March Madness: Sweet 16 burning questions, including when Coach K's last ride will end

The first weekend of March Madness had a little bit of everything, capped by Sunday's great games. That was one of the best single days you'll find in the NCAA tournament.

Yahoo Sports' Frank Schwab and Scott Pianowski are back to break down some of the main betting storylines for the second weekend of the tournament before you make your wagers at BetMGM:

What do we think of the tournament so far?

FS: I'll try to ignore that I had one of my worst first rounds ever in terms of bets. It has been a really fun tournament with a first weekend capped off by that Arizona-TCU classic. The only thing missing was a bunch of buzzer beaters.

In terms of betting, the one regret I have was being stubborn on Auburn and picking them to win. I loved that team in February and could not quit the Tigers when cracks started to show. Their lack of perimeter shooting should have pushed me off of them. I knew these things and picked them anyway. I'll try to remember that in the future: Don't get stuck on a team when it's trying to tell you things are on a downturn.

SP: I had a middling first week. My two primary champion tickets were on Villanova and Kentucky, and the latter looks silly in retrospect. I let the gravitas of John Calipari and the relentless brilliance of Oscar Tshiebwe blind me to the cracks in the infrastructure. Sahvir Wheeler had six turnovers; it felt like 13.

I believe upsets come in two categories — fluke upsets and perception upsets. When the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team beat the Soviet Union in 1980, it was a fluke upset. The Soviets had a heavy shot advantage. USA had a late goal in the first period which resulted in a shocking benching of all-world goalie Vladislav Tretiak. If you played that game 20 times, maybe the USSR wins 19 times. But not that night, of course.

Saint Peter's never looked stressed or harried against Kentucky. At halftime I knew Kentucky was certainly vulnerable. The 18.5-point spread was obviously a gross overlay. This felt more like a perception upset than a fluke upset; it helps that the Peacocks validated things by winning their second game, too.

I like the shape of what's left. There are plenty of favorites and overdogs if that's your thing. We also have four double-digit seeds. Have blue-bloods like North Carolina and Michigan finally woken up after a midseason nap?

FS: North Carolina is interesting. The Tar Heels had some horrible blowout losses and had a really weak NCAA tournament résumé with no quality wins before the memorable season-ending win at Duke. But the talent is certainly there and they look legit. Michigan I'm more skeptical on, only because they were mediocre all season. Beating Tennessee gave UM its second two-game winning streak since Jan. 26. There's talent, but there was talent when they went 17-14 before the tournament.

SP: The funny thing is, I'm ready to sell high on the Tar Heels. When I saw the UCLA-UNC line open with the Bruins a modest 2-point favorite, I went to the window. It's up to 2.5 now. What would that line have been a month ago?

Is Arizona and Gonzaga surviving close games a feature or a bug?

FS: It's hard to win a national title without being tested, but being on the ropes in the second round is scary. Gonzaga really was getting punched by Memphis, though credit the Bulldogs for punching back. Arizona showed a lot of guts to outlast a TCU team that had beat Kansas and Texas Tech in recent weeks. I don't mind the narrative that winning close games like that in the tournament can be a benefit going forward, but I do think those second-round games showed a vulnerability with each co-favorite.

SP: Brand names winning with lesser stuff can be an "eye of the beholder" thing. With Gonzaga, it felt to me like they righted the ship and took care of business. Conversely, I thought Arizona was very lucky to survive against a game TCU team. It was a blast watching Eddie Lampkin Jr. play volleyball on the offensive glass. Bennedict Mathurin didn't have his best shooting day, but he drained the one shot Arizona absolutely had to have. Did the Wildcats get away with a foul on the final play in regulation, or was that a justified play-on? I've seen it a handful of times and I'm still not sure. (I wish the penalty didn't automatically carry over into overtime. There's too much free-throw shooting and too much dead time in what should be the most exciting part of a close game.)

As a Providence guy, I'm trying to concoct a scenario in which they can take down Kansas. Say this for Ed Cooley: He has a team of believers. And it's an unselfish team that plays egoless basketball; no one cares who scores. Justin Minaya probably deserved defensive player of the year in the Big East. The Friars know how to ugly up a game and play at their place; I punched an under ticket on KU-PC as soon as the window opened. Providence's deadeye shooting against Richmond is unlikely to carry over. I expect a rock fight that's competitive in the final few minutes.

How do we feel about Duke?

FS: I was low on Duke coming into the tournament, based on how underwhelming the Blue Devils were late in the season. But I also keep looking at them at +1400 to win, seeing four future first-round picks on the roster and wondering if the best team is hiding in plain sight. It's surprising to see them as underdogs against Texas Tech (a very good team, of course). I'm still not sure what we really have with them though. I think I'll pick Texas Tech to beat Duke but realize I might really regret it.

SP: The Blue Devils were life and death to beat a very ordinary Michigan State team. Here's where the story ends for Duke. Texas Tech is the best defensive team in the country, and heck, they're favored in this game. It's a significantly deeper team and a significantly more experienced team. Even the biggest Duke homer would have to admit, asking for wins over Texas Tech and (likely) Gonzaga is probably asking too much.

Any game (and upset) you're looking forward to most?

FS: Early this week I talked about my best bets with Ariel Epstein (see video above), and I had UCLA as one of them. I feel bad turning around and taking North Carolina. The longer the week has gone on, the more I worry about the injury to UCLA's Jaime Jaquez Jr., a fantastic player for the Bruins. It looked really bad when he went down. I'm going to take North Carolina to win. I also like your Providence Friars and the points.

SP: Houston versus Arizona looks like a blast. TCU had that offensive-glass party last week, and now Houston comes to town with the third-best offensive rebound rate in the country. A missed shot is just an offensive play for the Cougars. Houston is also second overall in the KenPom ranks, pretty nasty for a No. 5 seed. So long as Kelvin Sampson doesn't pull a Guy Lewis, I'll call for the (very minor) upset.