After receiving great response from last year’s recap of the NCAA tournament, I decided to follow it up with this year. A little late to the party, but here we go. With the season in college basketball having no clear favorite into March Madness, excitement was in the air. It had the potential to be one of the best tournaments in recent history and it did not disappoint. The amount of upsets and bracket busting that took place in the first weekend was ridiculous.

FIRST/SECOND ROUND:

In this round we saw Michigan State bow down to Middle Tennessee and ruin millions of brackets. This was the unquestioned biggest upset in the tournament. Follow that up with Purdue choking for the second straight year in a row and losing to Arkansas Little Rock. Local teams Dayton and Cincinnati lost their first round games, UC with the bigger heartbreak. Xavier cruised past Weber State but would fall short against Wisconsin and Bronson Koening’s dagger of a three. My top play from the weekend had to be the Paul Jesperson half court miracle to beat Texas. While flipping back and forth between UC/St. Joe’s and Texas/UNI, I had this feeling that UNI was going to win in some ridiculous fashion. I knew the moment the ball left the hand of Jesperson that puppy was going in. ONIONS! Sure enough it did, but it was all for not as they would end up blowing a 12 point lead with 44 seconds to go against Texas A&M; this cost me a Sweet 16 team. Yale and Providence were big winners on Thursday night. Kris Dunn propelled the Friars past a very talent USC team. The first weekend was full of fireworks.

SWEET SIXTEEN:

The only close game in the Sweet 16 was Syracuse/Gonzaga. I have no clue how the ‘Cuse made it as far as they did but props to them. The big dogs (UNC, Nova, Kansas) cruised into the Elite Eight. Oregon ended Duke’s chances, if they even had on, of repeating as champs. Four ACC teams did advance into the Elite Eight, showing how dominant that conference had been for most of the year. Once this week wrapped up it was clear to see who the contenders were and who got hot at the right time. The most surprising thing for me was the dominance by Villanova. Miami (FL) was no push over, they were a very talented team that looked like they had no business being on the same floor as Nova. There would be no early exit for Nova, they were primed for a run at the title.

ELITE EIGHT:

The match ups were all intriguing, perhaps the most intriguing was Syracuse/Virginia. In fact, it was amazing to see a team like Virginia blow a lead against Syracuse costing them a trip to the Final Four. Buddy Hield continue to display his dominance like he had all year. Hield showed why he was the Wooden Award winner for 2015-16. Dropping dimes from behind the arc as Oklahoma rolled past Oregon. UNC rolled past Notre Dame, and Nova escaped Kansas with its great defense. With the games wrapped up it set up a great set of Final Four games between UNC/Syracuse and Nova/Oklahoma

FINAL FOUR:

Buddy Hield and his Sooners were set to go to war against Nova. But that was one sided. Being at dinner before Prom I didn’t get to witness the full beat down but it was ridiculous. Nova and that locked defense held Hield to eight points as Nova rolled over Oklahoma 95-51. That is nuts. If that didn’t turn the light on in some people’s head saying Nova can win this thing. Well, it sure did for me. UNC would prevail against the Cuse pitting a great match up of North Carolina vs. Villanova.

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP:

I’ll let the video highlights do the talking, but this was one of the best/craziest National Championship games of all time. Marcus Paige hit one of the most ridiculous shots of all time, but that isn’t the most memorable one. Jay Wright finally got the monkey off his back with the win. It cost me a chance at winning all of my brackets so I was pretty upset when Jenkins drilled that shot but that was a great play and shot. Thus, recapping a great NCAA Tournament. They are always right, it is truly Madness when March rolls around.