Illinois – By Nick Zoll, Contributor
With expectations at an all-time high, Illinois’ early exit has been the biggest disappointment of the 2021 March Madness tournament.
Back in November of 2020, Illinois was ranked eighth in the initial AP Top 25 poll. Fast forward to March 15, just a few days before the beginning of March Madness, and the Fighting Illini were ranked second, trailing only Gonzaga. Illinois retained their ranked status from wire-to-wire, as they never fell out of the AP Top 25 this season.
Additionally, Illinois earned key postseason victories over contenders Iowa and Ohio State, which resulted in their first Big Ten tournament title since 2005. A strong showing throughout the season earned Illinois the number-one seed in the Midwest region of the March Madness bracket. This was Illinois’ best opportunity in years. Led by superstars Kofi Cockburn and Ayo Dosunmo, the Fighting Illini were poised to make a deep March Madness run.
Illinois showed out as expected in the Round of 64. Unless you’re Virginia in 2018, winning the first round matchup as a one seed is a shoo-in. Illinois did its job, handling Drexel by 29 points.
Enter the Loyola Ramblers.
The Fighting Illini were booted from the tournament in the Round of 32, and it wasn’t close. Eighth-seeded Loyola secured a 71-58 victory to ensure their own spot in the Sweet 16, while Illinois was sent home packing.
The other major shocker from the early stages of the tournament came in the first round as 15th-seeded Oral Roberts knocked off second-seeded Ohio State. The Buckeyes’ loss was a major disappointment, but they had lost momentum before entering March Madness by dropping the Big Ten title game to Illinois and four games in a row to end the regular season. The Fighting Illini, on the other hand, entered the tournament scorching hot as Big Ten champions and second-ranked in the nation. Along with those accolades came massive expectations for Illinois, which outweighed those of Ohio State.
Ultimately, Illinois failed to live up to the hype and their loss to Loyola marked a disappointing end to a dominant season.
Ohio State – By Francisco Alonzo, Contributor
No. 2 seeded Ohio State’s 75-72 opening round loss against Oral Roberts last week was the biggest disappointment of the NCAA Tournament first rounds.
The expectations this season were high for the Buckeyes, being one of the best teams in the Big Ten conference. They ended the season with an impressive 21-10 record. According to the NCAA website, 23 percent of people had Ohio State as one of their picks for the final four.
OSU was one of the favorites because, despite not having many NBA-caliber players, their coach Chris Holtmann managed to create a competitive group of athletes with a desire for glory.
The problem arises when starting players like Justin Ahrens, Justice Sueing and Musa Jallow only produce 15 points altogether; it becomes very difficult to beat any team with those numbers. Oral Roberts took advantage of the deficient game of most of Ohio State’s players to end up winning in a thrilling overtime. Duane Washington’s 18 points were not enough to avoid Ohio State’s fiasco.
Although Ohio State was not playing at the expected level, we must give credit to the Golden Eagles because beating such a powerful team is not an easy task. The great performances of Obanor and Abmas gave Oral Roberts the necessary resources to knock out one of the top teams in the big dance. The duo had 59 points combined, which accounted for almost 79 percent of Oral Roberts points.
ORU just won its first NCAA Tournament game since 1976. They became the first No. 15-seed since 2016 to win a first round tournament game. The last team to accomplish it was Middle Tennessee State when they knocked out Michigan State.
It is a very tragic way of ending a season for a team like the Buckeyes that played well during the regular season. Regardless of the great season the team had, an unlucky game can leave you out of the tournament and that’s the beauty of March Madness.
Why the disappointment? U of Illinois was knocked off by a Missouri Valley Conf team in Loyola of Chicago—same conference as Bradley. Loyola is the MVC conference standard bearer (go Ramblers!). It’s great to have Cinderella teams from “mid-majors” knock off the big dawgs Power 6 Conferences!