Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I can’t believe I missed Derik Queen’s buzzer beater because I was in the car.
In today’s SI:AM:
The clock struck midnight early for Cinderella at this year’s NCAA tournaments.
This year’s Sweet 16 on the men’s side is composed entirely of teams from the four major football conferences (the Big Ten, SEC, Big 12 and ACC). The closest thing we have to an underdog are the No. 10 seed Arkansas Razorbacks, the lowest seed left standing but a team coached by the legendary John Calipari. Every other team still alive is seeded sixth or higher. All four No. 1 seeds are still dancing, as well as three two-seeds, two three-seeds and three four-seeds.
The story is the same on the women’s side, where only four lower-seeded teams won first-round games: two No. 9 seeds and two 10-seeds, hardly shocking upsets. With one more day of second-round games left to be played Monday, we’re well on our way to a chalky Sweet 16 in the women’s bracket as well. Unless the No. 10 South Dakota State Jackrabbits can pull off an unthinkable upset over the No. 2 UConn Huskies on Connecticut’s home court, there won’t be any double-digit seeds in the Sweet 16 on the women’s side.
The women’s tournament has a reputation for being chalkier than the men’s, and while that’s true in some regards (at least one No. 1 seed has made the Final Four every year since the tournament began in 1982), it’s also overblown. Since 2003 (as far back as Sports-Reference’s data goes), at least one double-digit seed has reached the Sweet 16 in 14 out of 21 tournaments. That’s less frequent than the men’s tournament (20 out of 21, with 2007 the lone exception) but still more often than not.
The lack of underdogs in this year’s men’s tournament is unusual, though. Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, multiple double-digit seeds have reached the Sweet 16 in 26 of 39 tournaments. There have been at least three double-digit seed Sweet 16 teams in 17 years. That trend hasn’t held up in recent years, though. This will be the third straight season in which only one double-digit seed has reached the Sweet 16. Last year, it was the No. 11 NC State Wolfpack, a team that, like this year’s Arkansas squad, comes from a power conference. But NC State was much more of an underdog than the Razorbacks are. The Wolfpack lost their final four regular-season games to enter the ACC tournament at 17–14 before engineering a miraculous run to win the conference title and earn an automatic March Madness bid. The year before, it was the No. 15 Princeton Tigers who were the lone interlopers among a group of higher seeds.
The lack of Cinderella teams left standing at this stage in the tournament is in line with recent trends, though. Although the 2021 and ’22 tournaments both saw four double-digit seeds reach the Sweet 16 (most notably two No. 15 seeds, the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles and St. Peter’s Peacocks), those were the only times in the past 10 years that more than two double-digit seeds reached the second weekend. Only one out of every three tournaments (13 out of 39) since 1985 has featured one or no double-digit seeds in the Sweet 16, and nearly half of those instances (six of 13) have come in the past 10 years.
The inevitable question to ask is why we’re seeing fewer Cinderella teams make deep runs. The popular answer is that it has to do with the transfer portal and NIL filtering talent upward. That makes plenty of sense, but it’s probably too simplistic. There are still plenty of really good players and teams at the mid-major level. On Sunday, the No. 12 Colorado State Rams were mere seconds away from a Sweet 16-berth before they were felled Sunday by a Maryland Terrapins buzzer beater, and the No. 10 New Mexico Lobos hung tight with the two-seed Michigan State Spartans before collapsing in the final minutes. If either or both of those teams had won, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Upsets are what get casual fans invested in March Madness, and so it’s disappointing that there isn’t another St. Peter’s or Oral Roberts to seize the spotlight as the tournament heads into the second weekend. But the other side of the coin is that the teams left standing are among the best in the nation, including nine of the top 10 in the KenPom rankings. That means we’re bound to see some real heavyweight fights over the remaining four rounds. It’ll be fun, even if the names are familiar ones.
… things I saw yesterday:
5. Sabres goalie James Reimer’s sprawling glove save.
4. This photo by Getty photographer Sean M. Haffey of Lindsey Vonn on the podium with her silver medal after she became the oldest woman to make an alpine World Cup podium.
3. The near goalie fight between Jeremy Swayman and Darcy Kuemper. Too bad the refs didn’t let them go.
2. Kirsten Simms’s game-tying penalty shot for Wisconsin in the final seconds of the NCAA women’s hockey championship game. The Badgers went on to beat Ohio State in overtime to claim the title.
1. Derik Queen’s buzzer beater for Maryland.
