March madness continues into this week as the last games of the elite eight come to an end. This has been an exceptionally powerful year, with impressive appearances from many of the more underdog team. Here are my rankings for the individual seasons, relative to how the school usually performs in the tournament:
5. North Carolina (1 / 31-7)
North Carolina, as always, is making another impressive shot at the national title, gaining a second straight final four appearance. They are, still, the favorite to win it all.
4. Oregon Ducks (3 / 33-5)
This often dominant basketball team had a very good year preceding the tournament, with 29 wins, landing them at the number 3-seed in the west. Their opponents were all respected college basketball schools, and their most recent game, against the powerhouse Kansas Jay hawks, awarded them a chance at the title, and their second final four appearance (the last in 1939 when they took home the national title). Oregon is one of the new favorites to win the tournament.
3. Xavier Musketeers (11 / 24-14)
Nobody expected Xavier to be the last standing Big East school (losing at the same time as Butler). This little 11-seed private school blew out all of their competition, leading them to play the powerful 2-seed Arizona Wildcats, claiming just another victory; maybe their biggest ever. Almost everyone can agree that Xavier, although knocked out by the 1-seed Gonzaga Bulldogs, made an amazing appearance at this years NCAA tournament.
2. South Carolina Gamecocks (7 / 26-10)
South Carolina, coming from the impressive SEC football conference, has played exceptionally well for their seeding, along with the rest of the Southeastern Conference. They have managed to advance to the final 4 for the first time in school history, and perform well above expectations.
- Gonzaga Bulldogs (1 / 36-1)
Gonzaga is a difficult team to compare, especially in the regular season. Gonzaga plays regular season games in the West Coast Conference, against teams not particularly known for their long lasting tournament runs. With this advantage, Gonzaga makes many low seed appearances into the tournament bracket, and this year, sustained the Number 1 overall seed for the NCAA for much of the year. When tournament time comes along, many people believe that Gonzaga will under perform, further exaggerating the reality of their less competitive conference. Gonzaga has defied many odds and performed very impressively this year. As of now, they are still in the running for the national title.