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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.

For Jon Teitel’s interview with Drake Academic All-American Reed Timmer – CLICK HERE

John Calipari had warned his players not to “drink the poison” going into Kentucky’s matchup with Kansas State, but K-State made him look prophetic with a strong start in which K-State jumped out to a 13-1 lead in the opening minutes. Kentucky never led until the 2nd half, but the game was tied going into the final minutes. Barry Brown put K-State up for good with 18 seconds to play, and Kentucky missed twice from 3 in the closing seconds of the game. This will be Bruce Weber’s 3rd trip to the Elite Eight – he made one appearance with Illinois and 2 with K-State.

They will play the Loyola Ramblers – they overcame an early 12-point deficit and had a 12-point lead themselves in the 2nd half where they hit their first 12 shots to start the 2nd half. Even after the Wolf Pack made their customary 2nd half comeback, Marques Townes hit a dagger 3 to give Loyola a 2-possession advantage with 10 seconds to play. Nevada hit a 3 with 5 seconds left on the clock, but since they still had fouls to give, they were not able to foul Loyola to the point where they would have to shoot a 1-and-1 and the clock ran out on their season. Loyola has now won 3 games by a grand total of 4 points, yet they find themselves on the doorstep of their first Final Four since their championship season in 1963.

In the West Region, Florida State continued the chaos on their side of the bracket with a surprisingly easy 75-60 victory over Gonzaga. The Zags were without Killian Tillie in the post and paid dearly against the Noles’ deep front line. Terence Mann led FSU with 18 points; they will play Michigan for the West Region Championship on Saturday. The Wolverines saw 8 different players hit 3-point shots during the game (they were 14-for-24 overall) and coasted to an easy 99-72 victory against Texas A&M.

Only 3 other games were played under the radar of the NCAA Tournament last night – 2 of which were in the NCAA D-II Tournament. Ferris State won their 25th game in a row and beat West Texas A&M 85-79 to advance to the title game on Saturday afternoon. They will play nearby Northern State in the championship; the Wolves outlasted Queens (NC) in double overtime with a 105-99 victory.

The CBI best-of-3 championship is also set – San Francisco held off a late rally by Campbell to beat the Camels 65-62 at home. They will host North Texas in the first game of the championship next Monday; Games 2 and 3 (if necessary) will be played at North Texas later in the week.

After the Dan Hurley hire became official at UConn yesterday, there were 2 other notable vacancies that were filled – Walter McCarty will take over at Evansville and Niko Medved will become the new head coach at Colorado State as well. But the major domino that will potentially fall this weekend will be when Chris Mack meets with the Louisville staff to discuss their head coach vacancy.

MIDWEST REGION

(5) CLEMSON VS. (1) KANSAS (7:07 PM, CBS). Clemson finds itself in their first Sweet 16 in 21 years with a victory against New Mexico State and a thorough trashing of Auburn in their first 2 games played at San Diego last weekend. They will take on a Kansas team that had to claw their way through both games played in Wichita – they overcame an early 10-point deficit against Penn and had to survive a late push by Seton Hall in their 2nd round win last weekend. However, Udoka Azubuike played limited minutes in the Jayhawks’ first 2 games, but won’t be further restricted by the medical staff for this weekend’s games.

(11) SYRACUSE VS. (2) DUKE (approx. 9:37 PM, CBS). In a case of better-late-than-never, Syracuse is not just winning games away from home, but also beating at least one heavyweight in Michigan State in the process in a de facto road game in Detroit. They did lose 60-44 at Duke in their lone regular-season matchup. As for the Blue Devils, they were rarely challenged in 2 blowout wins in Pittsburgh against Iona and Rhode Island.

EAST REGION

(5) WEST VIRGINIA VS. (1) VILLANOVA (7:27 PM, TBS). It wasn’t surprising that Villanova was able to breeze through their first two games against Radford and Alabama, even with the Wildcats’ recent woes in Round 2 of the NCAA Tournament. It was a little surprising that West Virginia also won their two games with relative ease – they avoided the 5-12 upset special in Round 1 against Murray State and then followed that up with a beatdown of in-state foe Marshall two days later. This has the makings to be the highest scoring game of tonight’s round of games.

(3) TEXAS TECH VS. (2) PURDUE (approx. 9:57 PM, TBS). This is the ONLY matchup tonight where chalk completely held in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament. Even though Purdue did lose Isaac Haas to a broken elbow in their win over Cal State-Fullerton in the first round, they did come back from an early deficit against Butler and ended up holding off a late Bulldog rally to advance to the Sweet 16 in Boston. As for Texas Tech, they ended up surviving and advancing after a pair of white-knucklers against SFA and Florida in their first 2 rounds in Dallas.

For Jon Teitel’s interview with Michigan/Purdue alum Spike Albrecht as he previews the Sweet 16 for both teams – CLICK HERE

Yesterday, the major coaching news as expected was that Louisville will not retain David Padgett as head coach going forward; the Cardinals won a pair of games in the NIT before being eliminated by Mississippi State on Tuesday night. This morning, ESPN’s Jeff Goodman is now reporting that Dan Hurley will have a 6-year deal in place to become the new head coach at Connecticut.

As for the rest of the NIT, Western Kentucky and Utah will move on to the NIT Final Four at Madison Square Garden next Tuesday. This leaves open the possibility that Rick Stansbury and his current team at Western Kentucky could take on his old team of Mississippi State.

North Texas also advanced to the CIT Championship Best-of-3 round with a 90-68 victory against Jacksonville State last night. The Mean Green had 5 guys in double-figures last night; they were led by Roosevelt Smart’s 20 points.

The first two CIT quarterfinals saw Northern Colorado get a win on the road at San Diego last night. The Bears had 3 guys with at least 20 points; Andre Spight led the way with 26 points; Jordan Davis had 21 and Anthony Johnson had 20 points off the bench. Illinois-Chicago also got a big win at Austin Peay last night; Godwin Boahen hit the game-winner for the Flames with under a second remaining to send the Flames into the CIT semifinal round.

NCAA DIVISION II SEMIFINALS

(1) FERRIS STATE VS. (4) WEST TEXAS A&M (7:00 PM, CBS Sports Network). What was a little surprising was that Ferris State had the closest game in the opening round of the Elite Eight on Tuesday, but nonetheless the Bulldogs bring a 24-game winning streak into tonight’s contest. The Buffaloes of West Texas A&M had a fairly more comfortable 14-point win in their opener against Le Moyne.

(2) QUEENS (NC) VS. (3) NORTHERN STATE (approx. 9:30 PM, CBS Sports Network). The Royals outlasted Cal Baptist in a 100-94 shootout on Tuesday night – they will move on to play Northern State (located in South Dakota) following the Wolves’ 79-71 win against East Stroudsburg on Tuesday night. The semifinal winners will play in the NCAA Division II championship at 3 PM EDT on Saturday on the flagship CBS network.

CBI

CAMPBELL AT SAN FRANCISCO (10:00 PM). The Dons have been able to survive a pair of close wins at home against Colgate and Utah Valley in the CBI; Campbell hits the road for the first time after beating the Miami RedHawks and a thrilling win against New Orleans in Round 2. The winner will play North Texas in the CBI Best-of-3 Championship Series.

CIT

SAM HOUSTON STATE AT TEXAS-SAN ANTONIO (8:00 PM, CBS Digital Network). The UTSA Roadrunners have had about a week off after their opening-round victory against Lamar last week; they host another in-state foe Sam Houston State after the Bearkats beat Eastern Michigan in the 2nd round of the CIT on Monday night. The winner will know their semifinal opponent after the final quarterfinal game between Central Michigan and Liberty is played on Saturday.