On March 21, 2024, all 16 teams in the Midwest will play their first games in the round of 64.

March Madness is 64 Division One teams split up into four brackets of 16 teams. Every round, the losing teams, halving the number of teams left in the competition.

The first round Midwest matchups include: Purdue v. Grambling, Utah State v. TCU, Gonzaga v. McNeese, Kansas v. Samford, South Carolina v. Oregon, Creighton v. Akron, Texas v. Colorado State, and Tennessee v. Saint Peter’s.

There are several interesting matchups, but most have the following upsets: Kansas losing to Samford, Gonzaga losing to McNeese, and South Carolina losing to Oregon.

Evan Cobb (9) disagrees, ” I think that neither the Kansas nor Gonzaga upset will happen because neither of the other teams have the experience to compete with them.”

“I have Oregon beating South Carolina as one of the upsets,” believes Oliver Lichtenstein(9).

It turns out that both Cobb and Lichtenstein were correct with Grambling, TCU, McNeese, Samford, South Carolina, Akron, Colorado State, and Saint Peter’s all losing.

Many believe that the winner of the Midwest will come down to two seed Tennessee playing one seed Purdue in the Elite 8.

Oliver Lichtenstein(9) said, “I think that Tennessee will pull the upset and beat Purdue.”

Evan Cobb(9) said, “I think that Purdue will end up winning because of there 7’4″ center.”

This time only Cobb was correct as Purdue ended up winning 72-66 behind a dominant 40 point performance from their National Player of the Year center, Zach Edey.

Purdue will play upstart 11 seed NC State in the Final Four on Saturday, April 6.