NCAA Tournament: Sweet 16 Preview, Predictions, Big Ten Chances

Day 1 of the Tourney was all kinds of close game goodness and heartpounding adventure. The rest of the Tourney? I'll give it a solid B-. No real runs from the Murray State's of the world, not too many buzzer beaters, or even close games...But it's still the Tourney and we've still got B1G teams rolling around.

The seeding breakdown for the Sweet 16 teams is interestingly diverse...Does that speak to depth? Randomness of seeding? Momentum? Yeah, probably all of that. Everyone gets a bite at the apple in this 2015 Tourney though:

#1 Seeds (3)

#2 Seeds (2)

#3 Seeds (2)

#4 Seeds (2)

#5 Seeds (2)

#6 Seeds (1)

#7 Seeds (2)

#8 Seeds (1)

#11 Seeds (1)

I'm genuinely thrilled at these Thursday-Friday Sweet 16 matchups. The proliferation of evenly seeded matchups and downright juicy regional matchups is going to make this a very interesting Thursday and Friday. The mood here in Lansing area is alllllllllllllll anticipation and belief, aided by the fact that MSU's bracket is looking extremely winnable for the Spartans. Let's rank these by excitement-level (because that's something people do these days):

1. UNC-Wisconsin. Super-talented NBA-level players roaming all over the floor, a suddenly hot UNC team, an always hot Wisconsin team.
2. Kentucky-WVU. Ooooooooo goodness, mid-Appalachia showdown of inside-dominant squads.
3. ND-Wichita State
4. Duke-Utah
5. Gonzaga-UCLA
6. MSU-Oklahoma
7. Arizona-Xavier
8. Louisville-NC State