It looked like we were going to see two more double digit seeds advance, and then March happened.

In 2022, Jermaine Couisnard played for South Carolina, but decided to transfer for his senior year due to the upcoming coaching change. Today, Couisnard scored a career-high 40 points for his 2023 team, the Oregon Ducks, the most points ever for Oregon in a tournament game. N’Faly Dante added 23 points and the Ducks won 87-73 to advance to the second round. This sets up a matchup with 3 seed Creighton, which is the school that Oregon coach Dana Altman was at for 16 years until heading to the Ducks.

In the other game, with 7 1/2 minutes to play, Nevada’s Jarod Lucas hit a three pointer to give the Wolfpack a 56-39 lead. Then DaRon Holmes II and Koby Brea took over. Over the next approximately 5 minutes, the two Flyers scored 14 of Dayton’s next 17 points – finished off by Brea draining a three pointer. Meanwhile, the Wolfpack were scoreless.

Jarod Lucas finally broke the run with a jumper, but Brea found his partner Holmes in the lane, and went strong to the basket to dunk the ball while being fouled. After hitting the free throw, the Flyers were ahead.

Kenan Blackshear gave Nevada the lead back with a minute to take the lead back, but the Flyers‘ Nate Santos got a layup, and Enoch Cheeks stole the ball with 15 seconds leading to Santos extending the lead to 3 from the free throw line. Nevada missed two three pointers, the clock struck zero, and the Flyers advanced off an incredible 24-4 run to end the game – making it that both Atlantic 10 teams survived to the second round.

We still have 6 perfect brackets as Joanna Crabbe, Rich Napolitano, Kevin Bostic, Drew Bradley, my son Charlie, and my step-mom Barbara have gone 8 for 8. It looks like Joanna, Rich and Kevin have Texas and Drew, Charlie and Barbara have Colorado State, so no matter what we will be down to 3 after the current game. Pretty impressive to get all 8 of the afternoon games right!