-Yesterday appeared to get off to a sluggish start with both Miami and Duke sprinting ahead of their opponents, but Wichita State and Yale both came back to make it somewhat interesting.
-The game that should be a regular season fixture game, but isn’t, between Kentucky and Indiana did not disappoint as the two went back and forth. Indiana’s defense is noticeably better than it was earlier in the season, and they’re suddenly looking like a dangerous team. And, beating Kentucky had to be one of their most feel good wins since…well….the last time they beat Kentucky on that iconic buzzer beater, which is the last time the two met during the regular season. Indiana will now face North Carolina team who had no trouble running away from Providence in the second half yesterday.
-There were one, maybe two moments, where Gonzaga looked like an NCAA Tournament team during the regular season, but for 95% of it didn’t look like a team that deserved to be in without the automatic bid, and had they not beaten Saint Mary’s in the WCC Championship game, they probably wouldn’t be in. But, now that they’re here, they’ve been destroying the planet. They blew out a Seton Hall team that was red hot, and then blew out a Utah team who many felt was a potential Final Four candidate by even more. They now appear to have a winnable Sweet Sixteen against either Middle Tennessee or Syracuse.
-Little Rock’s Cinderella Story ended yesterday with a rather decisive loss to Iowa State, who didn’t have that much trouble in either of their tournament games. Kansas also blew by UConn. The only #1 seed that did have to sweat was Virginia, who had a remarkable shooting performance yesterday, but still couldn’t pull away from Butler until the final minute or so.
#7 IOWA VS #2 VILLANOVA (CBS, 12:10pm). Iowa’s first game was like a microcosm of their season. They looked to be in control against Iowa for most of the game, but started to unravel in the latter part of the game, but somehow managed to hold on. They have a very tall order today going up against a Villanova team that likes to shoot the ball, and who rolled through their first game. Nova has been seeded #2 or better for the past three years, but still hasn’t made it past the Round of 32, so it’s somewhat important for the perception of their program to break through today.
-#14 STEPHEN F AUSTIN VS #6 NOTRE DAME (2:40, CBS). SFA has looked impressive all season, but playing against Southland teams has a tendency to make you look impressive. I was genuinely surprised, as I was two years ago when they beat VCU, at just how aggressive they were on defense against a very good West Virginia team. They appeared to get their opponents so frustrated that by the end of the game WVU couldn’t do much. Notre Dame knocked off Michigan, which had to have felt good given the history those two schools have. The Irish have looked good most of the time for most of the season, but they’ve also gone to sleep at times. If SFA comes out with that suffocating defense today, ND may be in trouble.
#10 VCU VS #2 OKLAHOMA ( 5:15, CBS). VCU knocked off Oregon State in a well played game on Friday, and Oklahoma had some trouble with UC Bakersfield, but finally got control in the final minutes of the game. VCU likes to pressure the ball, and it should be a fun match up watching Buddy Hield go up against it. Oklahoma is clearly the more battle tested team, but VCU does come into this game with a lot of momentum.
#15 MIDDLE TENNESSEE VS #10 SYRACUSE (6:10, TNT). I’m sure this is the match up that everyone was expecting to see this round!! The winner gets Gonzaga, which means we’re guaranteed to see at least one double digit seed reach the Elite Eight. Middle’s win over Michigan State was one of the biggest surprises in the history of the tournament, and although we’ve seen a lot of lower seeds win this year, none were completely shocking like this one was. The #13s and even #14s are typically good teams who won their leagues, and in many cases would have earned better seeds had they been given the chance to play better teams during the year. The #15 and #16 seeds are typically teams from weak leagues who in some cases aren’t even the best teams from those leagues, but just ended up winning the automatic bid. Middle Tennessee had a fairly decent year, but nothing indicated that they’d be able to play with, much less beat, a Michigan State team who looked like a national title contender. On the flip side, we’ve got a Syracuse team that absolutely pasted Dayton in their game after they sort of limped into the tournament. Syracuse is a tough defensive match-up, and they appear to have superior talent, but then again, so did the Spartans.
#13 HAWAII VS #5 MARYLAND (7:10, TBS). Hawaii’s win over Cal wasn’t that astonishing of an upset when you consider that Cal has a young team and they hadn’t looked nearly as good away from their home court as they had looked on it. Hawaii was no joke either. If they win today, I also don’t think it would be one of the most surprising things in the world. Like Cal, Maryland hasn’t been the same team that they’ve been on the road, and as good as South Dakota State is, who the Terps struggled to beat, Hawaii appears to be at least as good and probably better. Maryland better eat their Wheaties this morning because this one won’t be any sort of a cakewalk.
#11 NORTHERN IOWA VS #3 TEXAS A&M (7:40pm, CBS). We won’t get to see Texas v Texas A&M match up in the round of 32. That’s because Northern Iowa took down the Longhorns with a beyond midcourt shot at the buzzer. Northern Iowa has had their ups and downs this year, but with wins over North Carolina, Iowa State, Wichita State, and now Texas, their ups have been very good. Texas A&M didn’t have too much trouble in their opening round game and entered the tournament with a lot of momentum built up as well. UNI is very good, but I think TAMU might be better. It’s still an interesting match-up and should be fun to watch.
#7 XAVIER VS #2 WISCONSIN (8:40, TNT). Xavier cruised past Weber State in their first game, whereas Wiscy had to win a rock fight against Pitt. Wisconsin is very strong defensively, and can be very frustrating for opponents to play against. They had some bad losses early in the year, but really ended up finishing strong. They went 11-1 in league play to close out the regular season, and managed notable wins against the likes of Maryland, Michigan State, Iowa, and Indiana. That’s not your typical #7 seed, so this match up could be a lot closer than what many are expecting.
#8 SAINT JOSEPH’S VS #1 OREGON (9:40, TBS). Saint Joseph’s won in one of the most crazy ways possible on Friday night when what appeared to be a game tying dunk by Cincinnati was waived off because it was a millisecond late. They face an Oregon team that’s been rampaging through everyone they’ve been facing. Both come in with a lot of momentum built up, but I can’t help but think Oregon has more momentum and has built it up against stronger competition.
Under The Radar Postseason News, Notes and Highlighted Games – Tuesday, March 22
Another day, another wave of upsets took place in the NIT last night. Sadly, one of the upsets means that we bid adieu to the Monmouth Hawks and the Hawk’s Nest for the 2015-16 season. GW got off to a fast start against the Hawks and held on for an 87-71 victory. Monmouth was able to shrink the deficit to 39-38 in the 2nd half, but GW gave itself some breathing room after a 10-0 run to open up their lead. The Colonials were a red-hot 9-for-19 from beyond the arc; Monmouth only shot 4-of-21.
For the second game in a row, South Carolina had 5 players suspended for this game and it cost them against Georgia Tech. Thanks to Marcus Georges-Hunt’s 14 points and 8 assists, the Yellow Jackets walked out of Columbia with a decisive 83-66 win against the Gamecocks. Their reward is a cross-country trip to San Diego to face San Diego State; they defeated Washington 93-78 last night. The Aztecs were led by Winston Shepard’s double-double of 20 points and 10 rebounds.
In the CIT, the original Team of the People moves on once more to the quarterfinal round after defeating Boston U 83-72. Damon Lynn led the Highlanders with 31 points; Tim Coleman also had 20 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists. They will get to host a game at the Fleischer Center for the 3rd straight time when Texas-Arlington visits Newark on Thursday night at 7:30 PM.
The CBI also had 4 quarterfinal games played last night. The first one was a thriller between Ohio and UNC-Greensboro; the Bobcats fell behind by as many as 12 points before clawing their way back to tie the game at 67-67 going into the final minute of the game. Jordan Davis hit a 3-pointer to put OU up for good; they also added a couple of late free throws for a 72-67 win. Ohio will end up hosting Morehead State in the semifinals; Morehead defeated Duquesne at home by an 82-72 margin. The momentum of this game shifted when Brent Arrington hit a halfcourt shot just before halftime to give the Eagles a 43-36 lead at that point.
Vermont has made the most of their cross-country roadtrip so far; they defeated Seattle 73-54 to advance to the CIT semifinals on Wednesday night. Kurt Steidl led the Catamounts with 17 points, including 3-for-4 shooting from beyond the arc. Vermont will stay out west and travel to Reno to face Nevada; the Wolf Pack beat Eastern Washington 85-70 largely due to the efforts of Tyron Criswell (a career-high 32 points) and another career-high 28 points by Cameron Oliver.
There is also one coaching vacancy that will need to be filled for a notable UTR program; Brad Underwood will be leaving Stephen F. Austin’s program to take over as head coach at Oklahoma State. Keep an eye out for our next HoopsHD podcast where we recap the tournament action from the past week plus other notable coaching changes that are being filled. That being said, it’s time to preview tonight’s postseason action:
NIT
(2) ST. MARY”S AT (1) VALPARAISO (7:00 PM, ESPN) – With the defeat of Monmouth last night, we are left with only two under-the-radar teams left in the NIT field, and they are both playing tonight at Valparaiso for the right to advance to the semifinals at Madison Square Garden. The Gaels haven’t shown that they can win notable games away from home outside of their Gonzaga win, and Valparaiso has only lost once at home all year (against Wright State). This will still be a showcase of some of the best UTR players with Valpo’s Keith Carter and Alec Peters and St. Mary’s Joe Rahon.
(4) CREIGHTON AT (2) BYU (9:00 PM, ESPN) – Creighton has been the most dominant team in the first 2 rounds of the NIT; they beat Alabama and Wagner by a combined 51 points. However, both wins were within the cozy confines of Omaha, and now must hit the road to play a BYU team that had a little harder road to get to this point. Will the higher altitude of Provo, Utah pose the same problems for Creighton that it did for their conference mates Seton Hall last weekend?
CIT
No games tonight, but here are the 4 quarterfinal matchups that were released last night:
Grand Canyon at Coastal Carolina (Wednesday, 7:00 PM)
Ball State at Columbia (Wednesday, 7:00 PM)
UC-Irvine at UL-Lafayette (Wednesday, 8:00 PM)
UT-Arlington at NJIT (Thursday, 7:30 PM)
As always, all 4 of the games will be streamed on the above CIT link.