What happened during championship week: 27 teams earn automatic berths entering Selection Sunday

Conference tournaments give us all sorts of drama, but they can also be cruel. And no team has suffered more in recent years than Toledo.

The Rockets won the MAC regular-season title but lost Thursday to No. 8 seed Kent State in the quarterfinals, 67-59. This was all too familiar a feeling. They have won the regular-season title seven times since 2014 under coach Tod Kowalczyk but have lost in the conference tournament each time. The program is still seeking its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1980.

A quick rundown of some of the failures: A 27-win team in 2014 lost in the title game. In 2018 Toledo fell in the championship game to Buffalo after league player of the year Tre’Shaun Fletcher got hurt in the semifinals. In 2019, starting forward Willie Jackson suffered a concussion during a dunk in warmups before a quarterfinal upset loss. The Rockets lost in the semifinals as the No. 1 seed in 2022 and in the finals as the top seed last year, also to Kent State. This year, Toledo beat Kent State twice in the regular season by a combined 30 points but lost when it counted most.

It raises the question of what should be valued and rewarded: consistently winning the regular season, or performing well in the often random, single-elimination postseason? Toledo has become the pre-2004 Boston Red Sox or pre-2016 Chicago Cubs of mid-major basketball. And it must be endlessly frustrating.

No. 2 seed Akron now becomes the heavy favorite to take the MAC bid. But nobody is safe in a conference tournament.

So, uh, that was about as dominant a 10-minute stretch as we’ve seen all season from North Carolina. There’s a reason the Tar Heels are the ACC’s No. 1 seed, but still: a 20-4 run against a team as physical and athletic as Florida State?

FSU’s 3-pointer at the buzzer made the halftime score a little more respectable — 46-30 — but it almost feels like this game is being played in Chapel Hill with the disparity in the crowd’s rooting interest. Officials mostly swallowed their whistles early, but the fact that the Seminoles were called for three times as many fouls as UNC (nine to three) also didn’t make life easier for Leonard Hamilton’s team.

FSU isn’t exactly built to play from behind — it barely has a top-100 offense, per KenPom — so we’ll see if the Seminoles can make this closer… or if the Tar Heels continuing waltzing to the tournament semifinals.

It's a mild ankle sprain for Texas Tech's Darrion Williams, who has returned to the game. Looks like it's bothering him but toughing it out. Been one of the best players in the Big 12 over the last month.

Vanderbilt is expected to move on from men’s basketball coach Jerry Stackhouse, a school source briefed on the discussions confirmed to The Athletic on Thursday. The program is electing to make a change after one of the worst seasons in team history.

The Commodores lost in the first round of the SEC tournament to Arkansas on Wednesday, to fall to 9-23. The 23 losses tied a Vanderbilt single-season record, matching the 23 Vanderbilt lost in 2018-19 — the year that led to Vanderbilt’s last coaching change.

Over Stackhouse’s five years, Vanderbilt was 70-92 overall with a 28-60 conference record. The Commodores never made the NCAA Tournament under Stackhouse, coming closest last season when they went 22-15 and played in the NIT. Their NCAA Tournament drought dates back to the 2016-17 season under former coach Bryce Drew.

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NEW YORK — So this is unexpected. When last we saw Xavier play UConn this season, the Musketeers were getting torched by 43 points. Today, the Musketeers hustled out to a 10-0 lead, withstood the expected Husky onslaught and head to the locker room down one, 34-33, to the defending national champions.

UConn looks ragged, missing easy bunnies and fumbling good passes, but Xavier’s defense deserves some credit here, too. The Musketeers are making the Huskies uncomfortable, particularly behind the arc where they’re only 4 of 14.

Oklahoma State fired men’s basketball coach Mike Boynton after seven seasons, the school announced Thursday.

The Cowboys’ season ended with a 77-62 loss to UCF in the opening round of the Big 12 tournament Tuesday. Boynton, 42, exits with a 119-109 overall record and a 51-75 mark in conference play. Oklahoma State went 12-20 this season.

The Cowboys reached the NCAA Tournament only once in Boynton’s seven seasons in Stillwater. Led by No. 1 NBA Draft pick Cade Cunningham, Oklahoma State lost in the round of 32 against Oregon State in 2021. The Cowboys reached the NIT twice, advancing to the quarterfinals in 2017-18 and 2022-23, when they were the first team out of the NCAA Tournament field. They were a bubble team in 2020 when the Big 12 and NCAA Tournaments were canceled because of COVID-19.

But OSU posted a winning record in Big 12 play just once in seven seasons. Oklahoma State also served a one-year postseason ban in 2021-22, the result of the NCAA’s investigation stemming from the FBI’s 2017 probe into bribery and corruption in college basketball recruiting.

Oklahoma State’s four Big 12 wins this season were its fewest since 2015-16. The Cowboys ended the season on a six-game losing streak.

Continue reading.

Florida has given men’s basketball coach Todd Golden a two-year contract extension, a source with direct knowledge of the agreement confirmed.

Golden, in his second season, has Florida poised to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2021. The Gators are 21-10 entering the SEC tournament, where they play Georgia on Thursday.

Florida is a projected No. 6 seed in The Athletic's Brian Bennett's latest projected bracket.

NEW YORK — Welcome to the best day of the year, in my humble opinion — quarterfinal day at the Big East tournament. Sold-out Madison Square Garden, the top teams in action. It honestly doesn’t get better.

Starting off with UConn is also not a bad way to get the ball rolling. The defending national champions look frighteningly better than even last year, and will bring more than their fair share of fans to New York. Pretty hefty lift for Xavier, I’m guessing, but weird things have a way of happening here.

All times Eastern

USC vs. Arizona, 3 p.m.

UCLA vs. Oregon, 5:30 p.m.

Stanford vs. Washington State, 9 p.m.

Utah vs. Colorado, 11:30 p.m.

DePaul is aggressively pursuing former Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann, though no deal is done yet, a source briefed on the discussions said.

The Blue Demons ended the 2023-24 season with a 58-57 loss to Villanova on Wednesday in the Big East tournament. DePaul, which fired coach Tony Stubblefield in January — the first power-conference coaching change of this year — finished the season 3-29 and 0-20 in the Big East.

Ohio State fired Holtmann in the middle of his seventh season in February.

6-6 freshman guard, Connecticut

While Stephon Castle’s teammate, the massive sophomore Donovan Clingan, is a likely lottery pick, he’s also more of a known quantity at this point. (I wrote about Clingan after my visit to Hartford for UConn-Marquette last month.)

Castle is the more challenging evaluation for scouts, a one-and-done playing as the fifth option on a stacked Huskies team trying to repeat as national champions. He seems clearly capable of more but also has some offensive limitations that could hold him back even at the next level. Most notably, his jump shot is inconsistent — he’s at 30.1 percent from 3 on low volume and has a slow release that at times looks as though his arms are fighting each other.

However, Castle’s combination of size, ball skills and athleticism hints at bigger things. He wowed scouts with 14 points, six rebounds, four steals, three assists and nary a turnover in Connecticut’s rout of Providence this past weekend; on the season, he averages more than two dimes for every assist and, even with the giant Clingan soaking up so many boards, has an impressive 9.7 percent rebound rate in Big East play.

Castle could really push into the top half of the lottery with a strong March, especially because scouts are still catching up on him after he missed time early in the season with a knee injury. Given the strength of his team, he may still have nine more games to showcase himself.

Read more here.

All times Eastern

Mississippi State vs. LSU, 1 p.m.

Arkansas vs. South Carolina, 3:30 p.m.

Ole Miss vs. Texas A&M, 7 p.m.

Georgia vs. Florida, 9:30 p.m.

All times Eastern

Xavier vs. UConn, Noon

St. John's vs. Seton Hall, 2:30 p.m.

Providence vs. Creighton, 7 p.m.

Villanova vs. Marquette, 9:30 p.m.

All times Eastern

Kent vs. Toledo, 11 a.m.

Bowling Green vs. Central Michigan, 1:30 p.m.

Miami-Ohio vs. Akron, 4 p.m.

Western Michigan vs. Ohio, 6:30 p.m.