It would be an understatement to say that the "madness" of March Madness is in full force. From the first 16 seed over 1 seed upset in men's tournament history, nine of the Sweet 16 being 5 seeds or above and countless unforgettable moments thus far, this years tournament has, without a doubt, been memorable so far.
Full of ups and downs, the NCAA tournament is both frustratingly unpredictable and a ton of fun but we're going to focus on those who disappointed and fell short of expectations.
Top seeds in the South and West regions
Oh boy, talk about a let down for some of the tournament favorites. While the right side of the bracket has stayed MOSTLY safe from monumental upsets (i'm looking at you, Michigan State), the same cannot be said about the two regions on the bracket's left side.
Don't feel bad about your busted bracket, out of the eight teams seeded 1-4 in the South and West regions, only two, 3 seed Michigan and and 4 seed Gonzaga, managed to get past the tournaments second round.
While disappointing performances from the tournaments top seeds are inevitable, it has certainly been shocking to see the elimination of so many of these "contenders" this early in the tournament.
Besides the obvious Virginia/UMBC upset (we'll get to that later), many traditionally strong programs who filled the Elite Eights and Final Fours of brackets across the country, met their early demise.
4 seed Arizona, a team that featured arguably the most dominant player in college basketball, Deandre Ayton, were a popular pick to make a deep run into the tournament despite the ongoing FBI investigations surrounding the team.
What the Wildcats, and most of the nation didn't account for, is a dominant performance from 13 seed Buffalo. Sean Miller and Arizona were unable to keep up with a second half three point barrage from the Bulls who shot 15-30 from deep on the way to a dominant 89-68 win.
Along with Virginia, Tennessee and Arizona, 1 seed Xavier fell to 9 seed Florida State 75-70 in the second round and a pair of 2 seeds, Cincinnati and UNC suffered loses in the second round.
The Bearcats of Cincinnati dominated their second round opponent, 7 seed Nevada for the majority of the game. However, no lead is safe when dynamic twin duo, Caleb and Cody Martin are on the floor. Nevada stormed back from 22 down with 11 minutes remaining to secure a 75-73 victory
Perennial powerhouse North Carolina on the other hand, was dominated from start to finish. The Texas A&M team we all knew they could be finally showed up against the Tarheels on Sunday.
UNC was simply unable to keep up with the size of the 7 seeded Aggies squad. A&M's athletic big man duo of Robert Williams and Tyler Davis were able to crash the boards with ease and stifle any inside shot from an overwhelmed North Carolina team that many had reaching the final four.
The Aggies held a surprising 14 point lead at halftime and never let up, coasting to a absolutely dominant 86-65 victory with 3 seed Michigan next up on the docket.
The Auburn Tigers
Historic season aside, what a rough final outing for the Tigers. As much as Auburn fans wont want to admit it, the team just hasn't been the same since the gruesome injury to starting forward Anfernee McLemore on Feb. 17.
The Tigers went 3-4 after the injury and limped into the NCAA tournament a tired and depleted team. However, the Tigers still earned a 4 seed in the tournament and had enough talent to make a decent run if they got hot.
The opposite happened. Bruce Pearl's squad was able to scrape by 13 seed College of Charleston in the first round 62-58 despite only shooting 35.6 percent from the field and a horrid 5-24 from deep.
A win is a win and the victory pitted Auburn against 5 seed Clemson in the second round, it did not go well. The Tigers of Auburn were clearly out of gas, and it showed. Clemson was able to dominate Auburn basically the whole game on both sides of the ball cruising to an easy 84-53 victory.
Auburn shot 25.8 percent from the field, were out rebounded by 18 and generally lacked the energy or effort to keep up with a fresher Clemson squad.
The future of Auburn basketball is certainly bright with Bruce Pearl at the helm but this embarrassing second round performance is something that will haunt fans for years to come.
The Pac-12
While not as dominant as conferences like the ACC and Big 12, the Pac 12 has always been a solid basketball conference.
in last years tournament, four teams represented the conference with three of those teams (Arizona, Oregon and UCLA) reaching the Sweet 16 while the year before, an impressive seven teams represented the Pac-12 in the tournament.
What was already a seemingly down year for the conference got even worse once the tournament rolled around.
Three Pac-12 teams earned tournament bids led by 4 seed Arizona who was dismantled by Buffalo in the first round. The other two teams, Arizona State and UCLA were relegated to "first four" play in games where they both were defeated without reaching the first round.
A conference already in a free fall sent its lowest number of teams to the tournament of years, went 0-3 and fielded one of the biggest disappointments in the tournament this year. But hey, there's always next year.
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