Day one of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament was full of upsets, heartbreak, and potential Cinderella stories. As usual, 64 teams entered this tournament with thoughts of glory, hope, and victory. While fans filled out their brackets with hopes of doing the impossible, filling out a perfect bracket. Or blindly putting their team into the final four with hopes that this will be the year. Let’s recap all the action from day one of March Madness
However, after day one many of those dreams accumulated into just that, dreams. With only 0.003% of brackets remaining perfect heading into day two, I think it is safe to say this will not be the year. Of the 22.1 million brackets created on ESPN’s Tournament Challenge, only 583 remain perfect. The odds of filling out a perfect bracket are one in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808. That’s one in nine quintillion. This means you have a better shot at winning the lottery or being struck by lightning.
Day one upsets
The upsets started early Thursday morning. The day kicked off with a 69-51 victory for nine-seed Michigan State over eight-seed Mississippi State. In the second game of the day, we saw one of the biggest upsets of the tournament so far. The second game ended with an 11-seed Duquesne victory 71-67 over the sixth-seeded BYU. This was the beginning of the end for most brackets.
After this upset, we saw a three-game run that included the one, two, and three seeds all winning their respective games. Then, in the seventh game of the day, we saw another 11-seed upset a six-seed. Oregon was able to top South Carolina by a score of 87-73. This would not be the last 11-seed upset, as a few hours later we would see NC State take down another six-seed in Texas Tech by a score of 80-67.
While it seems this was the day of 11 seeds, there was an even bigger upset on day one. The largest upset on day one occurred when 14-seed Oakland took down three-seeded Kentucky by a score of 80-76. This game was a nail-biter all the way to the final buzzer. Oakland senior Jack Gohlke led the way for the Grizzlies with 32 points on a night where he shot 10 of 20 from the three-point line.
Top seeds thrive on day one
While there were plenty of upsets on day one of March Madness to recap, there were no 15 over two or 16 over one upsets.
The only one-seed to play on Thursday was North Carolina who took care of business by taking down 16-seed Wagner by a score of 90-62
We also saw all three of the two seeds who played Thursday come out on top. Starting with Arizona defeating Long Beach State with a final score of 85-65. Followed by Iowa State taking down South Dakota State 82-65. Then, in the final two vs 15 game, Tennessee won convincingly over Saint Peter’s by a score of 83-49.
On day one we saw three of the four three-seeds play in their 14 vs three match-ups. We already covered the one upset that happened in terms of three-seeds as Oakland took down Kentucky. In the other two three-seed games, Creighton was victorious over Akron 77-60. Then Illinois defeated 14-seed Morehead State 85-69.
In the only four vs 13-seed game on Thursday, Kansas took down 13-seeded Samford in a 93-89 shootout. Samford added to their reputation of being a high scoring exciting team who takes a ton of shots. In this match-up, Samford shot a staggering 73 times, 37 of which were three-pointers. They shot an outstanding 43.2% on three-point attempts. However, this superb shooting night was not enough to take down the Jayhawks as Kansas shot over 60% as a team from the field. All five of the Jayhawks starters finished the night with double-digit points.
In the lone five vs 12 seed game, the Gonzaga Bulldogs took down the McNeese State Cowboys 86-65. This may have been a down season for the Bulldogs, but when it comes to March, coach Mark Few knows how to win games. This is the first year in recent memory that there isn’t major hype surrounding Gonzaga coming into the tournament. This makes them a very dangerous team going forward.
Thursday included three of the seven seeds in this year’s tournament. Starting with a match-up that saw Dayton squeak out a win over ten-seed Nevada 63-60 in the closest game of day one. The next game on the docket saw Texas taking on Colorado State. Texas was able to come out with a 56-44 victory in this match-up. The final seven-seed match-up of the day was Washington State taking on ten-seed Drake. The Washington State Cougars came out with a narrow 66-61 victory. Drake led this game with only 2:15 left to play in regulation. However, Drake star Darnell Brodie fouled out late in this game propelling Washington State to a late surge that allowed them to win this game.
With day one of March Madness coming to an end, sit back, grab your snacks, and get ready, because we have three more days ahead of us of exciting basketball before the Sweet 16. Keep an eye out for my recap of day two of March Madness.
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