NCAA March Madness kicked off this past Thursday, March 20, and it has already been a riveting start to the tournament. In a competition where upsets are made and stories are paved, we have already seen some notable teams go down early on.
The first slate of games began with No. 9 Creighton facing off against No. 8 Louisville, with basketball starting from noon all the way to midnight for two days straight. These all-day game days are an element of the tournament many enjoy.
“I like how I’m able to watch multiple games at once. Just like get home, turn on three screens and do nothing else but watch basketball,” James Donoughe ’26 said.
In the Round of 64, No. 12 Colorado State beat No. 5 Memphis, though this result was less of a surprise as Colorado State was actually favored to win since Memphis was hurt with injuries. No. 11 Drake also knocked out No. 6 Missouri in the first round, but No. 12 McNeese gave the first bracket-buster of the tournament, beating No. 5 Clemson by a score of 69-67.
“[Clemson] only managed to put up 13 points in that half. It was an uncharacteristically horrendous night for them. They couldn’t buy a shot, and I think it was just for no reason other than they got in their own heads… and although they were able to make it kind of close towards the second half, they got themselves in too big of a deficit early on,” Donoughe said.
Despite the tournament’s reputation for having lots of upsets, the first round stayed relatively calm this year. All top four seed teams won in the first round. The last two times that happened were in 2017 and 2007. All of these teams winning may have thrown off some brackets that called for some big, early upsets.
But in the Round of 32, a few notable teams fell in the midst of the action. Two of the third seeds, Wisconsin and Iowa State, lost in this round, and the biggest upset came at the hands of No. 10 Arkansas beating No. 2 St. John’s 75-66. Professor Sanjay Dua gave his reasons for why these high-seeded teams sometimes get upset early.
“I think anything could happen. Sometimes it’s randomness, and the day they come in, they may not have the same energy level, or it could be motivation… It is kind of like a random occurrence sometimes because we see them perform the way they did and obviously get to where they are. But sometimes at the end of the day, the other team just wants it more and they show it, and it comes out that way,” Dua said.
“St. John’s is an extreme team in the sense that their offensive rating was outside of the top 50, while their defensive rating was in the top 10, being number one in the country. Which means that if they had a bad shooting night, they are not going to win, essentially. So, they would have to have six good shooting nights in a row in order to win the tournament, and you look at their best player, RJ Luis… he shot three for 17 in that game. It doesn’t matter that their defense was good… they still lost because they couldn’t score,” Steven Mesaros ’26 said.
ESPN’s most picked teams to win it all were Duke, Florida, and Houston. 25% of people on the ESPN Tournament Challenge app chose Duke to win, 21.3% picked Florida, and 10.6% of people put Houston. Auburn was the fourth most popular pick to win the tournament with 8.9% of people choosing them. And with 4.8% at fifth was St. John’s. Donoughe and Mesaros reflected on their original March Madness picks to win it all.
“I picked Florida. A lot of my national champion picks in the past have been mainly based on who’s on a hot streak and finished a season very hot. I don’t have any reason to doubt that pick going into the Sweet 16, but I think Duke is in a good spot to win it all right now, too,” Donoughe said.
“I also picked Florida to win it all and I still think that they are my pick to win at all, but any of the one seeds really have a good shot,” Mesaros said.
Another notable school still in the race for winning it all is No. 4 Maryland. Led by first-year star Derik Queen, the Terrapins were able to surmount a huge 72-71 effort against Colorado State in the second round to move on to the Sweet 16.
This down-to-the-wire game gave the first buzzer-beating game winner of the tournament. Colorado State, down by two, made a three-pointer with 6.1 seconds left in to take a 70-69 lead.
Maryland advanced the ball past half-court and called a timeout. Down by one with 3.6 seconds left, Queen got the ball at the top of the key and drove to the basket down the left side and made a runner off the backboard at the buzzer to win it. With that shot, Queen etched himself into March Madness history. When asked afterwards where that confidence to take the game-winning shot comes from, the Maryland-native simply said, “I’m from Baltimore. That’s why.”
“I thought that the game winner was a great overall play because in the huddle, Derik Queen asked for the ball. Not only did the coach trust him enough to give him the ball, but all of the seniors on the team and the grads on the team were like, ‘Yeah, let’s give the freshman the ball.’ And he went out and made a great play,” Mesaros said.
“I think that it’s just a great microcosm of March Madness as a whole, you know. These are the moments that you live for. Last second buzzer beater, sending your team to the Sweet 16 for the first time in nine years. It’s what these moments are all about,” Donoughe said.
This tournament is something Loyola hopes to be a part of again. The last time Loyola Maryland made it to March Madness was in 2012, earning an auto-bid into the tournament for winning their conference, which at the time was the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC). Loyola was one win away from punching their ticket in 2021, when they reached the Patriot League title game. They unfortunately lost to Colgate 85-72.
Although it is fun to try and achieve that perfect bracket, it has still never been done before, and most likely never will be. Almost 55% of brackets on ESPN were busted after the very first game. After the first round concluded, only 121 brackets out of over 24 million people remained perfect on ESPN this year, and the last perfect bracket was busted after just the fourth day of the tournament. Nonetheless, people still try to win against their friends for who can guess more games correctly to earn at least bragging rights.
March Madness resumes with the Sweet 16 on Thursday, March 27, and the tournament will run until Monday, April 7, where the championship game will be played in the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. Visit the NCAA website to get more information on the tournament.
