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CLEVELAND — Trailing by one with less than eight minutes remaining, Robert Morris guard Amarion Dickerson swatted a shot attempt by Alabama guard Mark Sears, sending the first-team All-American to the floor and the ball caroming out of bounds. Then Dickerson, the suddenly not-so-anonymous Horizon League defensive player of the year who scored 25 points on Friday, stepped over Sears, a la Allen Iverson over Tyronn Lue, and flexed for the crowd.
Thousands roared back their approval, a throng of Robert Morris diehards who made the trek from Pittsburgh buoyed by an arena of new fans who had adopted the underdog.
Seconds later, the 15-seed Colonials harnessed that momentum, taking a one-point lead over the 2-seed Crimson Tide. And for a moment, the game felt destined for a classic David-over-Goliath upset, the stuff March Madness montages are made of.
Instead, Alabama ripped off a quick 6-0 run and never looked back, muscling its way to a nine-point victory.
It was the story of the round of 64 in this year’s NCAA Tournament. For the first time since 2017, no team seeded lower than No. 12 made it to the Saturday of the first weekend.
Only five double-digit seeds advanced over the past two days: two No. 10s, one No. 11 and two No. 12s. (And of those 12-seeds, Colorado State was a betting favorite.) That ties for the fewest first-round wins by double-digit seeds since 2007. The 2023 tournament produced the same number, but that first weekend featured No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson toppling No. 1 Purdue and No. 15 Princeton reaching the Sweet 16. Prior to that were similarly chalky first rounds in ’17 and ’15.
The fact that most of the games weren’t particularly close didn’t help this year’s early shortage of March magic, either: Only four of the 32 first-round games were decided by two possessions or less, the fewest since 1997. We did get a couple thrillers at the First Four in Dayton, but Thursday and Friday were noticeably light on madness.
So what’s the deal? Is it a one-year, one-round aberration? Or is it — like everything else in college sports these days — a referendum on the power-hungry power conferences, or the pernicious impact of name, image and likeness money and the transfer portal fully taking hold?
The Athletic’s own C.J. Moore and Brendan Marks actually predicted this could happen in their bracket picks earlier this week, getting out in front of any commenters looking to skewer them for playing it safe. As both explained, the advanced metrics pointed to a top-heavy group of No. 1s and other high seeds, which manifested on the court.
This could end up being a good omen for the second and third weekends, setting up some high-wattage matchups. And recent history, including a comparably top-heavy 2015, suggest this is simply a product of the natural cycles of college basketball. But it’s still kind of a bummer.
The joy and beauty of the NCAA Tournament lie in those unpredictable early-round upsets, the ones we can all rattle off from memory. FDU over Purdue. UMBC over Virginia. Lehigh over Duke. Saint Peter’s over Kentucky. Bucknell over Kansas. Cinderella is what makes March so special, making this one feel a tad hollow in the early going.
“Sometimes I hate them,” said Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, who lost to 15-seed Middle Tennessee in 2016. “But most of the time, I love them. … Everybody loves Cinderella. Everybody loves the underdog. Everybody loves the small school. This is the difference with the NCAA basketball tournament compared to just about any other tournament there is.”
Minutes after the clock struck midnight, literally and metaphorically, on the first round, Izzo avoided another of those memorable moments he’d rather forget. His 2-seed Spartans turned a narrow five-point halftime lead over 15-seed Bryant into a 25-point blowout, a fitting capper to the round of 64. Asked afterward about the predictability of the first round overall, Izzo, coaching in his 27th straight tournament, mostly shrugged, and pointed to those 12 seeds that prevailed over 5 seeds. The man has seen it all this time of year, and he’s not ready to sound any alarms just yet.
He’s probably right. March Madness remains one of sports greatest gifts, even if the glass slippers didn’t quite fit this time around. Perhaps the rest of the bracket will make up for it, too.
But it won’t change the fact that one of this tournament’s most electrifying moments came a few hours before Michigan State took the court in Cleveland, when Robert Morris — America’s new favorite team — had mighty Alabama on the ropes.
And almost something more.
(Photo: Nick Cammett / Getty Images)