The West had a very interesting start to the tournament with a number of nail-biters and even a couple of upsets.
The West bracket started off early with powerhouse Duke taking on the University of North Carolina Wilmington Seahawks. What should have been a walk in the park for the Blue Devils turned out to be a hard fought game, and if not for the heroics of Senior Marshall Plumlee in the second half we could have easily had a repeat of Mercer. Final score was 93-85 for Duke who face Yale next round.
The game between Yale and Baylor can be summed up in Taurean Prince’s answer to “How did Yale out-rebound you”. Prince gave an amazing answer, describing the fundamentals of grabbing a simple rebound. Baylor had a chance to win the game but turned the ball over with less than ten seconds left to give Yale the 79-75 win. Yale will have to take on Duke in the next round.
The Oregon Ducks easily swept a startled Holy Cross team aside and silenced the haters with a convincing 91-52 win. The Ducks sure looked like a number one seed last night and will look to fly right over St. Joseph’s next round.
In a battle between 8 and 9 seeds, St.Josephs had a tough match-up against the defensive tank that is Cincinnati. St. Joes squeaked by 78-76 and will be in tough against the Run and Gun Oregon Ducks next round.
Holy upset alert! We love the Madness of half-court buzzer beaters for the win. The University of Northern Iowa (ya we don’t know who they are either) just took down the Texas Longhorns in one the surprise wins of the tournament so far. Isaiah Taylor’s 22 points were not enough to keep his Longhorns in the tournament, losing 75-72. The whole world is going to be rooting for UNI against Texas A&M next round.
In what would be described as a blowout, Texas A&M swept aside 92-65. Fortunately they have to face Cinderella school UNI next round and should not have a problem, except that’s what everyone thought about Texas and look what happened to them.
Surprise, Surprise, VCU are making another tournament run. The Rams always seem to make a splash in March and, even without coach Shaka Smart, they keep on winning, beating Oregon State 75-67. Good luck stopping Buddy Hield next round.
Speaking of Buddy Hield, the future NBA’er put on a masterful display against CSU Bakersfield yesterday, scoring 27 points and leading his Sooners to 82-68 win.
