7 March Madness Takeaways: One of the Worst Tournaments, so far!

1. The First Round of the Tournament was one of the worst ever

No buzzer-beaters. Of the 32 first-round games, 20 were won by double figures, 12 by at least 20. Only four of the 32 ended up as one-possession games. The only last-second victory after the first round was a first-four game between two number sixteen seeds.

Not many upsets. The top four seeds in each region went 16-0 for the first time since 2017, and only two didn’t win by double digits. The most significant deficit any of the top 16 faced was seven, and there were only 32 lead changes in their 16 games combined. Seven of those were in the Purdue-High Point contest, and Purdue won going away.

2. The Best game-winner was a missed traveling call.

Derik Queen’s game-winner for Maryland against Colorado State was a travel; he took three steps. In addition, it seemed like Colorado State got every call in this game up until the game-winner. The Officiating was atrocious and ruined what was a great game. It was a great shot by Reese, but he took three steps.

Colorado State vs Maryland 😱 INSANE ENDING 🔥 2025 NCAA March Madness

3. It Struck Midnight before this tournament ever started

No Mid-majors are left heading into the second week of the tournament. All sixteen teams are from the Big Four conferences, let’s face it Cinderella’s are what make March Madness fun. Is this year an anomaly or a harbinger of things to come because of NIL and the transfer portal? I think the landscape of every College sport has changed over the last few years, and it may be too late to put Genie back in the bottle. The NCAA has very little power anymore and their demise is only a matter of time. Players should be getting paid, but with little to no regulation on that pay the rich will continue to get richer. The Power conferences will be like the Dodgers in baseball, all or most of the talent will reside on all of those teams’ rosters. When a player slips through the cracks and ends up at a smaller school he will be swept up and paid by one of the richer schools while the mid majors slide away to the abyss. If rules are not put in place to control this the competitive balance of college sports will be gone.

4. Loyalty no longer exists for players or coaches

A few examples of this popped up in the last week. First you have West Virginia Head Coach Darian Devries, who a couple of days after not making the NCAA Tournament is now the Head Coach at Indiana. Devries jumped ship last year from Drake to West Virginia and now he’s at Indiana, that’s three teams coached in a little over a year. It looks like Indiana was in contact with Devries before his season was even over, sounds like tampering to me, but my guess is that this will never be questioned by the NCAA.

Will Wade could not even wait until his team was eliminated from the tournament to become the next Head Coach at North Carolina State, his McNeese Cowboys won a game in the tournament, then in round two got bludgeoned by Purdue and now Wade is gone. Of course, we have players entering the transfer portal 13 minutes after losing a first-round tournament game. Once again, the NCAA has lost complete control of this ship.

Then we have Xavier Head man Sean “FBI” Miller, Miller was fired from Arizona because he was dirty, Xavier saved him by giving him another chance to be their head coach. Two years later it looks like Miller will be bolting to Texas to become the new Head Coach there. If course the Longhorns fire coaches and they all go on to do great things, Shaka Smart, Chris Beard etc…

5. Matt Painter and Purdue, no longer choke artists

Matt Painter and Purdue deserved to be called chokers a few years back, not anymore. The Boilermakers have become the top basketball program in the Hoosier state, IU fans like to say that Purdue can’t win in March, but last year they won five games in March and this season without Zach Edey anymore the Boilers won two more games against mid majors, and they won them easily. So, it’s back to the Sweet Sixteen for Purdue as IU fans sit and hope that they finally got the right coach. Purdue hired the right coach a long time ago and it’s paying off for Purdue fans.

6. Kelvin Sampson has come a long way

Sampson was fired many years ago in Indiana because he had no control of his program. Sampson obviously has learned his lessons from his Wild West days, and you can hear it in his press conferences. He has brough Houston back to prominence over the last decade and they have a legitimate shot to win a national Championship. Maybe Will Wade or Sean Miller could learn a few things from this man.

7. Duke might win it all, but the ACC as a whole has become trash

ACC Basketball has fallen so low that they are probably not as good as the Mountain West conference anymore. Duke is a powerhouse, they are loaded and most people’s favorites to cut down the nest this season, but the rest of the ACC. Straight trash! Louisville and Clemson had great seasons but, in the tournament, they were an embarrassment as Louisville got drilled by Creighton and Clemson scored 13 points in the first half against McNeese. North Carolina should not have been in the tournament, but they did look good beating a San Diego State team that didn’t belong either. The biggest issue to me in the ACC is coaching, I think Kelsey and Brownell are excellent coaches, but outside of the top three or four teams there are major issues that need to be fixed quickly.