Although tame in comparison to years past, the early rounds of this season's March Madness has had its fair share of surprises, with top seeds falling and lower seeds prevailing. On Thursday, the Sweet 16 begins - here are some teams to look out for, both good and bad.
Risers
UConn: While they were already regarded very strongly, the Huskies' two dominant wins only pushed their odds up higher. Not for a single second did they look vulnerable in either of their first two games, controlling the pace from start to finish and never trailing against Stetson and Northwestern. Now they have a rematch of last year's National Championship against San Diego State, and the winner of that will await the winner of 2 seeded Iowa State vs. 3 Illinois. By no means is it an easy path to title defense, but out of every team still left in the field, UConn is the most equipped to get through it.
Gonzaga: Coming into the tournament, there were plenty of question marks surrounding the Bulldogs. After a down year (at least by their standards), many people had Gonzaga losing in the first round to McNeese. Yeah, so much for that. Following that up in the second round, Mark Few's squad didn't skip a beat when barreling past a shorthanded Kansas team, as they moved into their 9th straight Sweet 16. Ahead of them, they have Purdue in what is sure to be a close and highly anticipated matchup, and if they are able to win that, they will go on to face the winner of 2 Tennessee vs. 3 Creighton, two teams who have played incredibly well in their first two rounds as well. Once considered a bubble team, this Gonzaga team has showed grit and determination all throughout March, looking to prove that they are as strong as ever.
Fallers
Alabama: Despite beating Charleston by 13 in the first round and putting up nearly 110 points, the Crimson Tide showed vulnerablity on defense, allowing nearly 100 points as well to a 13 seed, who had put up that same number or more just 3 times before this season (against Campbell, Hampton, and Montreat?). In the second round against Grand Canyon, all that offense from the first round seemingly went away. The bright side of this was that the defense played much better, but for a period in the late game, it looked like GCU would win. An 11 point win looks nice on the scoreboard, but those who actually watched the game know that it was much closer. They will need to play better if they hope to beat teams like UNC and Arizona, whom they have ahead of them.
Houston: After a convincing defeat of 16 seed Longwood in the first round, Houston did nothing to convince fans that they could move easily past better teams in the second round. Leading by double digits with under 2 minutes left against Texas A&M, the Cougars let the game go all the way to overtime before closing it out. After being dominated by Iowa State in the finals of the Big 12 Tournament, the team showed that they were stil not as strong as earlier in the season. Against a very hot Duke team in the Sweet 16, they will need to be much better, almost on their A game if they want to move on and face the winner of NC State and Marquette.
Eli Knight
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