NCAA Tournament 2022: 5 biggest storylines from 1st weekend games

SEC, Big Ten, and Big 12

These conferences are a storyline but for completely different reasons than the ACC. The SEC and Big Ten are performing very poorly. While the Big 12 is showing its strength as the best conference in basketball. The Big Ten received 9 bids in the NCAA tournament and has two teams remaining. The SEC received 5 bids into the tournament and has 1 team left.

The Big Ten and the SEC were reeling heading into the tournament, they were two conferences that did not elicit a lot of confidence for me. There were others who didn’t think the same way as I did as many out there had Big Ten teams in the final four and winning the entire tournament.

Iowa for example was a hot pick to make the Final Four but they came and laid an egg losing to Richmond. The Hawkeyes looked out of sorts all game long. The Hawkeyes missed shots they would normally make and lost in a very uninspiring way. Illinois couldn’t score and is lucky to have even won a game. They lost the ability to score any points and it got so bad for the Illini that they benched two starters in their Round of 32 game and gave the younger guys a chance to play.

The Big Ten was very uninspiring for the second year in a row and it is likely that the two remaining teams Purdue and Michigan will be out in the Sweet 16 and the league won’t have the national champion again.

The SEC was a conference that had a lot of top seeds in the Tournament, they had two No. 2 seeds, a 3 seed, a 4 seed, and a 6 seed. The 2 seeds were two teams that many thought was going to earn a one seed up until the last week of the season in Auburn and Kentucky and what happened was Kentucky lost to Saint Peter’s which we touched on earlier and the other Auburn was confused by the Miami Hurricane defense and Auburn could not make a shot eventually falling by 18 points to Miami.

Tennessee was a trendy pick by many, to make a deep run, but they also could not make any shots including layups and blew a late lead against Michigan. They also underachieved. Arkansas is the only team from the SEC remaining and they play Gonzaga on Thursday.

The Big 12 is the exact reverse of the SEC and the Big Ten. The Big 12 has performed like the best conference in the country. I, like many others, trusted the Big 12 all season and they have performed admirably in the opening weekend. The league has lost three times so far in the tournament and all were in the second round. Iowa State, Kansas, Texas Tech are all in the sweet 16.

Every one of the games that the Big 12 has been involved in has been competitive and the league has looked as we all thought it would be heading into the tournament. The league is looking good in terms of getting teams to the final four and beyond.