Saturday:
Virginia has had the most dramatic shifts of fate in recent years. In 2018, they suffered humiliation when they became the first #1 seed to lose a first-round match to a #16. In 2019, they basked in elation when they won the whole shebang. There was no tournament in 2020, so they entered the 2021 tournament as the defending champions. Given the up-and-down pattern that I began this paragraph with, you can guess what happened Saturday. As a #4 seed, they were upset by 13th-seeded Ohio.
Perhaps that wasn’t as severe a comeuppance as suffered by the Texas Longhorns, a #3 seed ranked in the top ten in the national polls, that lost to unheralded Abilene Christian.
Tale of the tape for the Longhorns’ coach:
Shaka Smart's last 5 NCAA Tournaments:
2014: Round of 64 loss to 12-seed
2015: Round of 64 loss to 10-seed
2016: Round of 64 loss to 11-seed
2018: Round of 64 loss to 7-seed
2021: Round of 64 loss to 14-seed0-5.
Keep him forever, please.
— Rock Chalk Blog (@RockChalkBlog) March 21, 2021
What a thrill for the 5,000-student school to defeat the big dog of their own state (50,000 students) after falling behind early. Don’t underestimate Abilene. They play in a weak conference, but they destroyed their opponent in the conference championship game (79-45) after easily rolling over every other team they faced in the tourney. These kids got some game, and they have really peaked at the right time.
15-seed Oral Roberts
14-seed Abilene Christian
13-seed North Texas
13-seed OhioThis is the first time four teams seeded 13 or worse have reached the Round of 32 in a single NCAA Tournament. pic.twitter.com/EBzRkxDv6h
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) March 21, 2021
Friday:
Ohio State, second-seeded and ranked #7 in the nation, dropped a close OT game to … wait for it … 15th-seeded Oral Roberts.
The other institutions in the fine family of Roberts colleges, Anal and Genital, did not advance.
Also advancing in upsets:
- 11-seed Syracuse won easily
- 12-seed Oregon won easily
- 13-seed North Texas won in OT
Written Bobs University also did not make the bracket
and Oral Sex went down early
Yeah, they totally sucked.