1.
March Madness has officially begun.
Yes, the NCAA basketball tournament is still 10 days away. But some of the year’s most exciting college basketball action happens in championship games of small-conference tournaments.
Case in point, Sunday’s Atlantic Sun title game. Mercer clinched its first NCAA tournament berth since 1985. They beat Florida Gulf Coast, which made the Sweet 16 last year and showed again that small schools can make noise in the Big Dance.
Mostly, it’s nice to see the emotion of high-stakes hoops.
2.
Oregon’s upset of No. 3-ranked Arizona likely moved the Ducks off the bubble and into the NCAA tournament.
Therefore, six Pac-12 teams will likely earn berths to the Big Dance.
That’s good news for a conference that many experts said would have a down year. But Talking Points is here to play Debbie Downer.
ESPN predicts Arizona as a top seed and UCLA a No. 5 seed. But Arizona State, Stanford, Colorado and Oregon are projected to be No. 8 seeds or worse. So if form holds, there could be many early exits for Pac-12 teams.
