NCAA Tournament 2013 Bracket Analysis: March Madness Upset Alerts For Third Round Sunday

Mar 23, 2013; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; The Wichita State Shockers bench celebrates after guard Fred Van Vleet (23) hits a three point late in the second half of the game during the third round of the NCAA basketball tournament at EnergySolutions Arena. Witchita State won the game 76-70Mandatory Credit: Steve Dykes-USA TODAY Sports

Again we flailed on our upset picks for Saturday, missing on Cal, Butler and VCU. Thankfully we at least got one with the Oregon game, but it’s starting to look like Oregon should have been a 4 seed or higher after finishing 2nd in the Pac-12 regular season and winning their conference tournament. Basically what I’m saying is that it really wasn’t an upset… but we did call it.

The higher seeds held court for the most part besides that game and of course, Gonzaga losing their way against Witchita State. And so we come to Sunday in the final day of the first weekend, the final 8 trips to the Sweet 16 on the line. Here’s the thing, I don’t see a single higher seed losing on Sunday. Not a one. Maybe that’s because of what I saw Saturday, where the upstart teams came in “hot” but got eviscerated by other power teams that had also won on the first night. Typically, power teams are highly seeded and play better on their second night, while the upstart teams come out the first night and shock everybody, only to be lulled into the trap of anxiety while they fall behind and never recover.

And so our upset alerts all go to the lower seeded teams. There isn’t one remaining in this half of the bracket that I can see as “higher” than they are already seeded to the point they should be higher than their opponent (not like an Oregon). On top of that you’re looking at two #1’s, three #2’s and a #3 seed playing today, so that’s tough to go against. FGCU goes up against an underachieving but equally athletic SDSU team, which should cause problems for them. And then the final match is a very tired LaSalle coming in against the energy of Ole Miss. Even though that’s a 13/12, I just don’t like the chances of anybody to upset today.

Everybody that is a high seed better come ready to play though. As Gonzaga showed us yesterday, seeding means very little at this juncture. It’s one game win or go home and you are going to get tested by a hungry and confident team that wants the Sweetness just as much as you do.