My 5 favorite moments from the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament
By Adam Spencer
Published:
There’s a lot to complain about in the world of college sports.
Complaints run the gamut from the NIL situation, the lack of transfer portal structure, coaching buyouts and more. The NCAA itself seemingly wants to ruin the best sporting event in the world, what with all this talk of expanding the tournament field from 68.
But when the ball hits the floor, the NCAA Tournament always delivers. The competition is elite. The players leave everything on the court. The fans make each and every arena a wonderful experience.
Now that we have the first 2 rounds in the books for the 2026 March Madness extravaganza, here are the 5 moments I enjoyed the most:
1. The most unbelievable final 10 seconds in NCAA Tournament history
I was fortunate enough to be in the building on Friday afternoon for the Kentucky Wildcats‘ matchup with Santa Clara in St. Louis.
What a finish.
There are simply no words to describe this final 10 seconds:
Otega Oweh tied the score at 70 with 9.9 seconds left. Santa Clara made its way down the court and got the ball to Allen Graves, who knocked down an open 3, leading to pandemonium from the Broncos’ faithful sitting behind me.
Joy turned to devastation in 2.4 seconds, however, as Oweh got the ball back and drilled a banked-in 3-pointer from right in front of Kentucky coach Mark Pope. The Enterprise Center was shaking after that.
Sequences like that are what make the NCAA Tournament the best sporting event in the world. This is a game that will be remembered for a long time.
2. An incredible March Madness moment
Folks, this is what March Madness is all about:
Yeah, Long Island was getting smoked by Arizona in Round 1. But kudos to LIU coach Rod Strickland for emptying his bench with plenty of time left for the backups to actually play some basketball.
Eddie Munyak did just that, appearing in his second game of the season and scoring his first collegiate points. If you don’t get goosebumps watching something like that, you might need to check your pulse.
3. St. John’s to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1999
Dylan Darling hadn’t made a shot for 59 minutes and 59 seconds in St. John’s Round 2 matchup against Kansas. He was 0-for-4 from 3-point range when he got the ball with 3.9 seconds left and the score tied at 65.
Didn’t matter.
You’d have thought Darling had scored 30 points already with the way he raced into the paint and hit the game-winning layup as time expired:
Rick Pitino has now led St. John’s to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1999. The Red Storm will head to Washington DC to take on another college basketball blue-blood, 1-seed Duke.
You’re not going to want to miss that matchup, y’all.
4. Texas puts on the Cinderella slipper
In a tournament that has been mostly devoid of major upsets, there’s only 1 double-digit seed standing — No. 11 Texas. The Longhorns beat NC State in the First Four, took down AJ Dybantsa and No. 6 BYU in Round 1 and then got this clutch shot from Cam Heide to upset No. 3 Gonzaga on Saturday night:
The regular season was a roller coaster for Sean Miller in Year 1 in Austin, but the NCAA Tournament has been dynamic. The Longhorns are still dancing, and that’s impressive for an 11-seed.
What is it about orange teams making runs as double-digit power conference seeds? Syracuse made the Final Four as a 10-seed in 2016, then followed it up with Sweet 16 runs in 2018 and 2021 as 11-seeds.
Now the Longhorns are, by default, this year’s Cinderella. No. 2 seed Purdue awaits.
Can the Longhorns keep dancing? Here’s what Kalshi has to say about the Texas-Purdue matchup:
5. The champs are done
This one is painful to write as the editor of an SEC website, but what a weekend for the Big Ten. The conference that hasn’t won a national title since Michigan State cut down the nets in 2000 has put 6 teams in the Sweet 16.
And the story of the weekend were the Iowa Hawkeyes, who used this clutch 3-pointer to knock the reigning-champion Florida Gators out of the Big Dance:
Florida fought hard to overcome a double-digit deficit in the second half, but Alvaro Folgueiras didn’t blink. The NCAA Tournament consistently produces big-time shots from players who aren’t necessarily the focal point of their teams’ offenses, and Folgueiras is now the latest to become a March legend.
The Gators had their chance to take another step toward immortality.
Instead, it will be Iowa partying like it’s 1999 alongside St. John’s.
We get 2 more weekends of NCAA Tournament action. Lucky us. Enjoy it, y’all.
Adam is a daily fantasy sports (DFS) and sports betting expert. A 2012 graduate of the University of Missouri, Adam now covers all 16 SEC football teams. He is the director of DFS, evergreen and newsletter content across all Saturday Football brands.
