t win the game. Unfortunately for everyone, this was the only buzzer beater in the 1st round!

Worst Coaching in the 1st Round – Notre Dame – They must have given up approximately 15 backdoor layups. The stranger thing was during Notre Dame’s 20-3 run to take the lead against Winthrop, Winthrop forgot that they could get layups whenever they wanted. Then, Winthrop just started punishing Notre Dame again! I only wish there was a transcript of what was going on during the Notre Dame timeouts, as the coach would try to explain to his players why Winthrop kept getting layups.

Ugliest Game of the 1st Round – Virginia Tech-Illinois. Let’s hope we never see anything like it again, where BOTH teams would go scoreless for 5 minutes at a time.

Craziest Game of the 2nd Round – OSU-Xavier – OSU will keep shooting 3s for better or for worse, even if they are off-balanced, falling out of bounds, and have powder thrown in their eyes by Chong Li from Bloodsport. It must be entertaining to watch if you are a basketball fan and it is certainly is nerve-wracking if you are rooting for OSU. Luckily for OSU, the 3s started falling at the end of the game… and Xavier missed a game-clinching free throw.


#1 Seed Most Likely to Lose in the Sweet 16: Obviously, picking the one most likely to lose is a crapshoot. However, I tend to believe that OSU is in the most precarious position, especially with matchups against Tennessee and possibly Texas A&M. Tennessee may just force lots of turnovers, which almost worked the first time these two teams played, back in January.

Mid-Major Most Likely to Do More Damage: I’ve taken a liking to UNLV, and I really like their matchup with Oregon. Of course, if they have to play Florida in the Elite 8, that’s not a favorable matchup, but there are very few teams who could matchup with Florida.

Most Intriguing Matchup: Pitt-UCLA – UCLA Coach Ben Howland takes on his former team… UCLA seems to be struggling of late to put up some points, and this should be a really good game.