The first weekend of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament played out in an ideal fashion.

The lack of second-round upsets and surprise teams in the Sweet 16 may kill off the underdog storylines, but in this case, it actually set the second weekend up for some of the best basketball we’ll see in years.

Fifteen of the 16 teams who were favored in the second round won straight up. Baylor was the only lower seed to lose its matchup.

Only two teams seeded lower than No. 5 made it to the Sweet 16 and they are both from the ACC in No. 6 Clemson and No.  11 NC State.

Additionally, the only mid-major teams left are Gonzaga and San Diego State, who proved over the years they can compete at the power-conference level.


Just one Sweet 16 matchup carries a spread of more than seven points at PA sportsbooks and New Jersey sportsbooks, and that’s UConn as an 11-point favorite over San Diego State. The Huskies were going to be a heavy favorite regardless of who they played.

Apologies to anyone who loves Cinderella stories, but that’s the perfect setup for the second weekend. We are almost guaranteed to see six, seven, maybe eight close Sweet 16 games and four blockbuster showdowns in the Elite Eight between some of the sport’s biggest programs.

You’re telling me you’d say no to UConn against Illinois or Iowa State, UNC/Arizona, Houston or Duke versus Marquette and some combination of Purdue/Gonzaga versus Creighton/Tennessee? Absolutely not.

Yale, Grand Canyon, James Madison, Oakland, and Duquesne were cool stories in the first round because we crave upsets, but as the second round showed us, you probably don’t want any of those programs playing for an extended period of time if they can’t consistently compete with the big dogs.

A majority of the second round’s best games included power-conference teams. Houston/Texas A&M and Oregon/Creighton were awesome, while Colorado and Texas almost scared Marquette and Tennessee. Clemson/Baylor was close and Washington State and Michigan State did their best to stay with Iowa State and North Carolina.

Only Oakland actually hung with their opponent among the mid-major upset crowd in its overtime battle with NC State.

It makes sense that chalk held for the most part in 2024 because 2023 was such an outlier in terms of higher seeds advancing, and even then, the Elite Eight was comprised of recognizable names except for Florida Atlantic. Princeton got through as a 15 seed and then lost by 11 points to Creighton.

Saint Peter’s Elite Eight run in 2022 as a 15 seed was so rare, and even that ended with a 20-point loss to UNC.

I don’t hate upsets, but I’ve realized as I’ve gotten older that the ideal NCAA tournament is exactly what we just saw over the last four days. The event will be better off because of it.