Favorites are going to seed

WORCESTER -- The list just kept growing. On Friday, Syracuse, a No. 4 seed, lost to 13th-seeded Vermont. Not long after, Kansas, a No. 3 seed, lost to 14th-seeded Bucknell. On Saturday, third-seeded Gonzaga lost to sixth-seeded Texas Tech. Then another third seed, Oklahoma, lost to sixth-seeded Utah. Twelfth-seeded Wisconsin-Milwaukee, fresh off dumping fifth-seeded Alabama, knocked out fourth-seeded Boston College. To cap off upset Saturday, second-seeded Wake Forest was sent packing by seventh-seeded West Virginia.

And yesterday, at the DCU Center, second-seeded Connecticut was ushered out by 10th-seeded North Carolina State, 65-62.

Is it an aberration or a trend? You make the call. It was certainly good theater for CBS, which picked up the drama each day as the high-rent teams suddenly were being evicted from the tournament.

But it's not new stuff. Contrary to the those who subscribe to instant analysis, upsets happen every year. Lower seeds (six or lower) have advanced to the Sweet 16 on a steady basis for the past five years. In 2000, half the Sweet 16 field was seeded sixth or lower. The following year produced five lower-seeded teams. In 2002, five lower seeds reached the Sweet 16. The next two years, four lower seeds advanced to the second weekend.

Reasons for such balance include scholarship limitations and more schools getting the television exposure blue chip athletes demand.

Most of the upsets aren't of the "Hoosiers" variety, though Bucknell over Kansas and Vermont over Syracuse come the closest.

UConn's loss to N.C. State was as much a matter of will as skill. The defending national champion Huskies entered the tournament riding on their superb postseason reputation. UConn also arrived in Worcester with a roster that coach Jim Calhoun continually had to overhaul as he pushed toward better performances down the stretch.

But Calhoun sensed a change in the last two weeks.

"We ran out of bullets and energy," said Calhoun, who lost to a team seeded sixth or lower for the first time in 27 tournament games. "It's one of the few times in my coaching career that we ran out of gas and players. A lot of things caught up to us."

Part of it was the pressure top seeds feel during the first weekend. In UConn's 77-71 opening-round victory over Central Florida Friday, Calhoun offered the different perspectives from the sideline. "We're 6 points ahead and I'm scared to death," said Calhoun. "[Central Florida coach] Kirk Speraw is probably overjoyed."

Calhoun knew things were starting to turn against his team at the Big East tournament when the Huskies played only sporadically well in beating Georgetown and came out even flatter in a semifinal loss to Syracuse.

He never was able to fix what was wrong. Yesterday, he talked about being pyschologically drained from a season of injuries, illnesses, suspensions, and the lack of a mature floor leader.

At times, Calhoun seemed to cross the line, pushing and prodding his team with a string of quick substitutions that had some Huskies keeping an eye on the sideline and another on the court, as if they feared any mistake would mean they'd be replaced.

Calhoun could not instill his "win-at-all-costs" desire on this team. He talked in homilies as well as harangues, telling them, "In life, you can't wait too long to attack something."

Calhoun might have been talking in the context of basketball, but that was exactly the way he handled a situation a few years ago when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and chose a quick surgical procedure that removed the cancer from his body.

Calhoun acknowledged he was searching for answers yesterday. "I don't have another explanation for it," he said.

But this weekend, Calhoun was not alone. All you had to do was talk to BC coach Al Skinner, Wake Forest's Skip Prosser, or Kansas's Bill Self, and you'd find a litany of "if onlys".

But the bottom line of this tournament always has been wins and losses. And this week when the Sweet 16 survivors gather in Chicago, Albuquerque, Syracuse, and Austin, other story lines will unfold that will be just as compelling as the opening weekend.

But without UConn, the defending national champ, and without Kansas, the preseason No. 1, they certainly won't be the same old stories.