NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament: Ranking the Sweet 16 Matchups

Sixteen teams left. Win or go home. Four wins separate contenders from history.

Welcome to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, which has already delivered its usual chaos. The ninth-seeded Iowa Hawkeyes sent shockwaves through the bracket by knocking off the defending national champion Florida Gators on Sunday, while Texas arrives as an unlikely Cinderella in a Sweet 16 made up entirely of power-conference teams for the second straight year.

The matchups only get better from here, from Dan Hurley’s UConn squad vs. Tom Izzo’s Michigan State team to a Big Ten clash between Iowa and Nebraska with a long-awaited Elite Eight berth on the line.

FOX Sports' Casey Jacobsen is here to rank the Sweet 16 matchups, from 8-to-1.

Matas Vokietaitis of the Texas Longhorns posts up against Ven-Allen Lubin of NC State. (Photo by Ben Solomon/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

When: Thursday, March 26 at 7:10 p.m. ET
Where: SAP Center at San Jose (West Region)
How to Watch: CBS
Betting Line: Purdue -6.5, OVER/UNDER 148.5

I’m looking forward to this game, but it doesn’t have quite the same draw as the others.  Texas has reached this spot after starting in Dayton as a "First Four" entry. Sophomore center Matas Vokietaitis scored 23 points and grabbed 16 rebounds in a win over BYU, then followed that up with 17 points and nine rebounds in an upset victory over Gonzaga.  Can the 7-foot big man from Lithuania match that production against Purdue’s Trey Kaufman-Renn, who is playing his best basketball of the season right now? Braden Smith struggled in Purdue's Round of 32 win over Miami (3-12 FG, eight turnovers), so I expect a bounce-back performance from him. I’ll take Purdue moving on here.

Joshua Jefferson #5 of the Iowa State