Maybe you picked Duke or Villanova. Maybe you're actually not looking at a Busted Bracket. Still, give yourself another shot at the college basketball dream trip. Play CBS Sports' Round-by-Round game now.
PITTSBURGH -- The bracket loves chaos, but it needs power programs.
UMBC's story is amazing, and the NCAA Tournament is better for it. But don't get it too twisted. This festival of a playoff is at its strongest and most appealing when national title contenders are still available in bulk for the Sweet 16. The Big Dance is at its best when bluebloods combine with a peppering of Cinderella appearances.
We appear to be on our way to that.
St. Patrick's Day in Pittsburgh brought blowouts Saturday, but the pod also came through with chalky resolve that benefits the later rounds. Sometimes boring is good. Sometimes boring is for the best.
That in mind, I must remind you that the only two teams left standing here after the first two rounds also look to be the best two teams chasing a championship.
No. 1 seed Villanova and No. 2 seed Duke -- now also No. 1 Villanova and No. 2 Duke at KenPom -- busted through the first and second rounds with almost no resistance. The Wildcats and Blue Devils won their four games by a total of 96 points, which amounts to a 24.0-point win cushion for schools that have two of the past three championships.
You can check out Villanova's wreckage here. The Wildcats aren't just a band of 3-point assassins; they're boasting as much NBA talent as almost any other team in the sport. As for Duke, it hardly needed to sweat against No. 7 Rhode Island in Saturday's second round game. The Blue Devils cruised 87-62 behind double-digit scoring from all five starters.
"It was one of our best games," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
The Blue Devils were laughably good against diminutive Rhode Island, the regular-season champions of the Atlantic 10 who for the second straight season get knocked out in the second round.
"They looked like an NBA team out there with their size and length," URI coach Dan Hurley said. "We just, you know, couldn't find enough ways to score, and couldn't find enough ways to stop a team that probably, you know, started five first-round picks."
Duke and Nova, two top-shelf teams, came to the Steel City with hype and hope for avoiding first-weekend disasters. Villanova had lost in the first weekend three of the previous four years as a No. 1 or 2 seed. Duke got done in last year as a No. 2 vs. Cinderella South Carolina.
Crises averted.
The Wildcats and Blue Devils leave Pittsburgh as overpowering favorites on the right side of the bracket. Nova at the top, Duke huddled at the bottom and worming their way up. These teams might share a city again in two weeks: San Antonio. First, Villanova will head up to Boston for the East Regionals. Duke will fly to Omaha. Both teams have parallel play for the second weekend: their games will be held in the Friday/Sunday rotation.
While we expected Villanova to stay true to what it's been most of this season -- the Wildcats were the second-most stable team in the country to Virginia -- Duke's performance was not automatic. But its disposal of URI, even though it's no big surprise, is nonetheless encouraging given how the most talented team in the country has shown a penchant for underwhelming play against overmatched opponents. Not the case here.
The Blue Devils' wins over Iona and Rhode Island could have easily been by margins half as large. If that was the case, no one would have blanched. Duke's not going to get extra credit for romping two teams outside major conferences, but the execution on display was impressive.
And any top seed that gets it done without leaving any doubt is worth pointing out this year. Virginia: never forget.
"Tomorrow's never promised in this tournament," Bagley said. "That's one thing that I, myself and the rest of my teammates talk about and understand, is that we don't want any game to be our last one together unless it's the last one. So we got to keep continuing to get on this roll and lock in more."
The Blue Devils' size was truly astounding in person vs. guard-oriented Rhode Island, which was completely outmatched. Keep that in mind if Duke winds up facing Kansas, which like URI goes with a four-guard look.
"I don't know, what would be the nearest NBA team that we could have brought in to, I guess, get in the zone for us yesterday," Hurley said. "If that's a 2 seed, just looking at all of the 1s and 2s, you know, I wish we would have had a shot at one of the other seven 1s and 2s. They played an A-plus game."
Hurley also told me afterward, on the walk back to URI's locker room, that Duke is winning the national title if they play every game the rest of the way in the style it showed on Saturday. That's hard to disagree with.
It's why things are better with Duke moving on.
Now the most intriguing championship contender left in this tournament preps for a potential match against Michigan State. (The Spartans play Syracuse on Sunday.) That would be the best game of the regional semifinals. No matter what small schools break through to weekend No. 2, it's better to have the big boys around.
Duke and Villanova look like the best two teams. If they can each win two more games, March 31st national semifinal will likely be billed as -- and feel like -- a de facto national championship game. This tournament will be fine even if that doesn't happen, but so far there's not a lot of arguments to make that it won't.
