Not One, but TWO overtimes

March Madness started up again, as the first games of the Sweet 16 started up. And boy did it live up to the hype. A couple of the games weren't too interesting, West Virginia beat Washington and Kentucky dominated Cornell, but the other two games had some excitement.

First game of the night, Syracuse vs Butler. The Orange were a heavy favorite in this one for good reason. Syracuse was still playing without Arinze Onuaku. They were fine the first two rounds without him, but they clearly needed him in this matchup. As good Syracuse is, even without Onuaku, they didn't put it all together and they fell to Butler 63-59 in this 5-1 upset. Syracuse is the second one seed to go down this tournament, so that opens the door for teams like Michigan State, Ohio State, Tennessee, even Northern Iowa, to have an easier road to the championship game. But the winner on that side would have to play Kansas State... more than likely, but Xavier had other plans.

Xavier, the six seed, was looking to do the same thing Butler did to Syracuse on the same court. This one was the definition of a thriller. Kansas State led by as many as 15 in the second half, but when it came down to the end, the two teams were trading leads. It was a tie game, until Clemente hit a huge three for Kansas State. Then K-State, correctly might I add, tried to foul Xavier before they shot. They missed the first foul, which was an obvious miss call, but got called for the second attempt. The only problem was that second attempt was in the act of shooting.Holloway was sent to the line shooting three for the tie. The 85% free throw shooter calmly sank all three to send it to overtime.

Time winding down in the first time, K-State up three. It looked like K-State was going to put away Xavier this time. But with time winding down, Jordan Crawford decided that one overtime wasn't enough. He calmly made a 30-foot three point shot. Clemente missed the buzzer beater from inside the three point line, so we were going to a second overtime. Well, K-State showed why they were the better team, as they finally pulled away from Xavier. There was little time left in the game, K-State was up three. Xavier was unable to hit the tying three and was forced to foul Clemente, who hit both free throws to make it a5 point game and seal the win for the Wildcats 101-96.

So it was just another typical day in March, and today I expect the nothing less. State plays everyone's new favorite team, Northern Iowa, tonight at 9:30. The Spartans are going to have to get this win without star point guard Kalin Lucas, who's done for the tourney with an achilles injury. Expect Izzo to have the boys ready, and the Spartans to advance. My other winners of the day are Duke, St. Mary's, and Ohio State.

Happy March everyone, enjoy today, and watch some basketball