Ranking Day 1 Men's NCAA Tournament Cinderella Teams after Big First Day of Upsets

There was a great big narrative after last year's chalkier-than-a-shelf-of-antacids men's NCAA tournament that NIL and the transfer portal have ensured that we will never see a Cinderella story again.

Well, that pumpkin carriage of a nonsense storyline didn't even sniff midnight of Day 1 of this year's dance, as there were several big upsets and a near-stunner that would have generated guaranteed "Siena-derella" headlines all across the nation.

Now the big question becomes: Which architects of Thursday's six seed-based upsets are most likely to keep the dream going on Saturday?

We're going to start by talking about the two No. 16 seeds who almost took a flamethrower to all of your paper brackets. But after that, we'll rank each lower seeded team who pulled off an upset by their perceived staying power in this tournament.

Thank You, Siena and Howard

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Siena's Brendan Coyle

Neither of these ultimate Cinderella candidates managed to pull off the upset, but they did each have a whole lot of people questioning whether the score on the screen was a typo.

Siena was the No. 16 seed that actually came kind of close to making history. At no point in the game did KenPom's win probability give the Saints even a 25 percent chance of victory, but they led Duke by 13 early in the second half before going ice cold and making just five buckets over the course of the next 16 minutes.

Slowly but surely, the Blue Devils mounted their comeback, pulling ahead with about 4:30 remaining and ultimately winning by six.

Yes, they were without two pivotal starters in Patrick Ngongba and Caleb Foster. But they also just won the ACC tournament without those two starters. Siena—who lost by 21 at Indiana the only other time it faced a top 125 opponent this season—shouldn't have had any business being in this game.

Since when does the NCAA tournament care about shouldn't, though?

After that upset scare, Howard gave Michigan a battle, at least for about 25 minutes.

The Wolverines eventually ran away with what will look like a blowout in the morning paper, going on a 21-3 run in the span of about five minutes late in the second half.

This was a 50-46 game at halftime, though.

Between the MEAC champion and a juggernaut that beat Gonzaga by 40 earlier this season.

But, please, tell me more about how NIL has eradicated March Madness parity.

The High Point and VCU upsets were fun. But these near-upsets were the ones that most emphatically called BS on the reports of Cinderella's death.

6. Texas A&M Aggies (No. 10 Seed, South Region)

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Pop Isaacs

The Upset: 63-50 vs. No. 7 Saint Mary's

Next Up: Houston Cougars

Staying Power?

Saint Mary's scoring just 50 points in that first round game said a lot more about the Gaels—and the flu-like symptoms ravaging that roster—than it did about Texas A&M's defense.

In fact, it was just the second time in the entire season that the Aggies held a foe below 68, allowing 85.1 on average during their 4-7 stretch of backpedaling into Selection Sunday.

They do possess the ability to put up points in bunches. The Aggies scored at least 90 on 14 occasions, including 96 in a March win over Kentucky and 97 in a narrow loss at Alabama in early February.

The problem is Houston isn't going to let that happen.

No way, no how.

Only Northern Iowa allowed fewer points per game this season than Houston's mark of 62.9.

That means to keep the dream going, Texas A&M is most likely going to need to find a way to shut down Kingston Flemings and/or Emanuel Sharp in order to win a low-scoring game. And while this is maybe the biggest "never say never" sporting event on the planet, we don't exactly love their odds.

5. VCU Rams (No. 11 Seed, South Region)

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Terrence Hill Jr.

The Upset: 82-78 (OT) vs. No. 6 North Carolina

Next Up: Illinois Fighting Illini

Staying Power?

It's hard to believe, but Wednesday was the 10-year anniversary of what had been VCU's most recent victory in the NCAA tournament.

And by halftime against North Carolina, we were already formulating this team's obituary in our heads. It didn't get any better in the first five minutes after the intermission, down 56-37 and looking deader than disco against a UNC team that was starting to seem OK without Caleb Wilson after all.

However, the Rams closed out regulation on a 38-19 run before prevailing in an overtime period that sure looked like a golden goal situation as both teams missed shot after shot for the first few minutes.

After a regular season in which they went 0-5 against teams who would have gotten an at-large bid if needed, they finally figured out how to win a big one, led by Terrance Hill Jr. playing 40 minutes and scoring 34 points off the bench.

It was a career-high for the sophomore, but it also didn't feel like anything new from him. He was already the sixth-man extraordinaire leading the team in both points and assists and averaging 16.2 points in his first five games of March. He just honed things in a good bit more than usual with a remarkable second half against the Tar Heels.

It's one thing to stage a wild comeback against short-handed North Carolina.

Can the Rams now go out and upset Illinois, too?

Well, probably not. The Illini are just about exponentially better on offense than Wilson-less UNC, and it's hard to envision a scenario in which that team lets VCU hang around in a game that's 75-75 at the end of regulation. And VCU was averaging 71.2 points in its final five games heading into the dance, so a 90-point explosion would be a wee bit out of character here.

That Illinois defense isn't great, though, and VCU did have a handful of 100+ point performances during nonconference play. Maybe the Rams can re-capture that lightning in a bottle.

4. Texas Longhorns (No. 11 Seed, West Region)

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Dailyn Swain

The Upset: 79-71 vs. No. 6 BYU

Next Up: Gonzaga Bulldogs

Staying Power?

Last year was an exception to the rule, but far more often than not, one of the at-large teams that gets sent to Dayton proceeds to advance to the second round of the dance.

Texas brought that back this year, surviving NC State in a relatively ugly "play-in" game before taking care of business against BYU in the first round, despite 35 points and 10 rebounds in what we're pretty sure was the final game of AJ Dybantsa's college career.

With the Longhorns, offense was never the problem. Sean Miller has four guys who can do some heavy lifting in the points department, each of whom reached double figures against the Cougars. In their 20 wins this season, they've averaged 88.1 points.

No, the big question is defense, and whether Matas Vokietaitis—who racked up 23 points and 16 rebounds against BYU—can stay out of foul trouble. And that battle in the paint with Gonzaga's Graham Ike in the second round is going to be a fascinating one.

In fact, fouls and free throws in general figure to be the X-factor here. Gonzaga definitely prefers a "freedom of movement" type of game, while Texas is perfectly content playing in a stop-and-start extravaganza.

If Vokietaitis takes himself out of the game with fouls, Gonzaga is going to just two-point bucket the Longhorns into oblivion. But if he does to the Zags what he just did to the Cougars? Game on.

3. TCU Horned Frogs (No. 9 Seed, East Region)

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David Punch

The Upset: 66-64 vs. No. 8 Ohio State

Next Up: Duke Blue Devils

Staying Power?

After the enigmatic regular season that TCU had, trying to put a floor or ceiling on this team's tournament potential felt like a fool's errand.

The Horned Frogs beat Florida and Wisconsin on neutral courts on back-to-back days. They beat Iowa State at home and Texas Tech on the road. They really should have won at Kansas and at full-strength BYU. They had another close call against Kansas in the Big 12 quarters. And they almost beat Michigan back in mid-November.

They also lost at home to New Orleans, lost at home to Notre Dame, lost at Utah and got obliterated at Colorado—none of whom would have even sniffed a 76-team tournament field. TCU also had a close call at home against Incarnate Word in a game that was tied with 30 seconds remaining and had to erase an 18-point deficit to avoid an ugly home loss to Kansas State.

Life is like a box of Horned Frogs.

When they're locked in on defense, though, they're rock solid. TCU is now 17-1 when holding its opponent to 68 points or fewer, and it had Ohio State in a vice grip for the first 25 minutes of that Thursday opener.

Unfortunately, the No. 1 overall seed is on tap for the Horned Frogs. And Duke got such a scare from Siena that they're probably going to give Patrick Ngongba as much of "Michael's Secret Stuff" as it takes to get him on the floor for this one.

However, if Thursday Duke shows up? While the TCU that shocked Florida finds its way to Greenville?

That'd be a formula for not just an upset, but a blowout victory by the No. 9 seed.

2. Saint Louis Billikens (No. 9 Seed, Midwest Region)

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Robbie Avila

The Upset: 102-77 vs. No. 8 Georgia

Next Up: Michigan Wolverines

Staying Power?

During its 24-1 start to the season, Saint Louis looked like a legitimate threat to crash the second weekend of the NCAA tournament.

At any rate, the Billikens were leading the nation in both offensive and defensive effective field-goal percentage, which is something that no team has ever done over the course of a full season in KenPom history.

However, they crashed and burned about as hard as any team in the country, oscillating between "can't buy a bucket" and "can't buy a stop" performances while looking nothing like a top 100 team, let alone a Sweet 16 team.

Out of nowhere, though, they locked back in against Georgia.

A 16-12 lead turned into a 37-18 blowout. Subsequently, a 23-0 avalanche put the Billikens ahead by a laughable score of 67-32, reigniting that Cinderella fire from earlier in the year.

Most impressive of all? It wasn't one player, or even a couple of them. SLU's entire nine-man rotation scored between 9-18 points in a "death by a thousand cuts" type of onslaught.

On tap for Saturday, though, is a Michigan team with very similar tendencies, also ranking top 10 in both offensive eFG% and defensive eFG%.

But prior to running away from Howard, Michigan hasn't been the same since losing LJ Cason to a torn ACL. They shot the lights out in the regular season finale against Michigan State, but otherwise scored 72 or fewer in four of their final five games.

If that Michigan shows up on Saturday, Saint Louis is probably headed to its first Sweet 16 since 1957.

1. High Point Panthers (No. 12 Seed, West Region)

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Terry Anderson and Braden Hausen

The Upset: 83-82 vs. No. 5 Wisconsin

Next Up: Arkansas Razorbacks

Staying Power?

The beauty of being a No. 12 or No. 13 seed is that you really just have to run it back again against a similar caliber of opponent.

While poor TCU and Saint Louis have to go straight from "upsetting" a No. 8 seed to stunning one of the favorites to win it all, little ol' High Point merely has to beat another top 20ish team that doesn't play much defense.

Make no mistake about it, though, the Panthers shocked the world on Thursday.

The 12-over-5 upset used to be a March staple. But even if you could guarantee there would be one this season and went searching for the likeliest culprit, you never would have landed on High Point over Wisconsin.

It just looked like a terrible matchup: An underdog whose primary strength is turnover margin going up against a favorite who almost never commits turnovers. Moreover, a favorite who makes it rain three-pointers like few other teams in the country, taking on an underdog who routinely allows quite a few three-point attempts (on the possessions that don't result in steals).

Somehow, though, it worked. Three-point specialist Chase Johnston was awesome down the stretch for a High Point team that made six more triples than (and also out-rebounded) Wisconsin.

After doing just enough against Nick Boyd and John Blackwell (49 points, 15 rebounds and eight assists), could the Panthers also do just enough against Darius Acuff Jr. and Meleek Thomas?

Why not, am I right?

Arkansas commits turnovers even less often than Wisconsin did, but this Razorbacks team is a mess on defense. No reason to think High Point couldn't score at least as much on Saturday as it did on Thursday.

And with Arkansas maybe as short-handed in Round Two as it was in Round One sans both Nick Pringle and Karter Knox, maybe High Point is destined for the second weekend.