Slipper of Cinderella Need a size adjustment. This does not quite correspond.
The first day of the first round of men Mars madness came and went with a modest amount of madness. We obtained the seeds at 12 seeds beating a seeded, which we expected, and a At 11 seed seeds apart from a seeded to 6 seeds.
For the most part, however, the favorites held. Maybe a modest Thursday will give in to wild and wool Friday filled with upheavals.
Here are the winners and the losers after the action of the first round Thursday:
Winners
Conservative support pickers
If you have chosen a lot of chalk for Thursday’s matches, you are probably well enough in your respective trank pool. No day of matches in the first round is complete without the emergence of at least a few upheavals, but if you have strictly chosen the team better aside, you would have taken 12 of the 16 for Thursday matches, and this is not a bad place to enter Friday.
Two upheavals – n ° 9 Creighton and N ° 10 Arkansas won – were name upheavals only. Overall, have a good day to have chalk.
Gonzaga
If you turned on the Georgia-Gonzaga game for a few minutes late, you missed everything you needed to see. Gonzaga ran to an advance of 13-0 before the first media dead time.
Game finished.
Mark some varnish added to Its curriculum vitae as the best active coach in the country without national championp. Gonzaga reached at least the second round of each of the last 16 NCAA tournaments, while becoming a consistency model under the supervision of some.
Will Wade
Barely a few years ago, the FBI Sharks repressed the mandate of the LSU of Wade, and he was thrown into Purgatory, from which he emerged in a school, McNeese State, which had no victory in the NCAA tournament.
The McNese achievements of Wade reiterate that this guy can cause.
N ° 12 McNeese upset the n ° 5 Clemson For his first victory of the NCAA tournament in the history of the program. Wade is a hot goods. It would be online to become the coach of the Northern Carolina State after McNeese left the tournament. Wade did not deny this report during an post-match interview on the ground of 68 podcast.
“All that is happening is not distraction for us,” said Wade after the victory.
No need for FBI detective to reveal that Wade has rebuilt his career.
Ben McCollum
Speaking of hot products, is there a hotter coach than Ben McCollum of Drake? Seriously, if he does not lead to candidate n ° 1 for Iowa, then something is turned off in the water in Iowa City.
McCollum won four national division II championships during 15 successful seasons in the northwest of the state of Missouri. In his first season at DuckHe obtained his Bulldogs n ° 11 in the second round after a polite performance against the Missouri. Excluding the “first four” results, this has marked the first victory of Drake de la NCAA since 1971.
Four Drake starters played for McCollum last season at the Northwest Missouri State. These players continue to prove that they belong to the level of division I. This is particularly true for Bennett Stittz. One of the best players in the country, he scored 21 points while roasting the Missouri.
And if Iowa wants McCollum, it should certainly not wait until this NCAA race ends – even if it does not end in the second round. Drake is good enough to reach the Sweet 16.
Losers
Clemson
Frame. What was this performance? A failure to win on all failures is what it was.
Clemson coach Brad Brownell has spent the last few weeks on a good place on hot boards suggesting it for other jobs. He stayed on site and would have struck a contract extension with ClemsonThen watched his team accumulate bricks in a defeat of 69-67 against McNeese n ° 12 which, for the most part of the match, was not as close as the final score said it.
The Elite Eight trip from Clemson last season proved the exception, not the rule.
ACC
If Clemson was bad, Louisville could have been worse.
The cardinals seemed lost in a defeat of 89-75 against the No. 9 Creighton despite the 80-mile match in Campus, in Lexington.
The veterans of the Creighton NCAA tournament, Steven Ashworth and Ryan Kalkbrenner, have combined effectively for 36 points, and Arizona State The Jamiya Neal transfer took off for 29 years. Creighton beating in Louisville should serve as alarm clock for Auburn n ° 1. The Bluejays are very talented and sufficiently experienced to make an upheaval in the second round.
Meanwhile, the AC is drinking in front with only two teams on the left standing, n ° 1 Duke And n ° 11 North Carolina, after the Flops Clemson and Louisville.
Dry
After a NCAA Record 14 offers“It just means more” NCAA tournament losses for the dry, apparently.
The SEC was acclaimed during the regular season for having delivered the best performance of a single season by a conference, but March Madness has a way of humoring even the most powerful of us.
To be clear, it was not a horrible day for the dry. N ° 1 Auburn, n ° 2 of Tennessee and n ° 4 of Texas A & M won without the need for hijinks. The Arkansas n ° 10 overturned Kansas in one of the most interesting games of the day.
But the dry lost three teams, marking it 11 on the left standing.
Texas n ° 11 farewells by abandoning an advance of 10 points in the end in a “First four“The defeat against Xavier. N ° 9, Georgia forgot to appear in a defeat against Gonzaga. And the Missouri n ° 6 seemed surpassed throughout its defeat against Drake.
Not a disaster, but not an excellent start for the dry.
Missouri
The problem with Missouri basketball is not the playoffs. The problem with Missouri basketball is to do something when it reaches the playoffs.
The Tigers have a rich story of qualification for the NCAA tournament, but they have never made an Four Four – and this sequence will continue after Drake has fallen his usual tenacity and his influence of rebound in a 67-57 victory which counted as an upheaval but looked like an expected result.
Drake was the best team entering the tournament, and this became undoubtedly once the match at the start.
Six of the last seven appearances of the Missouri NCAA tournament ended in the first round. The only time the Missouri won his first round match during this trunction, he lost against the n ° 15 Princeton in the second round.
Frankly, this game has become more of the same old story for Missouri.
Kentucky fans
Sorry, Big Blue Nation, but John Calipari will not facilitate this break.
The Calipari razorbacks qualified in the second round, and although it is not a realization worthy of a parade – given the level of talent of Arkansas, he should Do the second round – it exerts additional pressure on Kentucky’s first -year coach Mark Pope. Friday, the heads with seeded will play Troy.
British fans were too delighted to see Calipari leaving for another job after the release of last year’s first round, a sequence of disappointments from March Madness. But then Calipari beat the Kentucky in his return to Rupp Arena in February, and now he is going to a second round match against n ° 2 St. John’s. He makes Kentucky fans sweat on this break.
Blake Toppmeyer is a columnist for the USA Today network. Send him an email to [email protected] and follow it on x @BtopPmeyer. Get down To read all his columns.
This article originally appeared on USA Today: Male winners of the NCAA tournament, losers: Will Wade adds to ACC Misered
