March Madness lacking upsets in the early stages, top seeds advance easily

• The early games on day one of the NCAA tournament produced just a single upset. 12-seed McNeese took down five-seed Clemson.
• The rest of the favorites in the early session Thursday, March 20, had a relatively easy time advancing to the second round.
• Top seeds Houston and Auburn crush their 16-seeded opponents.

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With the exception of one big underdog, the ‘Madness’ that symbolizes the NCAA tournament hasn’t really happened so far on day one. Most of the favorites in the early session Thursday, March 20, had little trouble advancing to the 2nd round.

How did the top seeds fare?

Houston, the top seed in the Midwest region, destroyed Southern Illinois Edwardsville. They showed off their dominant defense by holding the 16-seed SIUE Cougars to just 40 points. 

The South region’s number one seed, Auburn, got a bit of a first-half scare from play-in winner Alabama St., but ultimately, the Tigers won it going away. Bruce Pearl’s guys are ready for their next challenge. The Tigers will take on 8-seed Creighton in the second round on Saturday, March 22.

“One of the things we’ll do, even in a short period of time, we’re going to look at today, we’re going to look at it a little bit and say, okay, this is how we’re going to be done on Saturday against a much better, much bigger, much different kind of a basketball team,” Pearl said. “So, hopefully, we can learn. I’m very pleased with the win. At the end of the day on Saturday, there are going to be 32 teams left, and Auburn is still one of them.”

What was the biggest upset of the early games?

The biggest upset of the early slate Thursday, March 20, was 12-seed McNeese knocking off five-seed Clemson. The Cowboys had an 18-point halftime lead, holding Clemson to just 13 points—their fewest output of the entire season in the first half of a game. McNeese, the Southland Conference champions, got their first NCAA tournament win. Head coach Will Wade announced yesterday he is leaving after the tournament to coach NC State. He’ll get at least one more game on his farewell tour.

“It’s been an absolute narrow focus on winning our first NCAA  Tournament game at McNeese State and continue to change — this is huge for our school. Our enrollment is up 3%,  applications are up 10%. We got freaking $25 million in advertisements in the last couple of weeks,” Wade said. “It’s going through the roof. This changes our area, it changes our five-parish area, it changes everything. We have broken every record in the book. This was the last one to get. We want to keep this going. We want to keep this going.”

McNeese meets last year’s national runner-up, Purdue, in the 2nd round. The Boilermakers beat High Point 75-63. Houston and Gonzaga are on a collision course as well. The Zags jumped out to a 27-3 lead on Georgia and won easily 89-68. If they can knock off number one Houston Saturday, March 20, they will advance to their 10th straight Sweet 16.  

What about some of the other results?

Maybe the most evenly matched game of the early session Thursday, March 20, at least on paper, was 11-seed VCU against six-seed BYU. The Cougars haven’t been to the Sweet 16 in 14 years, but they are one step closer after turning a close game into a rout in the second half. The Cougars shot 50 percent from the floor, led by Richie Saunders, who finished with 16 points. 

“I love it because there’s so many different tools that, um, that we can use as a team, and you know, we just, we were playing fast and sharing the ball, which is, that’s BYU basketball, right there,” Saunders said.

BYU will play Wisconsin, the third seed, in Saturday’s second-round game. The Badgers beat Montana, the 14th seed, by 19 points.