NCAA Tournament: Day 1 Highlights

Yesterday marked the start of everyone slacking off at work and school. It is the time of the year when everyone becomes a college basketball fan. The time of the year when that cinderella team makes a run deep into the tournament and ruins millions of brackets.

Photo by www. breitbart.com

The biggest story of the "second round" was Harvard upsetting New Mexico to get their first tournament win in school history. Third-seeded New Mexico was heavily favored and picked by many to make a run in this years tournament, but failed to get out of the round of 64 for the second straight year. Harvard led and controlled much of the game, making New Mexico force tough shots. Wesley Saunders led Harvard with 18 points and four rebounds in 39 minutes. Harvard will try to be this years cinderella team and will face sixth-seeded Arizona on Saturday.

Another big surprise was the success of the Pac-12 Conference. Arizona, Oregon, and California all won their games yesterday to advance to the next round. Oregon, powered by Damyean Dotson and Arsalan Kazemi, defeated Oklahoma State convincingly 68-55. Arizona proved the critics wrong and shut down popular upset pick Belmont. California upset UNLV 64-61in a game that ended with multiple missed free throws by both teams.

VCU and Syracuse looked like championship caliber teams in their opening games. VCU beat 12th-seeded Akron by 46. The Rams forced 21 turnovers and only allowed Akron to make one shot from beyond the arc. Syracuse dominated Montana 81-34 to continue their momentum that they gained from a successful Big East Tournament. They will face California in the next round on Saturday.

One thing that many people forget while watching the tournament is that these players are only college kids. Some of them are playing in the last game of their career. Pittsburgh guard Tray Woodall reminded us of that yesterday in his emotional post game press conference. See video below.