The Dance - BIG and what is an upset? Four lower seeds advance in day one.
This weekend - the Dance opens and moves from 64 teams to the Sweet Sixteen. It's one of the most anticipated weekends in college sports. A lot of action - close games - and upsets.
Five B1G teams played yesterday and three advanced - Northwestern (7) , Maryland (8), and Penn State (10). The two teams that came up short were Iowa (8) and Illinois (9).
Three B1G teams play today -
- MSU (7) begins the action hosting USC (10) in Columbus at 12:15 pm EDT on CBS,
- Purdue (1) plays Farleigh Dickinson (16) in Columbus at 6:50 pm EDT on TNT, and
- Indiana (4) faces Kent State (13) in Albany in one of the last starts at 9:55 pm EDT - TBS.
Four lower seeded teams, or 25% of the field, won their opening round games on day one.
- Princeton (15) over Arizona (2),
- Furman (13) over Virginia (4),
- Penn State (10) over Texas A&M (7), and
- Auburn (9) over Iowa (8).
Technically, all four of these games were "upsets". However, I don't think a 9 over an 8 is an upset. I would definitely draw a line at 11 over 6, and - am not sure if the Penn State (10) over A&M (7) would count. IMO - Princeton's and Furman's wins - are notable - and part of what makes the tourney so enjoyable to watch.
So, what do you define as an upset?
And - today - are there any upsets you're thinking will happen?
- USC (10) over MSU (7),
- VCU (12) over St. Mary's (5),
- Pitt (11) over Iowa State (6),
- Providence (11) over Kentucky (6),
- Drake (12) over Miami (5),
- Arizona State (11) over TCU (6)
- Other games with upset potential....
Enjoy the games and the weekend.
P.S. Michigan plays at Vandy tomorrow - noon EDT on ESPN, and that game lines up against the opening game in the NCAA which is Furman vs San Diego State on CBS at 12:10 pm EDT.
9 seed -- tossup game
10/11 seed wins -- minor upset
12/13 seed wins -- upset (Virginia twice in three years?)
14/15 seed wins -- major upset (2016 Middle Tenn State over MSU)
16 seed wins -- legendary upset (2018 UMBC over Virginia)
Edit: should've had Murray State and Popeye Jones beating MSU as a 1 seed back in 1990, but alas.
March 17th, 2023 at 11:06 AM ^
Respectfully disagree on the 5 vs. 12 games. If the 12s win more than a third of the time, I think that gets you outside of "upset" territory.
https://www.basketballinsiders.com/news/march-madness-the-history-of-no-12-seeds-over-no-5-seeds/
I think you start getting significant mismatches in the 4 vs. 13 games.
I am fading the Big Ten.
Any one of those teams can lose to just about anyone.
Purdue sets up OK with their seed but they are so reliant on freshman with the ball in their hands.
Illinois looked bad but man is Terrance Shannon a stud. That Auburn/Iowa game was ugly to watch.
The way the Big Ten played this year (except for Purdue), it seems to be an upset whenever one of its teams wins a tournament game.
4 of the 5 Big 10 teams playing Thurs.were underdogs,2 of 4 won outright.Only fav NW won and covered.
McCaffrey and Underwood fail to get out of 1st Weekend AGAIN.....Tennessee's Barnes wins close on to up his Tourney record to 26-26,that's only 1 win per year...Penn St.puts in a 3 point shooting clinic..NW gives up 17? Offensive rebounds but never trails..Gumbel is 75 years old but has jet black hair,ain't fooling anybody dude.
If they ever end up firing McCaffrey, they'd need to hire a body guard or some form of security. That guy is unhinged.
My general feeling is that seeds 7-10 are basically all equal - we're talking about teams that were middling P5 teams or upper-quarter mid-major programs. That makes them all about equal, so any "upsets" there are more on the rankings than the opponent quality.
I agree Princeton and Furman were actual upsets that were shocking, even with UVa being a consistently mediocre tournament team save for that one magical run to a title.
My guess is MSU beats USC today in an ugly, dumb game. Pitt probably beats ISU and I wouldn't be shocked in Providence beat UK. But I don't think we'll see another 2/15 upset or anything.
Andrew Funk goes 8-10 from 3 for Penn State!
March 17th, 2023 at 11:19 AM ^
And one miss was a desperate end fo clock 25 footer with a guy in his face. Best college 3 shooting game I've ever seen.
I watched the wrestling NCAA's yesterday. Without Michigan, March Madness doesn't interest me all that much. I couldn't tell you anything about what happened yesterday in basketball. I can tell you Mason Parris can really move as a heavyweight. I can tell you that Spencer Lee is the most dominate wrestler I've seen in years. I can tell you I'm rooting for David Carr since I wrestled for his uncle and with his cousin and I always cheer for the Carr family.
Is Vision Quest your favorite movie?
Haha, only watched it one time.
March 17th, 2023 at 10:08 AM ^
I'm a diehard wrestling fan (and was a walk-on at Michigan at one point). Mason Parris is just an athlete, period. I venture to say if he had stayed with football, we would be talking about an early round draft pick, thats how good he really is. The brackets set up nicely for him to have a very interesting finals match with the winner of Kirkvilet/Hendrickson.
Lewan can make AA but I don't expect him to really challenge the top of the bracket. His style is just too conservative.
Amine is the wild card...If his knee holds up, he can go toe to toe with the top 4 seeds in his class.
On to Spence Lee...He has had a dominate run at his weight class that may never be seen again. My ONLY issue with Spencer Lee is that 125 is NOT a good class this year (as shown in the tournament with several top seeds already losing). To me, because of how weak 125 is this year, the shine (again, just my opinion) of Spencer wears off some. For example, in the Penn State dual, he should have bumped up to take on RBY instead of the can that Penn State had at 125.
When I was wrestling (late 90's early 2000's) if you were the guy, you moved around the weight classes because you always wanted to wrestle the other team's "Guy". So, if I were Spencer Lee, I would have bumped up on occasion to wrestle the better competition at 133. Maybe not a permanent move, but absolutely would have taken on RBY in the dual meet.
I do get that. I walked around at 164 and wrestled 160 and 171 for tournaments. For dual meets, I wrestled whichever was the best of group. Yes, there was a 189 match against the number 3 wrestler that year. Didn't win, but it wasn't a major decision, so I was ok with it the loss. I did talk to Coach Bahr briefly, but my academics weren't good enough to do more than that.
I like VCU and, if Indiana doesn't show up ready to rumble, Kent State as well.
The only ones happier than Princeton about their win was Virginia, because no now pays attention to the Cavaliers' epic meltdown.
Love ASU over TCU and I hate ASU and Bobby Hurley.
also love Pitt too.
Drake is a maybe but Miami is good.
Everyone is on Kent St but I don’t know about that one. MAC to me isn’t impressive anymore
March 17th, 2023 at 10:51 AM ^
What did Bobby Hurley ever do to you?
March 17th, 2023 at 10:54 AM ^
His antics on the sideline are completely ridiculous. He does way more screaming at the refs than coaching. Learned it from his dad
March 17th, 2023 at 11:11 AM ^
Went to Duke. That’s enough.
Grayson Allen shrugs his shoulders. Punches grandmother. Krzyzewski didn't see it.
Yeah - UM v the other UM tomorrow night is all I'm interested in at this point.
March 17th, 2023 at 10:14 AM ^
I would ordinarily not favor either team in a game like MSU-USC where I can't stand either. It would really take a lot to get me to want a USC win in anything.
The Sparties I know and follow on social media are REALLY testing me on that though.
March 17th, 2023 at 10:34 AM ^
Go USC, beat tiny tom izziot and his weird guys!!!
March 17th, 2023 at 10:34 AM ^
Dreaded double post 💩.
March 17th, 2023 at 10:52 AM ^
A couple of bad Rose Bowl losses doesn't make me hate USC. It's really easy to root for them over Staee
March 17th, 2023 at 12:45 PM ^
I’m definitely with you in football. I find myself wanting the big ten to do well in the NCAA tourney though. I don’t want MSU to win it all or anything, but I think it’s good when the BIG teams get out of the first round.
March 17th, 2023 at 11:08 AM ^
I don’t really consider anything above a 4 seed losing to be an upset.
March 17th, 2023 at 11:12 AM ^
All I know is that last year at this time, 99.99999% of all brackets were broken.
It is so WONDERFUL to lose that first bracket play-in game.
March 17th, 2023 at 11:44 AM ^
Virginia game I'm terming a very minor upset/not an upset at all. Not just because it happens to UVA all the time (except the year it didn't), but also because they were flat out not good in the regular season this year either. They're 34th on Kenpom--behind two ten seeds and only a couple spots above Rutgers who lost in the first round of the NIT.
Princeton is remarkable because of the way they won. To win teams like that usually have to get hot from 3, but they went 4/25. They out-rebounded a team that was like 6 inches larger at every spot!
March 17th, 2023 at 12:30 PM ^
In the last 5 minutes Princeton twice got a rebound because their guy hustled to the ball and Arizona just had 3 guys standing around doing god knows what. Princeton didn't play particularly well, but they played hard. Arizona took a double digit lead and then mailed it in in terms of effort. Absolutely embarrassing display from them.
March 17th, 2023 at 11:54 AM ^
Go Trojans!!
Upset minded Furman will get a lot of eyeballs but Mich at Vandy will get it's share-Go Blue!!
March 17th, 2023 at 12:33 PM ^
I think the Vegas line should determine what constitutes an upset or not. I've seen 11s and even 12s favored over their first-round opponents. Seedings are generally a reflection of a team's season, not necessarily their ability.
Interesting take and there's some truth to that with seeding. Ability of a team does come into play with KenPom and similar metrics though, which play a small role in seeding.
I would say a 13-15 seed winning is a notable upset; 12 is an upset; 10 or 11 is maybe a semi-upset depending on what you said about the spread. Im also basing this on historical win %s by seed. There's a significant drop-off from 12 (win 35% of the time) to 13 (win 20% of the time).
Fairleigh Dickinson was my undergrad school. Got to root for them against Purdue. GO FDU!
Today’s sessions… thus far.. are looking “chalky”.
As a fan of KAOS, this is disappointing… Fingers are crossed for some afternoon and evening upsets…