It’s that time of the year again. March Madness!  This year’s tournament has been and is going to be full of surprises. Going into Selection Sunday many of the top seeds have been subject to speculation on how they will far throughout the tournament.

     The teams facing the brunt of this negative speculation are Syracuse, Kentucky, and North Carolina. All of these teams lost their conference tournament. Syracuse, the East Regional top seed, did not even make it to the finals of its conference.

     Syracuse faced a fierce game its first round against University of North Carolina – Ashville. Ashville caught Syracuse by surprise and ended up by two at the half. Syracuse was able to get back into it in the second half preventing an upset, beating Ashville 72 to 65. Despite this comfortable win, Syracuse’s performance has casted doubt on how they will far later on in the tournament.

     Michigan State, the only top seed to actually win its tournament conference, has shown great potential in its first couple rounds. Besides the top 4 seeds this tournament has been crazy and full of upsets. One of the most mind blowing upset is 2nd seeds Missouri and Dukes lost to 15 seed Norfolk and Lehigh. Missouri lost a tragic game only down by two points. Duke lost by a surprising 5 points. Junior Joe Daileader gave his opinion on this upset and said, “Who is Lehigh and Norfolk?” Many others share similar feelings about these unforeseen victories by teams that have small name recognition.

     In addition, upsets have been spreading like a bad fad all throughout the tournament. Several   notable upsets in the tournament have been  11th seed Colorado beating 6th seed UNLV, 12th seed Virginia Commonwealth beating 5th seed Wichita University, and 10th seed Xavier beating 7th seed Notre Dame.

     The East and West had fewer upsets but, the Midwest was showered with upsets, with 11th seed North Carolina State beating 6th seed South Dakota State University, then going on to narrowly beat 3rd seed Georgetown University by 3 points. Also, 13th seed University of Ohio beat 4th seed University of Michigan, then beat 12th seed University of southern Florida. 12th seed University of southern Florida, also upset 5th seed temple, and 10th seed Purdue beat 7th seed St. Marie’s.

     Purdue went on to face an emotional defeat against Kansas losing by 3 points. Going forward, teams to keep an eye on could be Marquette and Kansas.  If these two teams make it through the elite eight they will be very competitive in the finals.