Jacob Vanderford |SPORTS|
The NCAA Men’s basketball tournament is a time that excites millions of people across the country. As Selection Sunday veers nearer, teams across the country await their fate, whether it be a spot in the NCAA tournament, in the NIT, or no postseason birth at all. This year however, there were many surprises as the chairman of the committee, Bruce Rasmussen, also deemed as Athletic Director at the University of Creighton in Omaha, picked their poison.
The one seeds were those who many people thought they’d be in Virginia as the #1 overall seed, along with Kansas, Villanova, and Xavier. No 16 seed had ever beaten a 1 seed in the history of the tournament’s existence, but, as no one would expect, that would soon change.
The 2 seeds included Cincinnati, North Carolina, Duke and Purdue. One of the bigger surprises of the tournament was that Arizona, a team that many people believed could be a team to watch and that could contend for a title, ended up as a 4 seed. The committee must have known what they were doing however, because of what was soon to come.
The chairman of the committee, Bruce Rasmussen, received heavy criticism from his home state of Nebraska, because the Nebraska basketball team, who won 22 games, the second most wins ever in school history, didn’t make the cut for the NCAA tournament, and Tim Miles’s squad had to settle for the NIT, and a 5 seed at that. The coined phrase Nebrasketball would go on to lose their first game in the NIT to the Bulldogs of Mississippi State 66-59.
This came as somewhat of a shock, regarding that the Huskers took down the Bulldogs 76-72 in an exhibition game at the beginning of the season. Part of the reason why Nebraska was a bit overlooked was because their RPI, the rating percentage index, was not very high. This grading system indicates the amount of wins a team has against tougher opponents, as well as strength of schedule and whether they played home or away.
All of these things account for a team’s resume for a spot in the NCAA tournament. It was a rollercoaster ride of a season for the Huskers, but they’re ready to get back at it and have an even better season next year, trying to clinch their first birth in the tournament since the 2013 season, where the Huskers went 19-13 and lost to Baylor University in the first round.
This year, there were more upsets than anyone could’ve predicted, resulting across the country in no one having a perfect bracket. There were over 3 million people that had Virginia winning the championship, and 15 million had them advancing to the next round.
The University of Maryland-Baltimore County crushed their title hopes in a stunning 74-54 victory. The Retrievers instantly captured the hearts of millions of Americans, as they became one of several Cinderellas of the tournament.
The Loyola-Chicago Ramblers were the other Cinderella teams, and as an 11 seeded team advanced to the Final Four to play Michigan. Along the way, the Ramblers defeated 6 seeded Miami, 3 seeded Tennessee, and 7 seeded Nevada. One of the main storylines of the tournament was the 98 year old nun Sister Jean Dolores-Schmidt, who supported Loyola-Chicago in every game of the tournament.
One of the biggest stories of the tournament was Arizona, who had 27 wins on the season and arguably one of the most talented teams in the nation. Deandre Ayton, a 7’1’’ a freshman power forward, is one of the most prized talents most analysts have seen, an acclaimed “once-in-a-decade, once-in-a generation talent”.
Ayton averaged 20.1 PPG and 11.6 RPG, a mark that another projected top 5 draft pick Marvin Bagley III of Duke can claim. Although they had many allegations against them and their head coach Sean Miller, who supposedly paid Ayton to play at Arizona, coming out of high school as the #2 high school recruit in the nation according to 247sports analysts, they were sure they had the chance to take the tournament by storm.
I even had enough confidence in them to pick them in my bracket to take home the hardware, and unfortunately for Arizona and myself, that wasn’t to be the case. Arizona took a first round exit in the tournament, losing to the 13 seeded Buffalo Bulls 89-68.
The other college basketball blue blood that I had in my championship game as well as many other people in the country who filled out a bracket was the Spartans of Michigan State. They were a 3 seed, and had high hopes with the chances they had of reaching the final four and even the national championship.
But they couldn’t get complacent, and Tom Izzo knew that. They beat the 14 seed Bucknell in the first round in a close 82-78 victory. The next game would be against Syracuse, a battle between two of the winningest coaches in college basketball history.
Tom Izzo with 574 wins in his career, and Jim Boeheim with 926 wins, but would’ve had 1,000 wins on his record if not for the allegations in the Orange’s team history. Michigan State battled through so many different allegations against them throughout the year regarding sexual assault issues, and still coming out of the season with 30 wins and 5 losses. And, again busting the brackets of many, the Syracuse Orange beat the Michigan State Spartans in a dogfight 55-53.
It was a tournament of upsets, but there was one team that all of America knew had the best shot to reach the championship, the Villanova Wildcats. The boys of Philly were a team of several returning starters, including AP Player of the Year Jalen Brunson, who averaged 18.9 points per game, 3.1 rebounds per game, and 4.6 assists per game, a player who, each and every time he stepped on the court, made his team better.
On their road to a 2nd title in 3 years, a feat that had only been accomplished by the 2006 and 2007 Florida Gators under head coach Billy Donovan, the ’96 and ’98 Kentucky Wildcats, the ’91 and ’92 Duke Blue Devils, and the great UCLA Bruins teams under head coach John Wooden, they defeated Radford 87-61, Alabama 81-58, West Virginia 90-78, Texas Tech 71-59, and fellow one seeded Kansas Jayhawks 95-79.
When they reached the championship, all eyes were on the ‘Cats and Jay Wright, who got off to a surprisingly rocky start in his first few years, but they rose to the challenge in a big way. The headliners of the championship game were Nova’s Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges, and Michigan’s Moritz Wagner, but there was one diamond in the rough many did not see coming.
Donte DiVincenzo, often serving as a role player of the bench, was on fire from the field in the Wildcats’ 79-62 win over the Wolverines. He shot 10-15 from the field with 31 points, and shot 5-7 from beyond the three point arc. The Wilmington, Delaware sharp shooter made himself a star that everyone will remember, and was the perfect cap to a thrilling, stressful, and gut-punching 2018 NCAA Tournament.
