On to the Round of 16 in the College Basketball Tournament. See what you miss and start predicting on OG.com today.
Basketball
By Sam Bloomquist
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The first weekend of the tournament has come and gone. We’ve seen a top seed fall, a play-in team make it through the weekend, and a handful of insane buzzer-beating shots. Now, with 15 games left in the college basketball season, we will get down to who has enough left in the tank to win a championship. What makes this tournament so compelling is that it’s a pretty flat landscape at the top. Between teams like Arizona, Duke, Michigan, Houston, Illinois, Connecticut, St. John’s, among others, it really wouldn’t be all that surprising if any of these teams were the one cutting down the nets. With the competition stiffer than maybe it’s ever been, let’s move into next weekend, where we will crown the winner of each region in the rounds of 16 and 8.
Predicting the Winner of The Tournament’s East Region
If anyone wants to complain about this tournament “being too chalky”, look no further than the East Region. A majority of this region held serve over the first weekend. The only two “upsets” in this corner of the bracket were and Both of those games were coin flips that featured spreads below two points at close, and were decided by two points. But that’s all right because that tees up some extremely interesting matchups for the round of 16.
Predicting the Winner of The Tournament’s West Region
The West Region featured the biggest upset of the first round, when 12 High Point upset 5 Wisconsin on Thursday afternoon. Thanks to their top-three-scoring offense and a rainstorm of three-pointers, High Point became the lowest seed to win a game in the first round. Their reward was facing the second-ranked scoring offense in 4 Arkansas, who came out on top in a high-scoring 94-88 win.
The West Region also has the only double-digit seed that survived the first weekend of the tournament in 11 Texas. Texas had to win three games to make it to the Round of 16, as they faced NC State in a play-in game earlier in the week. That allowed them to make the general field and get matched up with 6 BYU and projected Pro Basketball top-pick AJ Dybantsa in the first round. Texas held on to beat BYU 79-71 despite 35 points from Dybantsa. Next round, they successfully pulled the upset on 3 Gonzaga, who was without their best player, Braden Huff, after suffering a knee injury in January.
Predicting the Winner of The Tournament’s South Region
Despite a couple of double-digit seeds winning in the West Region, the upset of the tournament so far resides in the South Region. On Sunday night, the reigning champions, 1 Florida, fell to 9 Iowa. Iowa had built a 12-point lead on Florida in the second half, but after a few elite runs, Iowa found themselves in a close game with under a minute left. Trailing by two with the final seconds ticking off the clock, they net a dagger three-pointer to knock off the team that cut the nets down just a season ago. Now, the South Region’s pre-tournament favorite is eliminated, and we will not have a back-to-back champion this season.
On the other side of the bracket, we have a compelling matchup between 2 Iowa State and 6 Tennessee. Iowa State was in the conversation for a one seed late in the season, but fell short to the likes of Florida and Arizona. They matched up with 15 Tennessee State in the first round, and despite winning 108-74, they lost their star forward, Joshua Jefferson, to an ankle injury. After trying to find a rhythm without Jefferson in the lineup in their next game against 7 Kentucky, they fell into a deep hole early on. They trailed 20-9 in what was one of their worst offensive halves of the season, but finally found their footing and won convincingly 82-63. Now, they’ll face Tennessee, who pulled the upset over 3 Virginia in the last round. Tennessee has plenty to play for in their own right, as the team has never made the round of four in program history. Our prediction markets give them a 12% chance to break that trend this year. They’ll need to get by the heavy-hitting cast of 1 Michigan, 2 Iowa State, and 4 Alabama to do so.
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