King Kaufman's Sports Daily

A perfect NCAA Tournament mix: The first two rounds had the upsets we love and the beatdowns we need.

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March 24, 2008 | Mississippi State made an exciting late run at Memphis Sunday, losing to the South's top seed 77-74, and then the first long weekend of the NCAA Tournament ended with a whimper. North Carolina and Louisville finished it off with routs over Arkansas and Oklahoma.

But what a long weekend. There was a classic buzzer-beater, Western Kentucky ousting Drake Friday on Ty Rogers' 25-footer in overtime. That was one of four games in the first two rounds that went to an extra session. It was also one of six first-round upsets, not counting a pair of 9-over-8s.

There were two more upsets in the second round, not counting the 5-over-4 Michigan State win over Pittsburgh. No. 10 Davidson coming from 17 points down in the second half to shock No. 2 Georgetown in the Midwest was a humdinger. Stephen Curry's 30 points, following the 40 hung on Gonzaga in the first-round upset, made him the star of the first two rounds.

Duke got a scare in the first round from 15-seed Belmont and then got knocked out in the second by No. 7 West Virginia. UCLA and Stanford, the No. 1 in the West and the No. 3 in the South, survived second-round scares on the same floor against Texas A&M and Marquette -- a painful afternoon for this Cal man, having to watch those two teams pull out close victories. Texas, the No. 2 in the South, got an awful fright from No. 7 Miami before hanging on.

It was just the right mix. Upsets and near-upsets and fantastic finishes are what make the Tournament so great, but you need the blowouts and no-doubters too. If there weren't dominating performances by the top seeds to show that they really do deserve to be top seeds, the upsets wouldn't mean anything. And there were plenty of games like that.

Think of a dreary beating like UCLA's 70-29 mauling of Mississippi Valley State as a sort of investment.

Three double-digit seeds made it to the Sweet 16: No. 10 Davidson and No. 12 Villanova in the Midwest and No. 12 Western Kentucky in the West. Villanova and Western Kentucky both got to play rare 12-vs.-13 games in the second round, thanks to San Diego and Siena, the 13-seeds that pulled off the biggest upsets by seed of the first round.

San Diego stunned Connecticut before losing to Western Kentucky. Siena's upset over Vanderbilt was also a 13-over-4, but since Siena was a trendy bracket pick, it didn't seem like such a stunner. Siena didn't give Villanova much more of a game than San Diego gave Western Kentucky. That pair of games was a disappointment.

Next page: Davidson looks like it can beat anyone. Plus: Panel o' Experts standings. And: Parse the clock