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

Wisconsin guard Chucky Hepburn coolly raised three fingers near his head as he backpedaled down the court after burying a deep shot from at least five feet behind the 3-point line Thursday afternoon. Less than two minutes had passed during the second half of No. 5 seed Wisconsin’s eventual 87-56 obliteration of No. 12 seed Maryland in the second round of the Big Ten tournament, and the game already was well in hand with the Badgers leading by 25 points. But it represented yet another moment that highlighted an unbelievable — and seemingly improbable — 3-point shooting performance.

Wisconsin set a season high by making 16 of 25 3-point attempts during a game that effectively was over midway through the first half. This from a team that began the day ranked 183rd nationally in 3-point field goal percentage (33.9 percent). While it’s easy to chalk up what happened to an anomaly against a subpar Maryland team that fell to 16-17, it also served as a reminder that the Badgers (20-12) have the pieces offensively to be a tough postseason out this March.

This is, after all, a group that is averaging more points per game than any Wisconsin team in 30 years. It’s one with a dynamic leading scorer in St. John’s transfer A.J. Storr, who was second-team All-Big Ten, a veteran core and an infusion of freshman talent from John Blackwell and Nolan Winter. Blackwell’s 18 points paced four players in double figures. How Wisconsin played in terms of efficiency resembled a lot of what the Badgers showed earlier in the season when they rose to No. 6 in the AP Top 25 poll before a 3-8 close to the regular season.

Can Wisconsin stay near this level? That remains to be seen with Wisconsin advancing to play No. 4 seed Northwestern on Friday in a tournament quarterfinal and the NCAA Tournament a week away. But it marked an important step in Wisconsin’s quest to find itself again late this season and play consistently enough to reach its first Sweet 16 under Greg Gard in seven years.

"Starting to see more of what we were back in January," Gard said. "I felt that the last week or so that we were trending back in the right direction and starting to click. Today it showed again."

Former Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann has accepted an offer to become DePaul’s next men’s basketball coach, a source involved in the discussions said.

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

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

Read more here.

Houston is up 16-0 on TCU with 11:59 left in the 1st half. TCU is 0 for 14 from the field.

Wake Forest vs. Pittsburgh is, essentially, an NCAA Tournament play-out game; the winner might be in, but the loser definitely won’t be. Someone might want to tell that to Wake Forest, which trails 38-26 at halftime and couldn’t have had much worse of a first 20 minutes. The Demon Deacons committed eight turnovers — including the last possession of the half, when they failed to even get a shot off despite multiple out-of-bounds opportunities — in addition to Steve Forbes’ bench drawing a technical foul.

Oh, and All-ACC guard Hunter Sallis, a projected first-round pick in this summer’s NBA Draft? He didn’t score for the first 18 minutes, until a wing 3-pointer finally dropped. He has as many points (three) as turnovers, despite playing 19 of 20 minutes. In many ways, Wake is lucky to only be down 12. Forbes’ 2022 team — which featured ACC Player of the Year Alondes Williams and future first-rounder Jake LaRavia — was similarly on the bubble ... until it lost its first ACC tournament game to Boston College and ended up missing the Big Dance altogether. Having that happen twice in three seasons would be devastating.

And on the Pitt side of things, you can understand why Jeff Capel drew votes for ACC Coach of the Year. The Panthers started 1-5 in the conference ... but rallied to earn the No. 4 seed and the valuable double-bye that comes with it. In the process, Capel’s squad has turned itself into a legitimate bubble side (although Pitt would likely need to beat North Carolina in the semifinals tomorrow to be firmly in the field). Behind All-ACC wing Blake Hinson and a dynamic freshman backcourt of Carlton “Bub” Carrington and Jaland Lowe, the Panthers have been a top-20 offense nationally since knocking off Duke in late January. Twenty more minutes like this, and the Panthers will have a true NCAA Tournament play-in game tomorrow vs. the league’s top seed.

Halftime of the Rick Pitino Show, better known as the Big East quarterfinal between St. John’s and Seton Hall. The bubble battle royale is, as it should be, tight. An RJ Luis Jr. leaner at the buzzer gave the Johnnies, a 45-40 edge.

The Johnnies wisely are going to their strength, going right at the rim and right at the Pirates. They have a 26-8 edge in points in the paint, and their hockey line change is working well, too. Twenty of St. John’s points came from the bench.

As for the sideshow, Pitino only got riled up once, angry on a no call when Chris Ledlum was pickpocketed. He charged down the sideline to let the official have it, but Joel Soriano wisely steered his coach back to the huddle. For what it’s worth, Seton Hall was whistled for two fouls after a timeout. Make of that what you will.

Wisconsin could not have asked for a better start in establishing a 47-26 halftime lead against Maryland in the Big Ten Tournament that shows what the Badgers are capable of when their offense fully clicks. They buried their first five 3-pointers and finished the half an astounding 10-of-13 from the perimeter.

For context, the last time Wisconsin made 10 3-pointers in a game occurred on February 1 in an overtime loss to Nebraska (10-of-31), and the Badgers have made more than 10 3s in a game just once all season.

It has been a team effort, too, with five different players contributing 3s, led by guard John Blackwell (14 points, 4-of-4 on 3s) and center Steven Crowl (14 points, 2-of-2 on 3s). This was the group that it felt like had been missing for the better part of the last six weeks. While it’s unreasonable to believe Wisconsin consistently can shoot at a 64.3-percent clip from the field overall, it’s a major step in the right direction with the NCAA Tournament on the horizon.

Maryland has a mountain to climb in the second half, but leading scorer Jahmir Young has been as advertised and is the reason this game isn’t even more out of hand. He scored 15 of his team’s 26 points and shot 7-of-11 from the field. The rest of the team went 5-of-17.

Mississippi State defense and super freshman Josh Hubbard took over in the second half at Bridgestone Arena, leading the No. 9 seed Bulldogs past No. 8 seed LSU 70-60 and into Friday's quarterfinals against No. 1 seed Tennessee.

Hubbard had 14 of his game-high 24 points after the break as the Bulldogs outscored the Tigers 48-31. Big man Tolu Smith was limited to eight points but had 13 rebounds and some key hockey assists with LSU doubling to take him away. Chris Jans' team gets a bit more distance from the bubble and should be safe Sunday. It could get a seeding bump against UT, which lost 77-72 at Mississippi State on Jan. 10 in the only meeting between the teams.

It took some time, but we might’ve finally reached the point that Vanderbilt fans are pining for the Kevin Stallings era.

Sure it soured in the end, but at one point Stallings led Vanderbilt to five NCAA Tournaments in six years. Sitting here today, as the Commodores endure a seventh straight year without an invitation to the dance — even when COVID—19 canceled the 2020 postseason, they were 11-21 — those look a lot like glory days, and they’re long gone.

Even when Jerry Stackhouse won SEC Coach of the Year last season, it was for almost making the tournament. When he followed that with a 9-23 record this season, his fifth at the helm and third with more losses than wins, athletic director Candice Storey Lee had no choice but to move on. There hasn’t been much Memorial Magic lately, as that quirky old gymnasium now gets overrun by visiting fans. When such an embarrassment happens often enough, it’s over for the guy on the sideline.

Read more here.

Welcome to Game 2 of the Thursday Big Ten tournament slate between No. 5 seed Wisconsin (19-12) and No. 12 seed Maryland (16-16). The Badgers are safely in the NCAA Tournament on the strength of a tremendous two-month stretch earlier this season (and a NET ranking of 22) but enter the day having lost eight of their last 11 games.

It’s far from an ideal scenario because it has exposed what happens to Wisconsin when its offensive efficiency slips. The Badgers have not played at the level defensively that the program has grown accustomed to over the years. But Wisconsin did beat Rutgers in its home finale and hang tough with Purdue, so the goal here in Minneapolis is to put some momentum together and rekindle the spark that ignited the Badgers from mid-November through January.

Maryland, meanwhile, has to win five games in five days for a shot at the big dance. The Terps have endured a massively disappointing season after being picked in the preseason to finish third in the league. Maryland built a 14-point halftime lead to easily get past Rutgers on Wednesday night in its Big Ten tournament opener. This Maryland team, which lost 74-70 to Wisconsin in Madison earlier this season, still has the talent to put together a run.

So much for a challenging first ACC tournament game for No. 1 seed North Carolina, which had no issues whatsoever against Florida State. It was competitive for 10 minutes… and then a 20-4 UNC run to end the first half all-but decided this one.

The final margin — UNC 92, Florida State 67 — reflects as much. Hubert Davis inserted his reserves with more than five minutes remaining in the game, and they continued extending an already insurmountable lead. It was a classic day for UNC’s stars, like newly minted ACC Player of the Year R.J. Davis, who had 18 points on 7-of-15 shooting, and center Armando Bacot, who registered his sixth career ACC tournament double-double (which is tied for third all-time).

Next up for the Tar Heels? The winner of Wake Forest and Pittsburgh, a de facto NCAA Tournament play-in game.

As for Florida State, so ends another disappointing season. Leonard Hamilton doesn’t look like it, but he’ll be 76 by the time next season starts. How many years does he realistically still have left? Hamilton retiring in the next few days would still be a surprise — he hasn’t hinted at such, and remains an ultra competitor — but not unprecedented. The Seminoles have been on a decline since the cancellation of the 22020 NCAA Tournament, when they would’ve been a top two seed. This’ll mark the program’s third straight season missing the Big Dance.

Ah, there you are UConn. It took awhile for the Huskies to get going, but suffice it to say they found their groove. What, exactly, does a UConn groove like? How about these late second-half number: 11 made shots in a row, a 17-2 run that turned a tight game into over in a little more than four minutes.

The final score really is irrelevant (87-70 for those who need such details). What matters is that the Huskies turned a Big East quarterfinal into a 1-16 game, blasting by Xavier with such ferocity that Andrew Hurly got in the game. It’s all starting to feel eerily similar. The Huskies have won five in a row, three of them by double digits. That is essentially what they did in the NCAA Tournament a year ago, blowing through their six games and winning by an average of 17 points per game.

It has been said before (here and by me) that this team might actually be better than last year’s.

UConn certainly looked like it here today.

Could LSU be a surprise run team in the SEC Tournament? It's early but the Tigers are mucking up Mississippi State and getting better shots than the Bulldogs, leading 23-17 late in the first half. The Bulldogs have hit one triple, have eight turnovers and are at .654 points per possession. Josh Hubbard has that 3-pointer but has been able to manage just three shots, a clear LSU priority and something MSU needs to change quickly.

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.