March Madness is exceeding hype

We are only two days into the NCAA Tournament, and things are already completely insane.

Everyone always expects some upsets in the first round. Hell, it is not uncommon to see a couple of No. 12 seeds take down a few No. 5 teams. When a No. 13 wins a game, that is something to behold, although even those aren’t historic.

Then there is No. 15 Middle Tennessee State beating the No. 2 Michigan State Spartans. Nobody in a million years believed that Middle Tennessee State, a school most have never heard of, could beat Tom Izzo and his mighty Spartans, and yet that is exactly what happened to the tune of 90-81.

Some are already calling it the greatest upset in March Madness history, and it might be. Considering no 16th seed has ever beaten a No. 1, it ranks right at the top with the other seven No. 15 seeds to ever win. In addition, many believed Michigan State would be crowned as the national champion this year. In fact, the Spartans had the most money put on them to win the title in Vegas, more than the Kansas Jayhawks or North Carolina Tar Heels.

Of course, the first round was not only defined by Michigan State shockingly going into history as a one-and-done. There were the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, who came into the tourney as a No. 13 seed and took the No. 4 California Golden Bears to the cleaners. There was the No. 12 Yale Bulldogs not only beating the fifth-seeded Baylor Bears, but dominating for the most part.

We got to see the No. 14 Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks take apart the third-seeded West Virginia Mountaineers and watched as Wichita State, a First Four team, beat the Vanderbilt Commodores and Arizona Wildcats so convincingly that Vegas made it a favorite over the No. 3 Miami Hurricanes on Saturday afternoon.

Then, as though all of that was not enough, these two games ended the action on Friday night:

Northern Iowa’s Paul Jesperson hits halfcourt shot to give Panthers 75-72 win over University of Texas at Austin – https://t.co/NZp6NdaYgu

— Steve Edwards (@cre8iv1) March 19, 2016

This insane day ends with a Cincinnati dunk that came a tenth of a second too late: https://t.co/7z0PDP1jiF https://t.co/eHFXnfWIPr

— SB Nation CBB (@SBNationCBB) March 19, 2016

Somehow, the Northern Iowa Panthers won at the buzzer on the above half-court heave, while the St. Joseph’s Hawks knocked off the Cincinnati Bearcats with a late-second dunk being a split-second too late.

If you ever wondered whether March Madness lives up to its name, look no further than the last two days.