One week of March Madness is in the books, and one thing is for sure. No team is safe. After seeing hardly any upsets in the Round of 64, the Round of 32 was filled with them. In possibly the most evenly matched tournament from top to bottom in years, nothing is given.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, the Wisconsin Badgers (#8 seed) ended Villanova\u2019s (#1 seed) chance at repeating as champions. Also, the Xavier Musketeers (#11) dominated Florida State (#3), and easily came away with a 91-66 victory. On Sunday, only two games were decided by more than seven points. Arguably the most surprising team of the tournament, South Carolina, advanced to their first Sweet Sixteen appearance since 1973 after stunning Duke, 88-81. Another Final Four hopeful, Louisville, also found their season come to a screeching halt. The Michigan Wolverines outscored them by 12 in the second half and won, 73-69. Although these were the only upsets of the day, North Carolina, Kentucky, Baylor, and Oregon all found themselves within minutes of ending their seasons on a negative note. With the Sweet Sixteen beginning on Thursday, here\u2019s a breakdown of teams by conference and region.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sweet Sixteen Matchups <\/strong><\/p>\n West Region <\/span>(on Thursday at the SAP Center in San Jose, California)<\/span><\/p>\n #1 Gonzaga vs. #4 West Virginia <\/span><\/p>\n #2 Arizona vs. #11 Xavier<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Midwest Region <\/span>(on Thursday at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri)<\/span><\/p>\n #1 Kansas vs. #4 Purdue<\/span><\/p>\n #3 Oregon vs. #7 Michigan<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n East Region <\/span>(on Friday at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York)<\/span><\/p>\n #3 Baylor vs. #7 South Carolina<\/span><\/p>\n #4 Florida vs. #8 Wisconsin<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n South Region<\/span> (on Friday at the FedExForum in Memphis, Tennessee)<\/span><\/p>\n #1 North Carolina vs. #4 Butler<\/span><\/p>\n #2 Kentucky vs. #3 UCLA<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Remaining Teams by Conference<\/strong><\/p>\n Big 10 – 3 teams (Michigan, Purdue, Wisconsin)<\/span><\/p>\n Big 12 – 3 teams (Baylor, Kansas, West Virginia)<\/span><\/p>\n Pac 12 – 3 teams (Arizona, Oregon, UCLA)<\/span><\/p>\n SEC – 3 teams (Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina)<\/span><\/p>\n Big East – 2 teams (Butler, Xavier)<\/span><\/p>\n ACC – 1 team (North Carolina)<\/span><\/p>\n West Coast – 1 team (Gonzaga)<\/span> <\/p>\n For TMN, I am Tristan Sasse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One week of March Madness is in the books, and one thing is for sure. No team is safe. After seeing hardly any upsets in… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[55,7349],"tags":[106,10871,10912,10911,103],"class_list":["post-31804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-sports","tag-fort-hays-state-university","tag-march-madness","tag-road-to-phoenix","tag-sweet-sixteen","tag-tiger-media-network"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31804"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31810,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31804\/revisions\/31810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nOut of these conferences, the ACC led all conferences by sending nine teams to the tournament, but only one of them (North Carolina) was able to survive the opening weekend. Also, the Big 10 proved seeding doesn\u2019t matter. Two of their three teams in the Sweet Sixteen are a 7 seed or higher. There was no surprises in the Big 12 or Pac-12, the top three schools in regular season standings all still have a chance at a national championship. The SEC may have been the biggest surprise of all major conferences, sneaking three teams into the Sweet Sixteen. The SEC is generally considered a below average basketball conference, outside of Kentucky. Finishing off the Sweet Sixteen, includes familiar Big East teams, Butler and Xavier; and mid-major powerhouse out of the West Coast Conference, Gonzaga. Out of all teams, Kansas may have received the luckiest draw. Games for the Midwest Region in the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight will be played at a familiar site for them, the Sprint Center in Kansas City. The Sweet Sixteen will be played on March 23 and 24, the Elite Eight occurs the following days, March 25 and 26. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n