March Madness opens with a Weekend to Remember

What an exhilaration, breath taking, heart pounding, phenomenal (feel free to add any other hyperbole) start to March Madness. Never in all my years of watching the Mens NCAA College Basketball Tournament can I recall a weekend with more buzzer beaters, overtime games, and Cinderella upsets.

The first day had drama and suspense from the very beginning to the very end. It started in fine fashion with Old Dominion knocking of the Fighting Irish by a mere point. Even though my disdain of Notre Dame is more geared toward there football program, it still rubs of onto there basketball team as well. Then there was the near historic upset of #2 seeded Villanova by Robert Morris who had the lead and control of the game all the way up to the very end before they succumbed in overtime. Helped mightily by there 40 free throw attempts to 26 by Robert Morris, can you say big school bias anyone. Lets not forget about the Racers of Murray State that calmly knocked off #4 seeded Vanderbilt on a 15 foot buzzer beater by Danero Thomas who was only the 3rd option on the play. Maybe its my anti SEC football bias creeping in but always nice to see the SEC fall flat no matter the sport.

As incredible as these 1st afternoon round of games were, the evening session said hold up we have some sprinkles to add. Now normally I would not be caught dead giving props to any school that has Ohio in its name but when its #14 seeded The State University of Ohio toppling a powerhouse like #3 seeded Georgetown I will happily make an exception. A precursor of things to come for the Big East that saw only 2 of 8 teams advance to the sweet sixteen.

These games were just the tip of the Iceberg for the weekend which saw three double digit seeded teams advancing to the Sweet Sixteen. With #9 seeded Northern Perhaps topping all of that by taking down overall #1 seeded Kansas on a cold blooded 3 point shot that will undoubtedly make its way into the NCAA archives and live on for years to come. It was #12 seeded Cornell becoming the first Ivy league school in over 30 years knocking of Wisconsin handily to advance to next weekend. It was Pac-10 regular season winner Washington storming back against Marquette in the 1st round and then soundly taking out #3 seeded and very new to the party New Mexico. Then the little school that could out of the San Francisco area Saint Mary's College knocking of everyones darling mid-major Richmond first and then beating the aforementioned over rated Villanova next.

I most certainly did not forget the Drama that our home state M.S.U. Spartans brought to the table as the advanced not so easily or healthy to the Sweet Sixteen for the 3rd straight year. However I will be forth coming with another update this afternoon that will give there Spartans there due and I would be remiss if I did not give a very special honorable mention to what the Red Wings accomplished this weekend. Scoring 2 goals with less than a second to go on back to back nights to force the 1st game into overtime and to win in overtime the next night, seemed to fit in nicely with the weekends theme.

Jason Behr