Much Like Thursday and Friday, the weekend brought another round of despairing losses to half the teams who remained past days one and two. However, it also gave 16 fanbases hope, as they get another round closer to raising the national championship trophy on April 8, 2024. This is now the Sweet 16 and over the course of two nights these 16 teams will battle to call themselves one of the Elite Eight. Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. The weekend brought some very exciting moments in the round of 32. Let’s go over the March Madness round two Saturday recap.
Saturday’s upsets
Saturday gave us only one lower seed upsetting a higher seed. The number five Gonzaga Bulldogs took down the number four Kansas Jayhawks in the Midwest region of the bracket. Gonzaga got out to an early 6-0 lead in this game but Kansas quickly closed that gap and the remainder of the first half was a nail-biting back-and-forth effort from both sides. Gonzaga was able to back out to another six-point lead with 4:38 remaining in the first half. However, Kansas quickly closed that gap as well, narrowing the lead to just two with 3:50 remaining in the half. With 1.2 seconds remaining in the first half Gonzaga junior forward Ben Gregg hauled in an offensive rebound and put it back up to put the Zags down one at the half.
In the second half, the Zags grabbed the momentum and never looked back going on an early 15-0 run early in the half. Gonzaga would eventually go on to win this game 89-68 behind a 60.3% shooting percentage from the field as well as 53.3% from the three-point. Officially securing their spot in the Sweet 16.
Top seeds handle business on Saturday
Let’s start from the beginning with this second-round Saturday recap. Saturday kicked off with two-seed Arizona taking down seven-seed Dayton by a score of 78-68. Dayton was able to keep this game competitive for the first five minutes before Arizona went on a run and never gave back the lead. Dayton was able to close the gap to just seven at the half finishing the first half with a score of 40-33. A majority of the second half was a very back-and-forth affair with Dayton cutting the lead down to as little as three points. Arizona went on a run with about eight minutes left pushing the lead back up to ten. The game continued like this the remainder of the second half resulting in the ten-point victory for Arizona.
The second matchup of the day pitted one-seed North Carolina vs nine-seed Michigan State. This game started competitively. However, the Spartans were able to fight out to a 12-point lead with 8:33 left in the first half. North Carolina quickly fought back to cut the deficit to just one with 5:34 remaining. The Tarheels were eventually able to grab the lead and extended their lead to nine before going into halftime. The second half was a competitive half of basketball with Michigan State able to cut the lead to four on multiple occasions. But eventually, it was just too much and North Carolina was able to push the lead to 16 by the end of the game. The contest finished with a North Carolina victory 85-69 over Michigan State. Senior guard RJ Davis was the highest scorer for North Carolina with 20 points.
The third matchup of the day to tip off was two-seed Iowa State taking on seven-seed Washington State. This game was a physical grind-it-out type of matchup at the start. There were only 20 total points scored between the two teams in the first ten minutes of the game. The low-scoring physical first half would see the teams going to the locker rooms tied at 27. The low scoring would continue well into the second half as Iowa State was able to score only 20 points in the first ten minutes of the second half. While Washington State managed only 15 points in that span. Iowa State was eventually able to push this lead to 14 points late in the game. Eventually, Iowa State managed to come out on top by a score of 67-56.
While it may not be due to a second-round upset, we will have an 11-seed continue their Cinderella story into the Sweet 16. This is due to an 11-seed and 14-seed matching up in the second round. In this game, we saw 11-seed NC State taking on 14-seed Oakland. This game started slow, with NC State running their offense through star big man DJ Burns Jr.
NC State would fight to take a three-point lead into the half. Oakland would continue to show fight in the second half eventually taking a lead with 2:49 remaining. The fight from Oakland was in large part due to junior forward Trey Townsend, who finished the game with 30 points. NC State would eventually take the lead. But two late free throws by Oaklands Jack Gohlke would push this game to overtime tied at 66.
In overtime, NC State’s three-point shooting proved too much for Oakland as the Wolfpack escaped with a 79-73 victory.
The Next game to go over on this round two Saturday recap pitted two-seed Tennessee against seven-seed Texas. Tennessee got out to a 16-8 lead with 9:20 remaining in the first half. Texas fought back to bring the lead back down to just one with 6:36 left in the half. However, Tennessee was able to go on a run to take a 28-19 lead into the half. With only 1:44 remaining in the game Texas was able to get the lead down to just two points and even got it down to one point with 34 seconds left. Tennessee was able to knock down some clutch free throws very late in the game. This ultimately gave Tennessee a 62-58 victory.
In the second to last game on Saturday’s docket, three-seed Illinois took on 11-seed Duquesne. From early on this game was all Illinois as they got out to an early 15-point lead and never looked back. Eventually pushing that lead to as much as 26 in the first half. The second half was much of the same as Illinois proved to be too much for the Duquesne Dukes. Illinois would go on to win this game by a score of 89-63 behind a 30-point outing from senior guard Terrence Shannon Jr.
Game of the day
The final and most exciting game to recap of round two on Saturday was an intense matchup between three-seed Creighton taking on 11-seed Oregon. The game started with both sides struggling to hit shots, combining for 27% shooting from the floor through the first six minutes of play. The first half was highly competitive as no team took any sort of significant lead throughout the half. With only four seconds left in the half, Creighton hit a three-pointer that would propel them to a 36-34 halftime lead. The second half would look very similar to the first. Both teams were fighting to take the lead in a constant battle for momentum. With only nine seconds remaining in the game Creighton senior guard Baylor Scheierman hit a step-back jumper to tie the game at 62. This would be the final score after regulation.
This game was going to overtime. It was a hard-fought back-and-forth overtime. Each team once again struggled to gain the upper hand and snatch the momentum away from the opposing team. With only 20 seconds left, Oregon senior guard Jermaine Couisnard hit a highly contested three-point shot. This would once again tie the game at 71.
This game was now going to a second overtime. In the second overtime, Creighton was finally able to grab the momentum and dominated much of the period. Creighton was able to pull off the victory by a score of 86-73.
What’s next?
That puts an end to my round two Saturday recap. After four straight days of college basketball, we finally have a break. With the first two rounds wrapping up, the remaining teams will now have a rest as they travel to the locations where their respective Sweet 16 games will be held. Keep an eye out for my round two Sunday recap releasing soon.
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