Sweet 16 leaving dull taste?

The beauty of the NCAA Tournament every year is the Cinderella story. A team that hardly anyone had heard of during the regular season puts together an incredible run of upsets, catapulting themselves into national headlines.

Evidently, Cinderella's invitation to the big dance got lost in the mail this year.

Each region has essentially been left with chalk - the highest seeded teams. The top four teams in the East and South Regions have all advanced, while No. 5 Purdue advanced in the West and No. 12 Arizona in the Midwest.

People will say that the tourney is having a down year because of the lack of underdogs making the Sweet 16.

I disagree.

While routing for the underdog is always entertaining, the depth and quality of teams left is beyond the usual this year. A case can be made that 14 of the remaining teams have a legitimate shot at winning the title.

Teams being excluding:

• Arizona - Wildcats have been unable to put together solid winning streaks all season.
• Xavier - Points will become a problem for the Musketeers. Their leading scorer only averages 14 points per game.

I wouldn't look for this year's trend of top seeds advancing to continue. The gap between a No. 1 and No. 3 this year is as minuscule as .. well.. lets just say it's barely even there.

If you put an all No. 1 seed Final Four in your office pool bracket be prepared to be disappointed.