Ringside Report Recaps Day One Of March Madness

By Ron Signore

So far, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament has been anything but disappointing. Heck, anything other than boring. The typical unpredictability of March Madness has lived up to expectations through the first day of play in the Round of 64, concluding that less than 1% of all brackets in circulation in pools electronically are still perfect.

A huge reason for that is THE OHIO STATE. Ohio State was a number 2 seed in their respected quadrant. They were set to play the 15 seed in Oral Roberts University. Many came to the foregone conclusion that Oral Roberts would be a pushover, a powder puff game for the Buckeyes of Ohio State. The Buckeyes most likely were included in that view of ORU, as they treated them as a “look past” game.

There should have been no earthly reason the Buckeyes should have been on the same planet as Oral Roberts. OSU comes from a large, POWER 5 conference in the Big 10 that includes high-ranking programs like Iowa, Wisconsin, and two number 1 seeds in the tournament in Illinois and rival Michigan. As statistically broken down, the Ohio State Buckeyes were rated number 1 in the strength of schedule during the regular season. Last I checked from a Vegas perspective, Oral Roberts was +700 on the Moneyline, meaning their odds of winning were so low, the payout would have been about 700:1.

But alas, Oral Roberts took the universal signs of disrespect and played with the obvious chip on their shoulder that read “we belong,” and held their own throughout the game. For the casual watcher, the game took strong notice when Oral Roberts forced overtime against the #2 seed. Things got tense from that moment on. The tournament eyes were all on the final minutes of that overtime segment. The #2 seed fell behind yet had ample opportunity to catch up and stay even. Key mistakes from the perennial favorite like missed free throws down the stretch put the victory in the hands of the super dog ORU. The game still ended excitingly with the Buckeyes having an opportunity to tie the game down 3 under 20 seconds left. They threw up a Hail Mary like 3 pointer that made me cringe while watching. Luckily, the bounce off the missed 3 was rebounded by Ohio State, and quickly kicked the ball out to an almost dead-on 3 point attempt from JR guard Duane Washington. The shot fell off the mark as time expired on the game and the Buckeyes season.

While that was the biggest shock of the day, we also saw upsets in North Texas (13) over my alma mater Purdue (4), Oregon State (12) beating Tennessee (5), Syracuse (11) over San Diego State (6) and Rutgers (10) over Clemson (7). From a seeding perspective, Wisconsin (9) beat North Carolina (8), however, it was hardly an upset as the consensus had Wisconsin favored to win.

While Friday covered the South and Midwest quadrants of the Round of 64, Saturday concludes the round in the West and East quadrants. Saturday has high hopes of being just as intriguing as Friday in the Round of 64. Sunday will begin the round of 32, again focusing on the South and Midwest sectionals. Two games I am utterly excited to view will be the Fighting Illini (1) against the Ramblers from Loyola-Chicago (8), and Oregon State (12) versus the 4th seed in Oklahoma State. These games provide some of the hottest teams from a momentum perspective facing off in the big dance. These games should not disappoint.

For Saturday specifically, keep an eye on the 12th seed Georgetown against the 5th seed Colorado, same seeding for UC-Santa Barbra and Creighton and the 7-10 matchup with UCONN and Maryland. The two major upsets I am hoping to see from todays docket would be Eastern Washington (14) over the Kansas Jayhawks (3), who have a history of let downs in the tournament, and have been slightly disappointing this year. Also keep a look out on Virgina Commonwealth as a 10 seed playing 7th seed Oregon, and St. Bonneventure’s matchup with LSU in the 8/9 seed game in the West quadrant.

Good luck to all!

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