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One of the major dominoes in the 2018 Coaching Carousel is about to fall in place later today. After Louisville announced that Vince Tyra will become the full-time AD after serving in an interim role following the termination of Tom Jurich, the Cardinals will hire Xavier head coach Chris Mack later today. It is expected to be a seven-year deal with monetary negotiations still ongoing.

Another familiar face will emerge at his alma mater – Tubby Smith will become the next head coach at High Point. This follows stints at Memphis, Texas Tech, Minnesota, Kentucky, Georgia and Tulsa.

Another notable player that formally entered the NBA Draft was Miles Bridges. He has hired an agent, so he will not be returning to Michigan State after two seasons with the Spartans.

On the court last night, both NIT semifinal games were played at Madison Square Garden. Western Kentucky jumped out to an 8-point lead at the end of the first quarter, but Utah was able to tie the game at halftime. After a tie at the end of the 3rd quarter, the Utes outscored the Hilltoppers 18-13 to advance to the NIT  Championship on Thursday night. Utah was led by 24 points and 11 rebounds from Justin Johnson; Dwight Coleby also had 10 points and 13 boards for the Utes.

They will play Penn State on Thursday night – the Nittany Lions cruised to a 75-60 victory over Mississippi State. They led by as many as 26 points in the 3rd quarter; Tony Carr led Penn State with 21 points. Mississippi State was led by Tyson Carter’s 19 points off the bench, but was not nearly enough to overcome Penn State’s starters that outscored the Bulldogs 67-31.

CBI (Game 2)

SAN FRANCISCO AT NORTH TEXAS (8:30 PM, ESPNU). Thanks to a double-double from Chase Foster in Game 1, San Francisco is a win away from capturing its first CBI title. Head coach Kyle Smith would be the first head coach to ever win both a CBI and a CIT title (he won the CIT two years ago as Columbia’s head  coach) should the Dons emerge victorious tonight.

CIT

ILLINOIS-CHICAGO AT LIBERTY (7:00 PM, CBS Sports Network). UIC advanced to the CIT semifinals with a win at Austin Peay last Wednesday – it was the first time Peay had ever lost a postseason game at home. They will take on another group of Flames – Liberty has won a pair of home games against North Carolina A&T and Central Michigan to earn their spot in tonight’s first semifinal game.

SAM HOUSTON STATE AT NORTHERN COLORADO (9:00 PM, CBS Sports Network). The Bearkats of Sam Houston State have a pair of home wins under their belt against Eastern Michigan and UT-San Antonio. They will go on the road for the first time in the CIT with a game at Northern Colorado; the Bears advanced to this point with a win at San Diego last Wednesday night.

For a preview of the inaugural 3x3U Tournament that will be taking place in San Antonio this weekend – CLICK HERE

Last night, the CBI Best-of-3 Finals tipped off at San Francisco between the Dons and the Mean Green of North Texas. USF won the opening game 72-62 with all 5 starters scoring in double figures. Chase Foster led the way with 17 points and 10 rebounds; Matt McCarthy also had 10 points and 11 rebounds. What was strange statistically was that while the Dons were 14-for-33 from behind the arc, they were 12-for-35 inside the arc. The series will now shift to North Texas where they will play on Wednesday and Friday (if necessary).

Elsewhere, Craig Smith will parlay his success at South Dakota from the past two seasons into the new head coaching position at Utah State. Smith (a former assistant to Tim Miles at Nebraska) spent 4 seasons with the Coyotes and led them to a regular-season title in the Summit League in 2016-17 along with a 2nd-place finish this season behind South Dakota State.

The more baffling news (on the surface) came at Texas-Arlington; they announced that Brian Cross will no longer be their head coach after 12 seasons at the helm. While they did fall short of preseason expectations as far as this season, they have been a perennial contender in the Southland and the Sun Belt under Cross. They had one NCAA Tournament appearance during his tenure and also included a trip to the NIT quarterfinals last season.

The West Coast Conference also announced that they will be playing a 16-game schedule in conference for next season; this presumes that there will be 10 schools in the conference for next season. They will also re-introduce a ladder format to their conference tournament beginning next year where the top two teams get byes into the semifinal round for next season.

NIT

(4) WESTERN KENTUCKY VS. (2) UTAH (7:00 PM, ESPN). Utah advanced to the semifinals with an overtime win at Saint Mary’s last week; Western Kentucky had the more difficult path with wins at USC (without Chimezie Metu who sat out the NIT) and at Oklahoma State last week. While there is a potential storyline of Rick Stansbury going up against his former team of Mississippi State in the championship on Thursday, it is also worth noting that Utah is the only Pac-12 team alive in what has been a very disappointing season for the conference as as whole this year.

(4) PENN STATE VS. (4) MISSISSIPPI STATE (approx. 9:30 PM, ESPN). Outside of beating Ohio State three times during the regular season, the Nittany Lions showed flashes of potential, but nothing beyond that. They have added some nice road wins at Notre Dame and at Marquette during their NIT run. The Bulldogs haven’t looked back since a buzzer-beater at Baylor in the second round; they won going away at Louisville to earn their spot in the semifinal round.

The Final Four is all set for next weekend at San Antonio – both Villanova and Kansas advanced to join Loyola-Chicago and Michigan. Villanova did not have their normal sterling performance on offense, but they did help to solidify their win with 29-for-35 shooting from the foul line. While Jalen Brunson led Nova with 15 points, Eric Paschall also had 12 points and 14 rebounds for the Wildcats.

They will play Kansas in the second semifinal on Saturday; they exchanged leads with Duke on numerous occasions throughout regulation and Grayson Allen narrowly missed a shot at the end of regulation for Duke. When overtime ensued for Kansas, they got an opening when Wendell Carter Jr. fouled out on a questionable block call that could have gone the other way. Nonetheless, Kansas took the lead for good with a 3-pointer from Malik Newman Jr. and he also hit four more free throws to ice the game for Kansas and send them to their first Final Four since losing to Kentucky in the national title game in 2012. The Jayhawks can also avenge a loss to Villanova in the 2016 Midwest Regional final.

CBI – Game 1

NORTH TEXAS AT SAN FRANCISCO (10:00 PM, ESPNU). The Dons of San Francisco have played all 3 rounds of the CBI Tournament so far at home – they’ve advanced to this point with wins against Eastern Washington, Utah Valley and Campbell thus far. North Texas actually came into the CBI with an overall losing record (15-17) but got things started with an upset victory at South Dakota to start the tournament. They coasted to a pair of victories at home against Mercer and Jacksonville State, but must start the best-of-3 championship series on the road. San Francisco has a pair of notable wins against Nevada and Saint Mary’s on their docket during the regular season. Until the CBI, the best wins North Texas could claim were at San Diego and at UAB.

On Thursday, chaos continued to reign in the Sweet 16. Last night, there was a sense of order returning to all 4 games played last night. In the Midwest, Udoka Azubuike had 14 points and 11 rebounds in 25 minutes of action as Kansas outlasted Clemson 80-76 in the first semifinal of the night. Gabe DeVoe led Clemson with 31 points, but just wasn’t quite good enough to put the Tigers over the top. In the second game in Omaha, both Syracuse and Duke struggled mightily behind the 3-point arc, but the Blue Devils did force Syracuse into 16 turnovers (while only committing 7 themselves) to survive with a 69-65 victory.Marvin Bagley III led Duke with 22 points, and also got a double-double from Wendell Carter Jr. (14 pts, 12 rebs) to move on to the Elite 8 against Kansas.

In the East Region, West Virginia gradually pulled ahead to a 6-point lead with 11 minutes to play after trailing by 2 points at halftime. From that point, Villanova scored 11 straight points to take a 65-60 lead and gradually pulled away en route to a 90-78 victory in Boston last night. Villanova did live comfortably by the 3 last night – they hit 13 of 24 overall and were led by 27 points from Jalen Brunson. In the other game, Texas Tech beat Purdue 78-65 despite the Boilers’ Carson Edwards scoring a game-high 30 points. The story of this game was the Red Raider bench – they outscored Purdue 24-6 (including 14 points from Zach Smith). This is the first time in Texas Tech’s history that they have advanced as far as the Elite 8.

There was one notable coaching vacancy that opened up in the Atlantic 10 – after 14 seasons and an appearance in the 2013 Sweet 16, La Salle parted ways with Dr. John Giannini as head coach. Coupled with Rhode Island, there are now 2 spots open in the coaching ranks for the Atlantic 10.

SOUTH REGION

(11) LOYOLA-CHICAGO VS. (8) KANSAS STATE (6:09 PM, TBS). From a historical perspective, you wouldn’t think of Kansas State immediately as a team that has 13 appearances in the Elite 8. While they have advanced to the Final Four on four different occasions (most recently in 1964), they are 0-7 in the Elite 8 since 1964. However, at least one team is guaranteed to break a 50-plus year drought – Loyola’s last Final 4 appearance was in 1963 when they won the national championship that season.

WEST REGION

(9) FLORIDA STATE VS. (3) MICHIGAN (8:49 PM, TBS). It took a buzzer-beating 3-pointer for Michigan just to get into the Sweet 16 with their win against Houston, and then had 8 different guys hit 3-pointers in their rout of Texas A&M on Thursday night. A little more surprising is the relative ease in which Florida State has won 2 out of their 3 games in the NCAA Tournament; they had 2 decisively easy wins against Missouri and Gonzaga sandwiched around a 12-point come-from-behind win against Xavier in the 2nd round of the tournament. The Seminoles have not been to the Elite 8 since 1993, but they do have one lone appearance in the Final Four dating back to 1972 (when they lost in the championship game to UCLA that season under head coach Hugh Durham).

NCAA DIVISION II CHAMPIONSHIP

(3) NORTHERN STATE VS. (1) FERRIS STATE (3:00 PM, CBS). At a school where hockey is usually their big sport this time of year, Ferris State comes into this game with a 25-game winning streak and will be looking for their first-ever championship in men’s basketball following a 6-point win against West Texas A&M in the semifinals (which, oddly enough, happened on the same day that Michigan beat Texas A&M). The Wolves of Northern State will also be looking for their first-ever championship in men’s basketball – they will also have a home-court advantage as they are playing about 200 miles away from their campus in Aberdeen, South Dakota. NSU outlasted Queens (NC) 105-99 in double overtime to advance to today’s championship game.

CIT

CENTRAL MICHIGAN AT LIBERTY (2:00 PM, CBS Digital Network). There is also one final quarterfinal matchup in the CIT that will be played this afternoon. Liberty is coming off of a 12-day layoff after their victory in the 1st round against North Carolina A&T (dubbed the Jim Phelan Classic). Central Michigan has also had a week of down time to prepare; they beat Wofford last Friday that followed their opening win against Fort Wayne in the Hugh Durham Classic. The semifinal matchups will be determined after this game goes final.