March Madness: How many 1 seeds made it to the Sweet 16?

After a crazy first four days in the NCAA Tournament, which teams that were projected to go far made it to the Sweet 16 in March Madness?

The first four days of the 2023 NCAA Tournament provided some unforgettable moments for college basketball fans. There’s nothing quite like 12 straight hours of March Madness basketball everyday from Thursday to Sunday.

The bad news is that there will be significantly less basketball played this weekend, but the good news is that these games may be even better than the ones we just watched.

The Sweet 16 lineup is cemented, which means 52 other teams didn’t “survive & advance” as the saying goes.

March Madness: How many No. 1 seeds made the Sweet 16?

Only half. The Alabama Crimson Tide and the Houston Cougars are left as the sole representatives of the tournament’s top seeds. Alabama steamrolled their way through the first two games, beating Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 96-75, and then the Maryland Terrapins 73-51.

Houston achieved victories by double-digit margins in both of their games, as well. The Cougars let Northern Kentucky hang around for a while, but eventually sealed the deal with a 63-52 win. Two days later, they outscored Auburn 50-23 in the 2nd half after being down at the end of the 1st half.

What happened to the other No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament?

The Purdue Boilermakers became only the second No. 1 seed in NCAA Tournament history to lose in the Round of 64 to a No. 16 seed, the first being UMBC’s win over Virginia in 2018. The Fairleigh Dickinson Knights came to play and sent Purdue back home to Indiana. There is now only one Big Ten Conference team left in the tournament. 

The Kansas Jayhawks may not have been dealt a loss as humiliating as Purdue’s, but at least Fairleigh Dickinson’s head coach didn’t rip his shirt off in celebration after the win. The Jayhawks dropped a heart breaker to the Arkansas Razorbacks in the Round of 32, losing 72-71. Kansas was without head coach Bill Self for both of their games in the tournament, and assistant coach Norm Roberts had to take over.

Alabama and Houston are set to play in the Sweet 16 this Friday, March 24th against No. 1 seed San Diego State and No. 5 seed Miami respectively.