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-The only Sweet Sixteen game that featured two protected seeds ended up being one of the biggest clunkers of the whole day, and perhaps even the whole tournament.  Neither Florida State or Michigan looked all that much like protected seeds, or for that matter even NCAA Tournament teams, for a good portion of that game, but Michigan finally pulled it together and ended up waxing the Seminoles.  The Noles picked perhaps the worst day possible to have one of their worst days of the season.

-USC opened it up against Oregon and has earned the right to take on Gonzaga.  Everyone has been impressed with the Zags, and rightfully so, but USC has blown through some really good teams in this tournament as well, so there is perhaps reason to think they can step up on the Zags and give them a game.  Speaking of the Zags…

-It’s crazy to say this, but I thought Creighton played really well for a lot of that game.  They hung tough in the first half, they kept playing hard when Gonzaga opened it up, and did a lot of things right.  They still got blown out, but Creighton looked pretty good.  That is the level of Good that Gonzaga is on.  They can play a really good opponent, that team can play really well, and Gonzaga still wins huge.

-UCLA took down Alabama in the only game of the day that was exciting, but DAMN was it exciting!!  Just about ten days ago, UCLA was down to Michigan State by double digits and no one thought they’d make it this far.  Shortly before that, there was debate over whether or not UCLA belonged in at all.  Funny how quickly things can change…

As for tonight’s games…

-IT’S AN OLD FASHION SOUTHWEST CONFERENCE SHOWCASE!!  We’ve got Baylor and Arkansas in one game, and Houston taking on outsider Oregon State in the other.  Both games have fascinating story lines…

-Baylor was bad at basketball for the longest time, and really exploded onto the scene under Scott Drew.  They are now a blue blood and while they’ve been this far before, they’ve not been to the Final Four since he arrived.

-Arkansas has a rich basketball history, but this is their first time getting past the second weekend since 1996 and they are on the cusp of making it to the Final Four.

-Oregon State is a team that three weeks ago no one thought would be in the NCAA Tournament, and they wouldn’t have been had they not won the Pac 12 Tourney, but are now just one game away from the Final Four.  This is a team that throughout its history almost never makes the NIT, but that now has a chance of going to the Final Four.

-Houston was a basketball wasteland prior to the arrival of Kelvin Sampson.  That program is now back on the national stage and has a chance catapult its brand over the moon if they can win tonight.

It should be fun!  Enjoy the games!!

-Oregon State marches on!!  That is five top 25 wins in a row for a team that almost no one gave any thought to on the Thursday of the Pac 12 Tournament.  They are now in the Elite Eight after knocking off a very good defensive Loyola Chicago team, and are perhaps the most improbable team to ever advance to an Elite Eight.  I don’t know that any team who was in virtually no bracketology projections at any point of the season and who needed the automatic bid just to get in has ever gone all the way to the Elite Eight.  The Loyola program is still in the midst of a great run.  It was their second Sweet Sixteen appearance in the last four years, and given how things are going the run may not be over.  We may see more NCAA Tournaments and top 25 rankings in their future.  Yesterday’s game was a bit of a rock fight, but it was one of those that guaranteed a good and historic story regardless of how it came out.

-Villanova was riddled by injuries, but still hung in with Baylor for pretty much the entire game.  While they didn’t get the win, they demonstrated as much valor as they ever have not just yesterday, but in winning their first two games.  Speaking of surprises…

-I don’t think anyone (aside from maybe Rocco Miller) picked Oral Roberts to go any further than the semifinals of the Summit League Tournament.  They took Arkansas all the way to the wall yesterday after leading for most of the game, staying in the game when Arkansas finally got the momentum to go back their way, and getting off what could have been a game winning shot after Arkansas went ahead with less than three seconds to go. It was an unbelievable and unforgettable run that almost saw a #15 seed who finished in 4th place of a 1-bid league go all the way to the Elite Eight.  This Oral Roberts team was a ton of fun to watch, and while it stings for them to end the way that it did (because it always does when you lose that last game) it was still amazing.  Arkansas, on the other hand, has a good story of their own.  They are back in the Elite Eight for the first time since 1995 and will face an old conference rival in Houston, who ran away from Syracuse in their Sweet Sixteen game last night.

-Houston is another good story.  They were once a powerhouse, then they became a wasteland, and then they started to improve but still weren’t nationally relevant, and now they are a top 25 regular, an NCAA Tournament regular, and are just one win away from a Final Four.

As for today’s games…

-Gonzaga is looking to make their 4th Elite Eight in the last six NCAA Tournaments, and while Creighton has looked good in their two wins to make the Sweet Sixteen, Gonzaga seems to be far superior.  The question for the Zags seems to be how much longer until a team is able to compete with them?  Creighton is in their first Sweet Sixteen of the 64 team era, so even if their ride does end today, it was still a historic season for a program and fanbase that is very passionate and given their history probably deserved to get this far.

-USC and Oregon are conference rivals and both come into this game with a huge head of steam.  USC obliterated Kansas in the round of 32, and Oregon ran away from an Iowa team that many thought was as good as a #1 seed.  USC won when these two met about a month ago, but you almost have to throw out that result given that it might as well have been a year ago.

-Michigan and Florida State is the only Sweet Sixteen game that features two protected seeds.  Both teams are on fire, both are on a roll, and both are capable of making the Final Four if they win this game.  It should be fun.

-UCLA, who was in the First Four, squares off against an Alabama team that has been on an absolute rampage all season long.  Alabama can score in a lot of ways, and UCLA is a very tough defensive team, so it should be a fun game of contrasting styles.

-And, like yesterday, I’ll probably DVR the games, start watching this evening, speed through all the timeouts, halftimes, and time between games, and catch up to live action in the second half of the last game.  So, if I’m not on Twitter sharing all of my valuable knowledge and insights, that is why!  I hated pretty much everything about COVID, but I do like not having any of the games staggered in the Sweet Sixteen and being able to watch all the games in their entirety on on TV set!!

-Another bit of a silver lining to a season that has had a lot of lead in it, we will get to see all eight Sweet Sixteen games this year with no overlap!  In other words, I won’t need two different TV screens anymore this tournament!

-Oregon State and Loyola Chicago face off in a game that almost no one would have had in their brackets two weeks ago, much less predicted prior to the start of the conference tournaments.  And, it should actually be a fun one!  Loyola Chicago has been a good team all year, but no one expected them to control Illinois from tip to buzzer the way they did in the Round of 32.  Oregon State was rather unspectacular for most of the season, but has been on a rampage since the conference tournaments started and now has a chance to get to the Elite Eight.

-I didn’t expect Nova to do much of anything in this tournament, and while some may argue that their bracket fell apart because their path to the sweet Sixteen went through a #12 and a #13 seed, I would respond by saying those was a damn good Winthrop team and a damn good North Texas team and I wasn’t really expecting them to beat either one.  I have nothing against Nova, but for the third time this tournament I’m picking against them.  Baylor is just too damn good and Nova still isn’t as good as they would be without the injuries.  But…I’ve been wrong twice already.

-Oral Roberts has been on a crazy fun ride since the semifinals of their conference tournament.  I’ve also picked against them twice (really four times if you go back to the Summit Tournament) and been wrong twice.  I’m picking against them again today against Arkansas.  This is a Razorbacks team that is on fire and that I think will win rather easily today.

-Syracuse is a double digit seed, and as has been pointed out that’s when they always seem to win big.  Houston has had a magical year, and really a magical few years when you consider just how irrelevant they were in the college basketball world shortly before Sampson got there.  They are now one step away from the Elite Eight and appear to have a rather wide path to going to the Final Four.  I remember really liking this team back in 2018 when Michigan knocked them out of the Round of 32 with a crazy half court shot.  Michigan went on to advance all the way to the National Championship game and while I don’t think Houston would have made it that far, I did think they had it in them to maybe win one more game and really get some limelight back on a program that hadn’t seen much in a long time.  Well, the Cougs have certainly bounced back!  Now all they have to do is get past a Syracuse team that, like a lot of previous Syracuse teams, looked mediocre for much of the season, but has looked amazing in the first two rounds of The Tournament.

-So, virtually every game of the Tournament has been amazing so far!  It’s an unusual day with it being a Monday and us having games during the work day, but I guess everyone’s work will just have to suffer.

-Loyola Chicago basically led Illinois tip to buzzer and knocked them off for one of the more surprising results of the NCAA Tournament 71-58.  A lot of people (like myself) were very impressed with how good the Illini looked and thought they’d basically walk into the Final Four.  Now, a lot of people are suddenly up in arms about how Loyola Chicago was only seeded #8th.  While I don’t entirely disagree, I also can’t help but notice that on Selection Sunday you saw no such outcries.  And, the committee can only evaluate what is there.  Had Loyola Chicago played a full OOC schedule and had it been a normal year they would have perhaps shown that they were better than an 8 seed caliber team.  As would have UC Santa Barbara.  As would have some other teams.

-I have to steal a line from Chad Sherwood.  I will NEVER doubt Syracuse as an #11 seed again!!  They knocked off West Virginia after managing to stay in front of them for the entire game and move on to the Sweet Sixteen.  As an #11 seed.  Again.

-Rutgers played a fantastic game against Houston for about 38 minutes and appeared to be putting the icing on the cake in order to move on to the Sweet Sixteen, but they fell apart in the last two minutes and appeared to try to play the clock too much and the game too little.  A lot of credit to Houston for how they stormed back and got the win.  This is a program that has really built itself up under Kelvin Sampson.  They are now back in the Sweet Sixteen and actually have a very manageable path to go all the way to the Final Four.

-Oral Roberts is not the first #15 seed to make the Sweet Sixteen, but they are just the second team to do it, and I’m pretty sure they are the first fourth place finisher out of a one bid league to do it.  Going back to the semifinals of the Summit League Tournament, Oral Roberts’ wins have been by 2pts, 3pts, 3pts in OT, and 3pts.  They have also been the lower seeded team in each of those games.  That is one hell of a ride!!

-When I said I thought North Texas would beat Villanova, I was wrong.  Very very wrong.  Nova blasted them out of the building 84-61.

-When we laughed at Rocco Miller the time he said he liked Oregon State almost a month ago, we were wrong.  Very very wrong.  Oregon State is on a rampage.  They’ve now won four in a row against ranked teams, and a game against UCLA before that four game stretch began.

As for today’s action…

-Texas Tech and Arkansas looked like it was going to be a classic, and it was.  The momentum shifted back and forth throughout the game and it came down to the last possession with Texas Tech coming up short.  Arkansas is back in the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 1996, which is kind of hard to believe.

-Oregon and Iowa features two teams that seem to have improved down the stretch.  Iowa can still struggle defensively, but they have gotten noticeably better and it wouldn’t shock me to see them move on today.  Oregon was playing really well in a Pac 12 Conference that we’ve seen perform well in this tournament.  This is just a really fun Round of 32 match-up between two solid top 25 caliber teams.

-Oklahoma struggled down the stretch, but managed to win their first round game.  They’ll take on Gonzaga, who seemingly hasn’t struggled in about a year and a half.

-Abilene Christian makes the Round of 32 after winning an exciting (but some what sloppy) game against Texas!  They face a UCLA team that appeared to be falling apart at the end of the season, but has won their First Four game and their Round of 64 game, and is now poised to go to the Sweet Sixteen!  This round has always been a hurdle for head coach Mick Cronin.  Out of all the good teams he had at Cincinnati, they oftentimes struggled to get past the first weekend.  Perhaps this year he got his struggling out of the way in the latter part of the regular season??

-Ohio has been a damn good team when they’ve been at full strength, and we saw that the other day when they picked up a hard fought win against Michigan.  Today they face a Creighton team that barely got by a very good UC Santa Barbara team.  This will not be an easy match-up for the Blue Jays.

-LSU had played well in the latter part of the season and looked good in their first round game.  They’ve got a very tall order against a very good Michigan team today.

-Colorado and Florida State is a fun match-up between two teams that you feel could beat pretty much anyone on a given night if they were to play at the top of their game, so this one should be fun.

-Maryland has been hot lately, but Alabama has been read hot.  They Tide did get a bit of a scare from Iona in their first game, but I wouldn’t read too much in to that.  They’re set up to go deep into this tournament.

-USC and Kansas is another good game between two solid top 25 caliber teams.  Kansas has had some hurdles down the stretch and had a bit of a scare from Eastern Washington in their first game, but got through it and face a really tough USC team tonight.