NCAA Tournament: Clock Strikes Midnight on Cinderella

Try this for mind-boggling.

The first two rounds of NCAA tournament play have been like returning home after a day at the office and realizing everything is as you left it; as it's supposed to be.

Only one school seeded higher than fifth is still alive, and the top four seeds from two regions were unharmed.

Teams, after all, are ranked based on their play during the season and respective conference tournaments. Surely the higher seeds should win.

Still, something seems amiss. Such as the feeling experienced when you think that you maybe left the garage door open.

To find when a similar scenario last played out, we must travel all the way back to the year in which the Cold War ended and Nintendo was re-launched: 1989.

Back then, No. 11 Minnesota represented the lone hope for upset-seekers across the country.

Now, it's 12th-seeded Arizona (whose history is anything but surprising or Cinderella-like, having reached the Big Dance in 25 consecutive seasons and winning the national title in 1997).

Louisville, Missouri, Pittsburgh, Duke, Gonzaga, and Michigan State struggled this past weekend to pull away from lower-seeded opponents.

In the end, they all came through.

By comparison, the 2008 tournament saw four teams seeded higher than fifth in the regional semifinals, including two 12 seeds (Villanova and Western Kentucky), a 10 seed (Davidson) and a No. 7 seed (West Virginia).

Even in a tamer 2007, where no double-figure seeds reached the Sweet 16, only one region advanced all of the top four teams.

This year could be an anomaly. It's one tournament; hardly a trend.

But for 2009, at least, the upset is dead.