Upsets
Every year you know there are going to be a handful of upsets early on in March Madness. What you don't always know is when and where they are going to come.
The 2014 edition has been no exception, with a lot of lower seeds getting up over more-favoured opposition, although there has perhaps been just the one true upset.
That would come in 14-seed Mercer stunning 3-seed Duke early on Saturday morning NZ time, producing the only unforeseeable upset of the weekend.
Duke have been erratic all season, and while they certainly had the talent to beat any team on any given day, whether they would be able to put together six wins in a row was another thing. Even taking this into account, next to no one would have picked this upset in their bracket, except maybe the odd die-hard Mercer fan.
Other upsets saw Dayton take down an inconsistent Ohio State team and a Syracuse team that has struggled over the past month after looking so good for so much of the season.
Stephen F. Austin showed why many considered them a sleeper by beating VCU, while Harvard got up against Cincinnati in similar circumstances. Stanford too have run deeper than most predicted, beating out a Kansas team that looked uneasy and scraped through in the final minutes in their previous match against Eastern Kentucky.
Baylor proved to be too athletic and simply too big for a highly-rated Creighton team, while pre-season favourite Kentucky showed that they are indeed capable of mixing it with the best as they knocked off No. 1 seed Wichita State.
The thing with the majority of these upsets is that they all came in games where there was potential for an upset. Whether it be because a team was perhaps seeded a little too low, an inconsistent team having a bad day (or a good day), a good team being in a form slump, or simply being a good match-up for the underdog.
The Mercer-Duke game was the only truly unexpected upset, but that did not make the rest any less exciting.
Close Games
Carrying on from that, there have been some nail-biting games that have gone down to the wire. There have been a handful of overtime games, as well as another few that have come down to the last shot.
That typical tournament thing of a mid-major just not going away and threatening to upset the more favoured opposition has been prevalent. Inevitably sometimes they do, others they don't.
They make for an exciting day of watching though, especially given the television coverage which tends to focus on the more-tightly fought games. At the first weekend, you would have to say that March Madness has certainly not disappointed so far.
Kiwis in College
Of the three Kiwis in action, only two saw court-time, one progressed past their first game and none made it to the Sweet Sixteen. But it was a proud weekend for New Zealand basketball to have three Kiwi's competing on major teams at the NCAA Tournament.
Rob Loe was the best on offer, with a dynamic performance that saw his Saint Louis Billikens claim an overtime win over North Carolina State. He fired right from the start, knocking down three early three-pointers, before the side slipped behind and found itself facing a reasonable deficit late in the second half.
It was Loe that took control of the game, becoming more of an inside presence, taking the ball strongly to the hoop and controlling the glass well, forcing overtime. Ultimately he was the difference between the two teams as Saint Louis surged away in the end.
They would fall to defending champion Louisville in their next game, but Loe's performance against NC State will go down as one of the best by a New Zealander in NCAA Tournament history.
Brackets Busted
Don't worry too much if your bracket didn't turn out very well, hardly anyone else's did either. On ESPN's bracket challenge, no one made it out of the round of 64 in terms of picking a perfect bracket.
Mercer's upset over Duke busted most people's brackets, as those early-round monumental upsets will tend to.
The other upsets mentioned earlier as being one's marked as potential upsets are not necessarily any easier to pick. They are the ones that you look at, consider for a while and then decide against it and go with the favourite, knowing you will kick yourself should the favourite go on to win. And then you feel that pain of regret when the upset actually does eventuate, but it is always easy to say this in hindsight.
Looking Ahead
The tournament carries on next weekend, as the final 16 teams known as the Sweet Sixteen battle on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday and Monday it continues as the Elite Eight battle for the honour to go to the Final Four, the pinnacle of College (and arguably of all) basketball.
There are a handful of exciting match-ups at a glance. The most obvious being that of Kentucky-Louisville, two schools that boast arguably the biggest rivalry in College Basketball.
Both teams are more than capable of winning the whole thing should they click, with bucket-loads of talent on each roster, Louisville boasting an experienced line-up against Kentucky's relatively young roster. At present time the rivalry is made even more intense, with former championship-winning Kentucky coach Rick Pitino at Louisville, just another reason for Kentucky fans to despise their foe.
Other than this, the Michigan State-Virginia game will be worth watching. Virginia have been one of the form teams of their season, claiming the ACC title and toppling Duke and Syracuse, while Michigan State have every chance of winning, now healthy after an injury-ravaged season.
The Dayton-Stanford match will be fun, as both made the Sweet Sixteen on the back of upsets in their first two games. One will have to win, meaning there will be at least one double-digit seed in the Elite Eight, only one good performance away from an improbably trip to the Final Four.
Keep an eye out for a more extensive preview of this weekend's match-ups later this week.
