March Madness: Top takeaways from 2019 NCAA Tournament Round of 64
By Brian Rauf
2) Good day for No. 16 seeds
The three No. 16 seeds that played today all also provided some intrigue despite none of them repeating UMBC’s feat from a year ago.
Gardner-Webb became the first No. 16 seed the have a lead at halftime over a No. 1 seed (UMBC was tied with Virginia) before ultimately falling apart in the second half as Virginia ramped up their play (more on them later).
Iona repeated that feat a few hours later as they built a 38-33 halftime lead over North Carolina thanks to 10 three-pointers they made in the opening stanza. UNC ultimately won in a blowout thanks to a blitzkrieg they opened the second half with, but the Gaels made it competitive.
The same can be said for North Dakota State. They weren’t leading top-seeded Duke at the half but were only down four and spent a good part of the first half either with the lead or tied with the Blue Devils.
The ACC became the second conference ever to receive three No. 1 seeds, and all of them struggled in their openers. We can look at this one of two ways – either those top seeds were simply not ready to play or No. 16 seeds are getting better.
As always, it was probably a combination of both. But it was also clear to me that UMBC’s win last season gave these teams confidence that they had the chance to do the same.