Close Call!
Before we get into the NCAA tournament recap, let's talk about the fact that the Radford University softball team is facing USC Upstate this weekend in the opener of their conference season. I hope it goes well for the Highlanders and they are able to come away with some great wins. The first game is at 4 PM EST today with a double header tomorrow at 1 and 3 PM. I'm also hoping that our niece is able to see some time on the field. Either way, we will be watching and as I told her this morning, I hope she gets the chance to turn some moments into memories.
As for the NCAA tournament, we had our first day of games yesterday and now we finish the rest of the first round games today. Then tomorrow and Sunday we play the second round games before heading into the Sweet 16. It's funny how quickly the field goes from 64 teams down to just a handful. My bracket is still looking pretty good though many people got a bit of a scare yesterday when it looked like Sienna was going to stun Duke. As cool as that would have been as a fan of upsets, I have Duke set to win it all, so that would have been very bad.
Likewise, the ousting of Wisconsin by High Point ended up leaving only about 3% of brackets in the world still perfect and that was before the rest of the games were played yesterday. I have a feeling there are very few if any perfect brackets still out there.
While I called the TCU over Ohio victory, and the VCU upset of UNC (which happened in overtime by the way), I was off on the Texas A&M upset of St. Mary's though if I remember right I almost went the other way on that one. I also missed the Texas over BYU upset. The Saint Louis over Georgia win I did call, but I don't think I expected it to be the 102 to 77 blowout that it was, so that makes me wonder if I misjudged Saint Louis. The good news is, the teams that I was wrong on I have dropping out after the second round, so minor mistakes here aren't that big of a deal.
As for today, I have quite a few more upsets that I am feeling a little nervous about. Right off the bat we have the Kentucky vs. Santa Clara game. I have number 10 Santa Clara taking down number 7 Kentucky, but again, I don't see the winner making it past Virginia to move on anyway. What would be bad is if Virginia somehow ended up losing to number 14 Wright State. Arizona should cruise along past LIU, hopefully anyway, many people have them set to win it all.
That Akron vs. Texas Tech game also has me a bit worried. I feel like there could be an upset, and my bracket reflects that, but I think sometimes I get too greedy. Especially given the fact I already predicted a lot of other upsets in the Midwest region.
I've got Iowa State over TN State, Alabama over Hofstra, and Utah State upsetting Villanova in that 8 vs. 9 match up. One of the bigger question marks is Tennessee and Miami of Ohio. Miami only has one loss on the season, they are a good team, a lot of people wonder if they can make a deep run. I'm betting their luck is going to run out, but we will see. Be sure to check that game out at 4:25 PM EST today.
I haven't given the Big Ten a ton of love this year because I constantly see them get picked apart. I think that will follow with Clemson beating Iowa. I've got St. John's over UNI, UCF over UCLA, and Kansas over CA Baptist. Finally, I expect Florida will beat Prairie View, Purdue will take down Queens NC, UConn will handle Furman, and Miami will beat Missouri.
Finally, I just want to give a nice shout out to Michigan State on their tremendous win over North Dakota State yesterday. There were still some areas they need improvement in, but it was nice to see them play so well and get the win!
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