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Fa Tournament Research Paper

Decent Essays

It’s the Monday after the opening weekend of the NCAA tournament. What have we learned?

For starters, some of the “chalk” didn’t even make it to the weekend. With apologies to the Michigan State Spartans, Purdue Boilermakers, West Virginia Mountaineers, Texas Longhorns, Arizona Wildcats, California Golden Bears and Baylor Bears, double-digit seeds had their way with some of the big favorites during the first two days of tournament play. Although a 10-seed defeating a 7-seed hardly commands the word “upset”, the 7/10 matchups were split down the middle with each seed prevailing in two games. The top-seeded Kansas Jayhawks, North Carolina Tar Heels, Oregon Ducks and Virginia Cavaliers had little trouble dispatching their 16th-seeded competition. …show more content…

Though No. 11 seed VCU took No. 2 seed Oklahoma to the wire and the No. 6 seed Notre Dame needed a last second tip-in by Rex Pflueger to outlast 14th-seeded Stephen F. Austin, the higher seeds generally held their ground. This year’s Cinderella, Middle Tennessee, lost its glass slipper in a loss to No. 10 seed Syracuse. The win gave Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim his 18th trip to the Sweet 16 as he now trails only Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski for all-time appearances in the round. With a win over a tough Yale team, the Blue Devil’s head coach earned his 23rd trip to the tournament’s second …show more content…

Enter Bronson Koenig, a junior guard whose three-pointer tied the game with 13 seconds left. After Wisconsin guard Zak Showalter drew a charge on Xavier’s Edmond Sumner on the ensuing possession, Wisconsin coach Greg Gard called a timeout to set up the final play with two seconds showing on the clock. According to Gard, the Badgers executed the play exactly how he had drawn it up. Koenig received the inbounds pass from Ethan Happ and nailed a game-winning, step-back three as time expired. As the Badgers celebrated another trip to the Sweet 16, things got even more interesting between Northern Iowa and Texas A&M.

The Panthers and Aggies traded baskets in the first overtime (excuse the foreshadowing), and neither team led by more than three points in the session. Texas A&M senior guard Alex Caruso missed his potential game-winner with one second left, sending the game to a second overtime. Neither team scored in the first minute-plus of the second overtime, but after a free throw gave Northern Iowa an 84-83 lead, Texas A&M went ahead 85-84 on a basket by Jalen Jones. The Aggies never relinquished the lead. In the span of 10:35 of time on the game clock, Northern Iowa went from a 69-57 lead to losing the game

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