Consider the classics already witnessed, in the month that never, ever disappoints.
Houston outlasted Texas A&M Sunday night with four starters fouled out, needing an overtime basket from one player who had been in a single game all month and a free throw from another who had taken four all season. This after blowing a 10-point lead in the last 80 seconds of regulation.
Creighton and Oregon put on a battle where neither team led by more than six points for more than 47 minutes, then Creighton went on a 15-0 run in the second OT. This while Oregon put up 73 points and took 77 shots and two players — Jermaine Couisnard and N’Faly Dante — scored 60 and shot 53 of them, basically trying desperately to claw to the Sweet 16 with four hands. And nearly did. “We got a couple lucky bounces there. I lost my mom this year. I'm pretty sure she helped with a couple bounces tonight,” Creighton coach Greg McDermott said afterward. All Dante could say was, “It just hurts, man.”
North Carolina State and Oakland traded magic for 45 minutes before the Wolfpack finally escaped a game that had 61 3-pointers and only 15 turnovers. “I don’t think you can play harder than we played,” Oakland coach Greg Kampe said.
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Auburn went down to Yale getting three shots in the final seconds for salvation and having none fall. “We knew it was March Madness, we know what the situation is,” Auburn’s Chris Moore said. “Everybody playing like their life depended on it.”
Yes they certainly do, and that’s why we watch. But there is so much more to come. Here are 16 questions for the Sweet 16.
1. Is this to be a chalk tournament?
Despite all the drama, all four No. 1 seeds remain so here come Connecticut, Houston, Purdue and North Carolina. All four No. 2 seeds, too, so make way for Arizona, Marquette, Tennessee and Iowa State. This 100 percent first week survival rate among the top two lines has been matched only twice this century.
2. Any ideas how to slow down UConn? Anyone?
The defending champions are on a roll. The Huskies led their first and second round games by 39 and 30 points and never trailed a second. They had 42 assists and only 16 turnovers in two games. They defended Northwestern star Boo Buie into 2-for-15 shooting Sunday, just like they bothered Stetson’s big scorer Jalen Blackmon into 4-for-17. They went 3-for-22 in 3-point shooting Sunday against the Wildcat and still won 75-58. They have lost once since Dec. 20. They have now won eight consecutive NCAA tournament games by double digits going across last year’s victory march.
“We have a big picture that we want to get to and we have to take it one step at a time,” Tristen Newton said. “Getting to the Sweet 16 is another step to our main goal, and it feels good.”
San Diego State, you’re up.
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3. Is Purdue 2024 starting to look more like Virginia 2019 every day?
The Cavaliers went from losing to a No. 16 seed to a national championship in 12 months. The Boilermakers have heard the comparison all season and now they’re four wins away from a remake of that movie and the closer they get, the more it will become a narrative. “We’re never going to forget it because we want that fuel, we want that fire, we want that edge,” Purdue’s Mason Gillis said this weekend in Indianapolis. “It wasn’t fun taking that loss but that’s life. Sometimes you have to learn to maybe later do something big.”
One difference between them so far: Virginia had to step carefully to its atonement, dominating no one, winning its first two tournament games by 15 and 12 and its last four by a combined 18 points, two of them in overtime, one of those against Purdue. The Boilermakers are on a rampage, winning their first two games by 28 and 39 — albeit before a hugely pro-Purdue crowd — outrebounding Grambling State and Utah State by 48, forcing them into 36 percent shooting. Routs led by You Know Who, but he had lot of help, and maybe that was the message from Indianapolis. Zach Edey played barely 26 minutes in the dismantling of Utah State. Braden Smith, the floor leader at guard with early foul trouble, under 22. The carnage continued anyway.
“The game kind of speaks for itself,” Smith said. “We went on a scoring run with me and Zach on the bench. If that doesn’t tell you something about this team, I guess you don’t know ball.”
Which brings up an addendum to the question, and it’s 7-4 tall.
4. Is there justice in the college basketball world if Zach Edey comes and goes without playing in one Final Four?
He put up 30 points and 21 rebounds against Grambling State. He had a double-double 15 minutes into the game against Utah State. A fine start to his last March.
But . . .
“There's no satisfaction,” he said Sunday. “Like I didn't come back to make the Sweet 16. I came back to make a run, a deep run. Nobody is satisfied with where we are now. Everybody wants to keep pushing.”
Utah State coach Danny Sprinkle is a believer: “There hasn't been many guys like that in college basketball history. That's why I think they can just take it to another level.
5. Does the Big East now have a message for the selection committee?
Well, maybe. The league was mortified to get only three tournament bids, so the fact the trio — Connecticut, Marquette and Creighton — are 6-0 does warm Big East hearts. “Seton Hall (was) good enough to beat us and they were good enough to beat Marquette,” said UConn coach Dan Hurley. “There should have been five or six Big East teams in this tournament. You’ve seen how other leagues that got the bids that our league deserved have underperformed.
6. Will anyone ever feel safe with an NCAA tournament lead against Texas A&M again?
The Aggies are gone but not forgotten. In 2016, they came from 12 points back in the last 44 seconds of regulation and eventually beat Northern Iowa in double overtime in the second round. Sunday, they were down to Houston 83-73 with 1:20 left and found a way to score 13 points in 70 seconds against the nation’s bet defense, the last three on a shot at the buzzer.
The Cougars reserves saved the day in a 100-95 rock fight that had 75 free throws. It was the kind of trial by fire that makes a team feel destined. Time will tell for Houston. "We're very fortunate tonight to win. Texas A&M could have won that game," Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson said. "But only one team can advance, and I've learned not to autopsy wins this time of the year."
7. No one here really thought Gonzaga was really going away did they?
The Zags have grown from a bubble team listed on a lot of last four out bracket projections to blowing past Kansas and into their ninth consecutive Sweet 16. “We know our legacy,” Nolan Hickman said after the second round. Said coach Mark Few, “We knew we had to finish strong. We did that . . . Lo and behold, we finally figured it out.”
So it seems. Gonzaga put five players in double figures scoring in each of its first two tournament games and shot 57 percent. But Friday in Detroit they’ll be shooting over Zach Edey.
8. Can the ACC’s hot hand last another week?
The ACC owns one-fourth of the Sweet 16 field with Clemson, Duke, North Carolina and NC State. No. 6 seed Clemson surprisingly came along to make it a foursome by dumping No. 3 seed Baylor. The Tigers went to Memphis last weekend with a purpose, trailing New Mexico for only 30 seconds and Baylor for none.
9. Duke’s kids had so much fun in the first week, but what happens Friday against the steely veterans of Houston?
The balance of power has supposedly swung to older teams with all the pandemic geezers around, right? Not at Duke, the Blue Devils blasted James Madison Sunday with 30 points from freshman Jared McCain, 18 from sophomore Tyrese Proctor, 14 more from sophomore Kyle Filipowski. “It’s an art form, I don’t think it’s an exact science,” coach Jon Scheyer said of counting on the kids these days when 23-year-olds roam the land. Duke’s defense has become a force. In the first two rounds, Vermont and James Madison came in averaging 72 and 84 points. The Blue Devils held them to 47 and 55. That makes 29 of 34 games this season, they have held opponents under their average.
At least now they know it’s possible to play in a Sweet 16 without Mike Krzyzewski as coach. The last time they did it was 1980.
10. What would Jim Valvano say?
Forty-one years after his national championship dash around the court, NC State is in survive-and-advance mode again. The Wolfpack just won seven elimination games in 12 days, two in overtime. They had dropped 10 of 14 and four in a row heading into the ACC tournament to finish in 10th place but now magic is in the air.
Four different players have scored at least 21 points in a game since the run began. Six ACC teams have won a national championship, and North Carolina State beat the other five in five days to take the league tournament for the first time in 37 years. At No. 11, they’re the lowest seed still alive in the bracket by five lines, and to put this surprise in perspective, care to guess what the famous upstarts of ’83 were seed? No. 6.
Listen to Michael O'Connell, who had only three double-digit scoring games in 31 regular season contests but hit double digits in all five ACC tournament games: “We kind of left everything in the past and we had to take one game at a time.”
Or Casey Morsell: “For us it’s been a rollercoaster of emotions, but we’ve seen a lot and we’re not going anywhere. We’re here.
Or DJ Burns Jr., who had 24 points in the overtime win over Oakland about the skeptics: “They didn't really believe in us. They probably still don't but that doesn't matter to us. We're just going to stay together. If you're supporting us, thank you. If not, that's what it is.”
They’re starting to sound a lot like the 1983 bunch.
11. Who will be the most dominant player in the Sweet 16, other than the big fella who wears No. 15 for Purdue?
Lots of candidates since 12 of the 15 players named on the Associated Press first, second or third All-American teams are still around. Only Kansas’ Hunter Dickinson, Dayton’s DaRon Holmes II and Auburn’s Johni Broome are missing. Sign of the times: Of the 12 All-Americans still in the hunt, eight began at another school and transferred in.
12. Whose redemption tour other than Purdue has continued another week?
This is North Carolina’s 31st official Sweet 16. It is the first ever after a season that saw the Tar Heels crash dive from preseason No. 1 to missing the tournament, since no one had ever done that before. And they’re picking up steam. The rally from 12 points down to beat Michigan State in the second round was North Carolina’s biggest NCAA tournament winning comeback in 17 years. RJ Davis now has 23 games of 20 or more points in a season, the most for a Tar Heel in 16 years. “We're going to ride his back the remainder of the season,” coach Hubert Davis said.
13. How will it end for the Pac-12?
Arizona, it’s up to you. As the last conference team standing, when the Wildcats go down, Pac-12 men’s basketball is pushed into the history books. Probably fitting since their 1997 title is the last for the league and they’re the only non-UCLA Pac-12 team to win it in 64 years.
14. Who has been waiting a while to get back to this level?
Illinois hadn’t been to the Sweet 16 since its run to the national championship game in 2005. This will be Marquette’s first trip in 11 years. “We feel like it's been a long time coming,” said Marquette’s Tyler Kolek, who handed out 22 assists in the first two rounds. “Coming back this year we had a vengeance. I told the guys before the game, this moment has been in our nightmares, and we're not running from it anymore.”
15. What Sweet 16 games seem especially fascinating?
Duke vs. Houston. One team has five national championships and is the bluest of bloods. The other has labored for decades trying to get just one and got by Sunday with utter grit.
UConn vs. San Diego State. A sequel to the 2023 championship game. Nothing much has changed as far as who’ll be the favorite.
Purdue v. Gonzaga. This is in Detroit. Back in November, the Zags lost to the Boilermakers 73-63 in the much less pressurized but vastly more tropical surroundings of Maui. Edey had 25 points and 14 rebounds. “They’re a different team, we’re a different team,” Edey said. The stakes are different, too. P.S. Gonzaga lost to Purdue last season, too, by 18 points.
North Carolina vs. Alabama. They played last season, and the Tide won 103-101 in four overtimes.
16. What Elite Eight games would be particularly unique?
Houston vs. NC State. Would that wake up the echoes from 1983? Which brings to mind an eerie aftermath. Valvano and Lorenzo Charles were always connected in that fairy tale with Valvano the coach and Charles the Wolfpack player whose last-second dunk won the game and set off Valvano’s race around the court. Now, they will be eternally linked. Valvano was lost to cancer in 1993, Charles died in a bus accident in 2011. They’re buried maybe 20 yards from one another in a Raleigh cemetery.
Alabama vs. Clemson. But will the coin toss winner opt to receive or defer to the second half?
Purdue vs. Creighton or Tennessee. Either way, it will the Hunger Game. There might not be a top program out there more starving for a Final Four after 44 years than Purdue. Unless it’s Tennessee or Creighton, who have never been to one.
But then, in a tournament that turned absolutely electric Saturday and Sunday nights, 16 teams have a healthy appetite to go on. But there’s only food enough for four.
