Bracket not busted: all top 8 seeds advance to Sweet Sixteen

March Madness arrived with visions of chaos. Based on last year’s bracket, there was little reason to doubt it.

The only surprise so far has been the lack of pandemonium.

All eight top-two seeds are headed to the regional round for the fifth time. One double-digit seed will join them. Most of the Cinderellas that put the madness in March busted out of the bracket long before midnight.

The bluebloods and big boys are headed to the Sweet 16 — and they all want more.

“I didn’t come back to make the Sweet 16,” Purdue big man Zach Edey said after the Boilermakers’ 106-67 victory over Utah State. “I came back to make a run, a deep run. Nobody is satisfied with where we are now.”

Last year’s Final Four was unlike any other, a bracket-busting foursome with no teams seeded better than No. 4 for the first time since the bracket expanded in 1979.

Reigning national champion UConn has looked good in its bid to repeat this year, but there wasn’t a dominant team during the regular season, opening the door for what was expected to be a wild NCAA Tournament.

It didn’t happen.

The upsets that punctuate March have been limited and the only true buzzer-beater was a tying 3-pointer by Texas A&M’s Andersson Garcia to force overtime against Houston. The average margin of victory the first two rounds was 15.8 points, second-highest since 1985.

Purdue erased some of the disappointment of last year’s historic first-round flameout with a pair of lopsided wins, setting up a Sweet 16 matchup with a Gonzaga team back in the underdog role. Fellow No. 1 seeds North Carolina, UConn and Houston also are through to the Sweet 16.

The Cougars were the only ones tested, needing overtime to beat Texas A&M 100-95. No other game involving a No. 1 seed was less than 16 points.

No. 2 seeds Arizona, Tennessee, Marquette and Iowa State also advanced, marking the fifth time — first since 2019 — that all eight top-two seeds reached the Sweet 16 since the start of seeding in 1979.

No. 3 seeds Illinois and Creighton, along fourth-seeded Duke and Alabama also got through. The average seed for the Sweet 16 is 3.3, right behind the 3.1 in 2019 and 2009.



(AP Photo Michael Conroy)