BSD Bracket Challenge: Sweet Sixteen

As far as any new developments on the future of Wake Forest basketball go, we still do have any announcements from the Athletic Department that would indicate anything has happened yet. That being said, on Friday, Texas announced that they were sticking with Shaka Smart for his 6th season. It has been rumored but not very well supported that Wake was interested in Shaka, so with him being out of the race, perhaps we will hear something soon. Since we still don’t have any news, it’s time for more games that never happened—from our one of our files that doesn’t exist.

Midwest Region

We have our first 1 seed go down. The Auburn Tigers took down the overall #1 seed in the tournament behind a strong 28 points, 6 rebound performance from Samir Doughty. Neither of the two top seeds in the Midwest made the Elite Eight, as the Kentucky Wildcats also lost to the Iowa Hawkeyes.

East

The Dayton Flyers continue to dominate the East region, beating Butler by 13 points. The Flyers have won every game so far by double digits. Unfortunately, the team I wanted to win it all—Florida State—went down in the Sweet Sixteen to Penn State. That sets up an intriguing matchup between Obi Toppin and Lamar Stevens to make the Final Four.

West

Couple of blowouts in the West region, as Gonzaga dismantled New Mexico State, ending their Cinderella run. Arizona was able to take down BYU despite a monstrous 27 points, 14 rebound game from Senior Yoeli Childs. That sets up a nice west coast battle between Gonzaga and Arizona in the Elite Eight.

South

No surprises in the South region, but we did get a couple of close games. The 1 seed Baylor barely took down #4 Louisville to advance while the USC Trojans narrowly escaped being Bradley’s latest victim in their unlikely NCAA Tournament run.

That’s it for the Sweet Sixteen of the 2020 NCAA Tournament. Again, barring any breaking news, the Elite Eight games resulted will come on Monday. You can check your score here if you made a bracket.

Notable Performances from the Sweet Sixteen

• Samir Doughty (Auburn): 28 points, 6 rebounds
• Luka Garza (Iowa): 10 points, 10 rebounds
• Jalen Crutcher (Dayton): 15 points, 6 rebounds
• Killian Tillie (Gonzaga): 17 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists
• Yoeli Childs (BYU): 27 points, 14 rebounds
• Nico Mannion (Arizona): 20 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists
• Darrell Brown (Bradley): 20 points, 4 rebounds, 7 assists