2009 March Madness Tournament Recap

The 2009 NCAA Tournament ended up being a disappointment to many fans because of the lack of big-time upsets and photo finishes, but the hardcore fans still got to see a tournament packed with exciting matchups between talented teams and NBA-caliber prospects.

Call it the result of the rule that makes potential NBA stars go to college for one year or call it the result of an unusually high level of experienced players at big-name schools, but the madness wasn’t quite the same this year.

Arizona ended up making it to the Sweet 16 as a 12-seed, but the Wildcats are a major Pac-10 program that boasted three future NBA players in Jordan Hill, Chase Budinger, and Nic Wise, so it didn’t seem like much of a feel-good story.

Wisconsin over Florida State was another 12-seed upset but given the Badgers’ toughness, experience, and history of winning unexpected games, that wasn’t much of an upset, either.

Many people predicted that Western Kentucky would out-gun shorthanded Illinois, who was missing their leader in point guard Chester Frazier, and that happened as expected when the 12-seeded Hilltoppers advanced.

The biggest upset in the 2009 NCAA Tournament was definitely the 13-seed Cleveland State Vikings knocking off ACC power Wake Forest, especially considering that the Vikings came from a MAC Conference that had a down year and didn’t have a ton of hype coming into the tournament. Wake Forest had been the #1 team in the country at a few different points in the season but didn’t finish well down the stretch, so it wasn’t as big of an upset as it appeared on paper.

There were some memorable games, however. Scottie Reynolds’ drive and buzzer-beating double-clutch shot in the lane beat the #1-seeded Pittsburgh Panthers and sent Villanova to Detroit in one of the more dramatic games we’ve seen in recent years.

The Siena Saints beat the Ohio State Buckeyes in an 8-9 matchup in the first round in double overtime after coming back from a late deficit in a classic back-and-forth game filled with big shot after big shot.

The most memorable upsets might have been amongst higher-seeded teams in games many people didn’t think they had a chance to win, however. Michigan State’s defense suffocated the Big East Champion Louisville Cardinals en route to an Elite 8 win that sent MSU to Detroit for a home game in the Final Four. Missouri used their pressure defense to overwhelm the favored one seed Memphis Tigers in the Sweet 16 as well.

While this tournament won’t be looked back upon as fondly as some other recent iterations of March Madness, it will live on forever in the memories of fans of teams like Michigan State, Siena and Missouri. Michigan, a once-proud program, won its first tournament game since 1998 against Clemson. Villanova should be very proud of their effort as they went further than many people expected. But this is obviously the most monumental for North Carolina who can proudly state that they are the best team in all the land. The Tar Heels have cemented themselves as the USC of college basketball, a breeding ground for professional talent that will be tough to knock off for the foreseeable future.