52 basketball games down and March Madness is down to what’s arguably the most exciting part of the tournament, the Sweet 16. It’s the first break of days since the Round of 64 and it’s usually a few days after the last perfect bracket gets eliminated. And it’s also the perfect time to talk about the best stories from the first 2 rounds of the tournament, the biggest upsets and the best matchups of the RO16 games today and tomorrow. So without further ado, let’s get into everything I’d like to cover about the tournament this week.

SCHOOL BRACKET COMPETITION

If you were unaware, Esperanza started it’s annual March Madness bracket competition last week, so here are the best brackets as of today, hours before the RO16 tips off:

First off, I’d like to congratulate the teachers and staff that have had very successful brackets this year, such as Mr. Freeman and Ms. Paris. Also in case you were wondering, the best bracket I made is ranked 175th, so I’ve basically already given up on winning this or the challenge on the NCAA website. But congratulations to everybody in this picture, especially if you picked High Point over Wisconsin because I genuinely didn’t see that one coming.

UPSETS

9. TCU > 8. Ohio State

12. High Point > 5. Wisconsin

11. VCU > 6. UNC

10. Texas A&M > 7. St. Mary’s

11. Texas > 6. BYU

9. Saint Louis > 8. Georgia

9. Utah State > 8. Villanova

9. Iowa > 8. Clemson

11. Texas > 3. Gonzaga

5. St. John’s > 4. Kansas

6. Tennessee > 3. Virginia

9. Iowa > 1. Florida

It gets to a point where you assume the 9. seed is the favorite, because all 4 made it out of the first round. Only one of them made it out the 2nd though, which was Iowa, who got a game-saving 3 with 3.9 seconds left from Junior Alvaro Folgueiras to make the score 73-72 and make my bracket take another bad hit, seriously, although the last time a reigning champ got out before the RO16 prior to this was 2023 when Kansas lost to Arkansas, so I guess it’s not that uncommon. Only one other team shows up on this list twice, which is 11. Texas, who is now the lowest-seeded team still in the tournament. Their biggest challenge comes later today when they face 2. Purdue, the first game of the round of 16. Tip-off is at 4:10pm.

BIGGEST MATCH-UPS TO LOOK FOR

11. Texas vs. 2. Purdue (Lowest seed in RO16)

9. Iowa vs. 4. Nebraska (Other Cinderella story team, tough match-up vs. historic rival)

4. Alabama vs. 1. Michigan (My personal pick for one of the best games this season so far)

With so many people rating Michigan so high, it’ll be interesting to see if they can get the job done against a really powerful Alabama squad.