There’s a reason millions of NCAA brackets are filled out every March.

Even non-fans love having a little piece of college basketball’s marquee event.

And, after the first week, this year’s “Dance” has hardly been disappointing.

It actually started a week ago Tuesday when St. Bonaventure surprised iconic UCLA in the first of two 11th-seed play-in games at Dayton. The next night, Syracuse, the last team in the tournament, ousted Arizona State. Both the Pac-12 schools were favored.

Then came Thursday and Friday, the NCAAs best two days, each with 16 games and some real potential for upsets.

But, until Friday night, the greatest one possible hadn’t happened.

With every game televised, I didn’t pay much attention to South top-seed Virginia against American East Conference playoff champion, Maryland-Baltimore County. My focus was on TCU-Syracuse, Clemson-New Mexico State and Missouri-Florida State being played at about the same time.

But, thanks to the constantly-updated  scoreboard on the screen, it was easy to keep track of the other games.

Syracuse’s 57-52 win over Texas Christian was hard to leave as the Orange, with only seven scholarship players, held the Horned Frogs to 10 points under their previous season low.

Yeah, I noticed UMBC and Virginia were tied, 21-21, at halftime. But surely the Cavaliers would pull away after intermission … except they didn’t.

The Retrievers outscored Virginia by 20 points in the second half, en route to a 74-54 win, the first time in 136 games that a 16th seed had beaten a No. 1 in the NCAA Tournament.

It was a thrill to watch, but I wasn’t totally stunned, except by the score, as I had seen UMBC’s previous game.

While in Washington before the Bonnies’ Atlantic 10 semifinal against Davidson at the Capital One Arena, I watched the AEC championship game between the Retrievers and Vermont in Burlington.

The Catamounts were up nine with under 8 ½ minutes to play, but UMBC clawed back and with 6/10ths of a second left, Jairus Lyles hit a trey that produced an unlikely 65-62 victory … on UVM’s court. The shot was reminiscent of the buzzer-beating three-pointer Bona’s Matt Mobley hit in Rochester to beat Vermont, 81-79, in December.

But surely, the Retrievers, 10-point underdogs, would fold against Kansas State in the second round.

Instead, UMBC scored the game’s first seven points, never trailed until 8 ½ minutes remained before intermission, led by as many as eight, and kept it a one-possession game with just over a minute to play.

And when coach Ryan Odom emptied his bench in the closing seconds of UMBC’s 50-43 loss, in the tournament’s most touching moment, Kansas State’s players went to the opposing sideline to congratulate the Retrievers’  effort.

But there were plenty of other big moments.

The NCAA Tournament is famous for 12th seeds upsetting No. 5s, but it didn’t happen this year.

Instead, two thirteenth seeds, including the University at Buffalo, shocked a No. 4 seed. The Bulls destroyed scandal-rocked Arizona, 89-68. UB led by as many as 25, and never tailed by more than three.

Taking out the toss-up games — 8 vs. 9 seeds and 7s vs. 10s — six of the other 24 first-round matchups were won by the lower seed.

Besides UMBC, and Buffalo, No. 11 Loyola of Chicago downed sixth-seeded Miami (Fla.) and followed that up with a second-round victory over No. 3 seed Tennessee, blowing a 10-point lead with four minutes to play, but hitting a shot with three seconds left for a 63-62 win.

Then there was seventh-seeded Nevada outsing No. 2 seed Cincinnati in one of that school’s most embarrassing losses ever. The Bearcats led 65-43 with under 11 minutes to play in Sunday’s second-round game. Nevada tied it at 73 in the final minute, then hit the game-winner with 10 seconds to go. The 22-point comeback was the second-biggest in NCAA Tournament history and that was after the Wolf Pack came back for down 14 to Texas in their first-round game.

Of course there was also the drama of John Beilein’s No. 3-seed Michigan avoiding an upset by sixth-seeded Houston as freshman Jordan Poole drilled a buzzer-beating, long-distance trey for a 67-66 victory.

Sunday’s best game might have been the loss by Xavier, the No. 1 seed in the West, blowing a 10-point lead in the final six minutes, falling to ninth-seeded Florida State, 75-70.

But how about seventh-seeded Texas A&M totally handling defending national champion North Carolina, a No. 2 seed, 86-65, in the second round?

In the other No. 13 seed upset of a fourth seed, Marshall shocked Wichita State, 71-65.

And, finally, of course, there was a third-straight gritty win by Syracuse.

Normally, the Orange can’t lose fast enough for me, and I’ve always kind of liked Michigan State and coach Tom Izzo.

But that school was home base for Dr. Larry Nassar, the serial sexual abuser of children, and it’s a major stretch to think there weren’t people at Michigan State who had been made aware of his pedophelia, yet covered it up.

That did it for me.

With Syracuse trying to survive using a short bench, even playing a walk-on, coach Jim Boeheim’s crew gutted out a 55-53 victory … and I loved it.

It’s the only time I’ve ever rooted for the Orange.

For the record, with 52 of the 68 NCAA Tournament teams eliminated, remaining are two No. 1 seeds (Villanova, Kansas), two twos (Purdue, Duke), two threes (Michigan, Texas Tech), a four (Gonzaga), three fives (Kentucky, West Virginia, Clemson) and two sevens (Nevada, Texas A&M), nines (Kansas State, Florida State) and 11s (Syracuse, Loyola-Chicago).

And, oh yeah, the highest seed remaining in the South is Kentucky at No. 5.

(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)