NCAA Tournament BracKet Update - Round 2, Day 1 Update

After a somewhat lackluster opening round of tournament play, the first day of the Round of 32 provided lots of high quality action.  We saw three upsets out of Saturday's eight games, and just about every winning team had to battle their way into the Sweet 16.

(4) Purdue had the easiest draw of the day and they took advantage of it, cruising to victory from the jump over the tournament's biggest Cinderella, (12) McNeese.  Then, (10) Arkansas delivered the first casualty to a top-four seed, as John Calipari's Razorbacks knocked off Rick Pitino's (2) St. John's Red Storm in a battle of the Paisons.

The other two upsets weren't as dramatic seed-wise, as (5) Michigan went on a late run to roll past (4) Texas A&M, and (6) BYU answered every push from (3) Wisconsin to escape with a two-point victory despite blowing a lead late and allowing 37 points from John Tonje.

(1) Auburn, (2) Tennessee, and (3) Texas Tech all ended up winning by double digits after strong second halves, putting ends to the seasons of (9) Creighton, (7) UCLA, and (11) Drake, respectively.  It appeared (1) Houston was going to do the same against (9) Gonzaga until the Bulldogs erased an 11-point deficit at the 2:30 mark to cut it to one point with 14 seconds left.  But Houston walled up defensively on the final possession to avoid disaster and escape with a win.

The St. John's loss put out another bracket's champion in the Mega March Madness Matchup Monstrosity.  And there were three other brackets that had the Red Storm in their Final Four.  No other Final Four teams were lost on Saturday.  As a result, here's how our leaderboard looks after half of the Sweet 16 field is set.

We have our top two champion picks in action today in the last half of Round of 32 action.  Enjoy the games and check back for tomorrow for another update with the remainder of the Sweet 16 is filled.

Written by Nick Swatson