On a night when all the favorites had won, it made sense that March had saved an upset for the final Sweet 16 game. 6th seed Tennessee took a one point lead into halftime against the 2nd seed Iowa State. But they came out strong to start the 2nd half as Nate Ament hit a three-pointer and Ja’Kobi Gillespie drove to the hoop for a layup to quickly extend that lead to 6.
Then, on two back-to-back possessions, Tennessee’s Jaylen Carey got an offensive rebound and tipped the ball back in while the Volunteer defense continued to shut down Iowa State, and with about 12 minutes to play, Tennessee was up 14 points. And they never looked back.
Nate Ament had 18 points and Ja’Kobi Gillespie added 16 points to lead the Volunteers, but to be honest, the thing that really won the game for Tennessee was their defense that held Iowa State to 39% from the field and 22% from three-point range on the way to a 76-62 victory to claim the final spot in the Elite 8 – the third consecutive year that Tennessee has reached the regional final.
Congratulations to our leaders after the Sweet 16. Thanks to getting 7 of the 8 Elite 8 teams, Mark Walsh has claimed the lead with 780 points, giving him a 30 point lead over Stacy Dooms. We have a 4-way tie for third between Brian Betz, Will Richter, Chris Stolzer and Mike Wyatt at 740 points. And another 4-way tie for seventh between Mary-Rian Bradley, Matt Reilly, Al Lester and Bo Luy at 730 points.
In the Upset Pool, Matt Reilly still leads with 252 points, but his lead has shrunk to 5 points as Mark Walsh and Mack Fournier are tied for 2nd at 247 points. Shirli Zelcer is in 4th place just 6 points behind, and Al Lester rounds out the top 5 at 237 points.
In the Second Chance Pool, we lost all our perfect brackets by the end of the night. But we still had 6 people who went 7 for 8 to be tied for first at 280 points. Congratulations to my wonderful wife Elizabeth Hodgson, Mack Fournier, Sonny Mao, Natalie Parker, Steve Thornton and Wendy Joseph. It seems only fair that my wife have some success in the pool with me making her watch all this basketball in March.
Congratulations to all our leaders!!!! And of course, the 8 teams that made it to the Elite 8. By the end of the weekend, only 4 will remain with the opportunity to travel to Indianapolis to play for the NCAA men’s national championship.