The Madness Continues

If you thought the Sweet Sixteen was unpredictable, you may be thinking that the Elite Eight is impossible. The upsets started in day one of the tournament and has yet to stop this far in. So who has a perfect bracket? and who can guess the winner of this years tournament?

It started in the South region on Thursday March 22 with the match up between, Cinderella team, Loyola-Chicago and Nevada. Nevada had a 57% prediction chance to beat this Loyola-Chicago team and had this game under control up until the last few minutes of the first half. Loyola-Chicago took charge over Nevada the entire second half until they allowed Nevada to ties everything up with three and a half minutes left. With one minute left the lead goes to one until Loyola-Chicago's Marques Townes sinks a three with 6.3 seconds left to maintain a one point win and continue onto the Elite Eight. Loyola-Chicago has proved to be a powerhouse underdog team in this tournament and now they are headed to the Elite Eight.

Remaining in the South was the match up between Kansas St. and Kentucky. Kentucky is the obvious answer right? Not quite. Kansas St. started the game out with a 13-to-1 run against the wildcats. I bet Coach Cal wasn't too happy with his team only scoring one point in the first almost four minutes. UK took one lead the entire game... and it was only by one. That lead also didn't last long. With both teams in major foul trouble this game was mainly off free-throws. Kentucky's leading scorer in this game, PJ Washington, shot 8 for 20 at the line. Not something you want to see as a Kentucky supporter. Kansas St. went on to beat the wildcats 61-58 to continue their season into the Elite Eight to meet up with Loyola-Chicago.

Moving down to the West region Florida St. and Gonzaga battle it out for the next spot in the Elite Eight. Gonzaga was the predicted team to win this match-up against the Seminoles, but just could not keep up. Florida St. took a quick run at the 15 minute mark in the first half. Leading Gonzaga by 9 at the half, Florida St. made it clear that this was their game.

Michigan and and Texas A&M was sort of an easy choice. Michigan lead in this game the entire time, even leading A&M by 24 at the half. The Wolverines showed to be a powerhouse team against A&M almost scoring triple digits. The Wolverines will advance onto the Elite Eight and meet up with Florida St.

Day two of the Sweet Sixteen started out in the East with Villinova and West Virginia. Nova might be the favorite in this tournament with Virginia getting knocked out so early. West Virginia was able to take the lead a few times during this game and even get up to a five point lead. But Nova wasn't giving up that easy in this tournament. After 10 minutes left, the wildcats kept the lead and made their way into the Elite Eight.

In the Midwest region, Kansas then took on Clemson and it was Jayhawks all the way. Kansas never gave up a lead and although Clemson would get close, Kansas was putting up a fight to stay on top. The Jayhawks topped Clemson 80 to 76 in order to advance to the Elite Eight.

Duke took on Syracuse on Friday night and although they were the expected team to win, they were falling behind to Cuse early in the game. It was a lot of back and forth between the two until Duke took the lead with a little under four minutes in the first. After that lead Duke never gave it up again the rest of the game. Duke will move on to meet Kansas in the Elite Eight, which is the match up many of us have been waiting for.

Lastly, back in the East region, Texas Tech takes on Purdue. Purdue was looking strong in the first until the final two and a half minutes when Texas Tech took the lead and ended the half up by five. In the second half Texas Tech never gave up the lead and punched their ticket into the Elite Eight to meet Villinova.

There's only eight teams left in the tournament, and it is safe to say that more than half of them may have not been expected to get this far. It's been a crazy tournament so far and I feel like it's only going to get crazier.