What happened in the NCAA Men's Tournament Sweet 16

When Cam Spencer visited Connecticut last spring, he got the usual treatment. Photoshoot. Pitches on branding and NIL. The fluff, UConn coach Dan Hurley calls it.

Spencer goes out of his way to avoid what others seek. He’s not on social media. His interests are minimal. And Hurley could see Spencer and his family losing interest.

Then they started talking hoops. Style of play. How Spencer fit in UConn’s system.

“The group perked up,” Hurley says.

Hurley tells the story like a man who found his soulmate. Spencer is as close to his clone as anyone he’s ever coached. Spencer is the old man yelling to get off his lawn, and Hurley is across the street on his porch echoing obscenities. Hurley compares their anger meter to the strongman carnival game. “You hit it, and it goes all the way up,” he says. “It is in a way looking in the mirror.”

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Men’s college basketball has its own version of “The Tess Effect” in the form of Andrew Catalon and Steve Lappas.

The CBS basketball announcing team is currently on a two-year NCAA Tournament heater that includes No. 16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson’s historic upset over top-seeded Purdue in last year’s first round and an incredible stretch in Pittsburgh this past weekend in the first and second rounds, featuring No. 14 seed Oakland’s upset of No. 3 Kentucky on Thursday and then two overtime games on Saturday night — NC State defeating Oakland in overtime and Creighton holding off Oregon in double overtime.

“First of all, it’s just luck,” Catalon said Sunday morning. “You’ve got to be in the right place at the right time, and we have been in some great places. In the 2015 tournament, we had a 14-seed beat a 3(-seed) when Georgia State beat Baylor. Last year with FDU was historic. This year we have had an unbelievable ride. The best part about it for me is we have now done so many games together that we have fun with it and we embrace it. We kind of like it when it gets a little crazy because we know each other so well.”

“I think a big reason why these games stand out is because of the calls that Andrew has in these situations,” Lappas said. “In the 2015 game, Ron Hunter was the coach at Georgia State and his son RJ Hunter made a 3 (in the final seconds). The coach had a torn Achilles tendon and he was on a scooter and he fell off the scooter. I see Andrew’s call of Ron Hunter falling off his scooter every now and then.

“… I’m not a TV guy. I’m a basketball coach. And Andrew told me very early on, ‘Lap, just one thing. Don’t step on my call.’ I learned way back when, hey, at this moment here, it’s up to him to do his thing.”

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DALLAS – I noted earlier in the day how loose the beginning of Duke’s Thursday practice looked. The same can be said for the Blue Devils’ Sweet 16 opponent.

The top-seed Houston Cougars, the last team to practice Thursday at American Airlines Center, were vocal and active as they hit the court. Even Houston coach Kelvin Sampson got in on the upper-body stretching at half court as things got underway. My guess is the coaching staff was pretty happy to see all that energy, considering Houston’s last game was a draining overtime thriller against Texas A&M over the weekend in which four of five starters fouled out and the Cougars coughed up a 10-point lead late in regulation before prevailing.

Days removed from that win, even with Duke looming, Sampson had a ton of praise for the Aggies and coach Buzz Williams.

“A&M, much like Duke right now, they were playing their best basketball at the end of the year,” Sampson said. “... A&M was playing well, and Buzz is a hell of a coach, and they took it to us.

"They were tremendous."

Illinois is in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2005 behind a dominant 89-63 victory against Duquesne. The Illini, who won the Big Ten tournament championship, are playing as well as any team in the country. Terrence Shannon Jr. scored at least 30 points for the seventh time this season, including his third time in the last four games. Marcus Domask, coming off a triple-double in the first round against Morehead State, added 22 points. Forward Dain Dainja has not missed a single shot from the field in any of his last three games, going a perfect 17-for-17.

Seed: 3

Record: 28-8

Games:

No. 14 Morehead State,85-69

No. 11 Duquesne, 89-63

DALLAS — I didn’t expect to get a blast from streetball past today. But when Marquette players were asked Thursday about defending NC State’s large forward DJ Burns, Tyler Kolek came in with an unexpected name drop.

“We were watching film today, he hit a spin fade-away, kind of like Escalade from the AND1 Mixtapes,” Kolek said. “He is good. He is super skilled. We’ll try to do everything we can to stop him.”

For those unfamiliar, Troy Jackson, aka “Escalade,” was a 6-foot-10, 375-pound sensation who played sparingly at Louisville but became famous on the AND1 Mixtape Tour in the 2000s, with games on ESPN. Escalade, the younger brother of former NBA player/coach/analyst Mark Jackson, was very much a fan favorite and known for not only his size, but also his passing ability. He died in 2011 at age 38 due to hypertensive heart disease.

Burns is not nearly as big, listed at 6-foot-9, 275 pounds, but he’s become a fan favorite star for this NC State team during this tournament run with a similar style of play.

And in case you were doing the math in your head, Kolek was born in 2001, meaning he was just a young child when Escalade came onto the streetball scene. Thanks to YouTube, the legend of streetball players like Escalade lives on.

BOSTON — Brad Underwood is a basketball lifer. His playing career led directly into his coaching career, and he hasn't taken a season off since his first season at Dodge City (Kan.) Community College 36 years ago.

But when it came to discussing how his No. 1 offense will contend with Iowa State's No. 1 defense Thursday night, Underwood, the Illinois coach, broke out some football parlance.

"You've got to try to avoid the pick-sixes," Underwood said Wednesday.

What Underwood means are the live ball turnovers — the telegraphed or inaccurate passes that Iowa State's defenders can tip and take the other way for a fast-break dunk. The Cyclones are good at that, turning over opponents on one of every four possessions this season. They rank third in the country in steal percentage, according to KenPom.

Iowa State is 25-3 when it turns over opponents at least 20 percent of the time. It is 4-4 when it does not meet that mark.

Underwood isn't oblivious to the fact Illinois will turn the ball over. But he wants his players to control the damage when it happens.

"Take the five-second count if you're in trouble, punt it 24 rows up into the stands," he said. "Just don't jump up in the air and throw it and let them get an uncontested layup that we can't defend on our end."

On the other side, Iowa State's No. 1 defense is, of course, facing its stiffest possible test. The Illini come in with the No. 1 offense in the country and are playing their best in March, with 85-plus points in four consecutive games. Illinois should have an advantage on the offensive glass as long as it doesn't turn the ball over.

"We recognize the strength in our opponent, in how great they are going to the offensive boards," Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said. "They go with force. They are one of the top teams in the country. They've got multiple guys. They've got great size, length, athleticism. So we recognize that strength of theirs. Yet, we feel like on a daily basis the things that we do prepare us for these type of opportunities and we're confident in that plan."

BOSTON — San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher and UConn coach Dan Hurley, like most college basketball coaches, have their problems with the rapid-fire, ever-turning transfer portal. But while Dutcher said it louder, Hurley said it funnier.

Dutcher: “I don't think it's good for any of us to have free agency every single year, because then we're going to lose sight of graduating players . . . You could go from one school to another, I don't care if you are going Ivy League to a non-Ivy League school, not all of your credits are going to transfer . . . They’re all sitting in that locker room and think they're going to play a long time professionally once they're done in college, whether it's overseas or in the NBA, but the reality is they're going to live most of their lives without a basketball in their hands.”

Hurley: “I just don’t think it’s healthy for somebody to be able to change schools like underwear.”

On the radio, in barbershops and wherever else you get your regular dose of Bracket Breakers, there’s a lot of talk about how chalky this NCAA tournament has turned out to be. There are many possible ways to measure that, but it’s certainly true according to the simplest metric that matters to what we do: There are hardly any deep underdogs left! Only one matchup in the Sweet 16 features teams that are separated by five or more seeds, and which are therefore subject to analysis by our model.

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PJ Hall sat back and tried to take in everything. With his eyes full of tears, he looked around and saw that what had been just a dream for the past couple of years had finally become a reality.

His fellow Clemson teammates jumped around in celebration after the team clinched its first Sweet 16 berth since 2018. One of the players, senior guard Andrew Latiff, peeled a “March Madness” sign from a wall in the locker room.

“This is definitely going in my room,” he said.

Another player, forward RJ Godfrey, recalled the feeling of entering the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers had lost three of four games before traveling to Memphis for the first two rounds, and the team was a trendy pick to be a single-digit seed (six) to be upset by a double-digit seed in the first round (No. 11 New Mexico State).

“I had people in my life saying, ‘I don’t believe in y’all,’” Godfrey said. “It’s all fuel, though. You can’t take it in a negative way. You have to take it in a constructive way and use it to push your team and push yourself.”

The tears a year ago for Hall were much different. Clemson, which compiled a 23-10 record, was left out of the tournament field, much to the surprise of the team, as it felt the devastating blow of missing out on March Madness.

But this season, Hall, a senior and first-team All-ACC selection, was one of the catalysts who brought the Tigers to this point. Overcome by his emotions, Hall represented a promise made between himself and coach Brad Brownell, who got Hall, a top 50 recruit nationally out of high school, to believe in his vision. A few floors up in FedEx Forum, Brownell was informed of a different kind of history after the team’s second-round win over Baylor.

“Brad Brownell becomes the first Clemson coach to lead the team to multiple Sweet 16 appearances,” the moderator at the postgame news conference said.

“Ooooohhhhh,” said guard Joseph Girard III, sitting a few feet from Brownell.

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Our staff picks for No. 2 Iowa State versus No. 3 Illinois:

• John Hollinger: Iowa State
• Austin Mock: Iowa State
• Joe Rexrode: Illinois
• Sam Vecenie: Illinois

BOSTON — Even as he was preparing for Thursday’s game against UConn, Dutcher admitted he needs to spend at least some of his time addressing the future.

“I'm talking to players in the portal right now. I haven't done a Zoom yet, but we're trying to set one up,” Dutcher said. "That’s the unfortunate thing with the timing of it. Teams that are still playing are . . . you have to multi-task. I’m 100 percent focused on this year, but I'm doing San Diego State a disservice if I don't have an eye on the future too, so I have to multi-task. I have to be able to do a lot of things. That’s part of the job. Everybody is dancing in the portal, jumping in there. There's still 16 teams playing that guys from those teams are going to be in the portal too. So the process is just starting.”

DALLAS — How does a head coach spend their time the day before a Sweet 16 matchup?

Well, there’s practice, media responsibilities, team meals and the other usual duties that come with this time of year. But Marquette coach Shaka Smart was able to sneak away from it all for a quick trip.

Smart said he spent part of Thursday at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Plaza in Dallas, calling himself a “big history guy.” Even with that label, Smart wasn’t too interested in dwelling on the past when it comes to basketball or his last trip to the Sweet 16.

It’s hard to believe, but that was way back in 2011, when Smart’s VCU Rams made a run from the First Four to the Final Four, boosting Smart’s profile and eventually helping him land coaching jobs at Texas and now Marquette.

That VCU team was considered an NCAA Tournament Cinderella. Smart’s Marquette squad this year, at 27-9 and highly ranked for much of the season, is far from that as it prepares for 11th-seeded NC State — the same seed Smart’s Rams had during that unforgettable March.

Sometimes, surviving and advancing is mostly about problem-solving. Like when Houston found itself down four fouled-out starters in overtime against Texas A&M, or NC State needed oxygen to get through an overtime against Oakland in its seventh game in 12 days.

Every one of the Sweet 16 games is going to present its own unique problems. Here are the big questions facing every team in the regional semifinals as they look to get to Glendale, Ariz., for the Final Four.

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DETROIT — Put Creighton coach Greg McDermott in the NCAA Tournament pro-expansion camp, though he won’t put a number on where he thinks it should go.

“People aren't going to like what I have to say, but I'm probably in favor of expansion to a certain degree and simply because last weekend is an incredible experience for every student-athlete that gets to participate,” McDermott said Thursday in a news conference previewing Friday’s Midwest Regional semifinal against Tennessee. “So why are we only having 15 percent or 17 percent of our teams participate?”

This is the era of doing more for college athletes, McDermott pointed out, and expansion could be seen from that angle.

“I think most people that don't want the tournament messed with, it's for selfish reasons because they like it the way it is, and that's not a good enough reason, in my opinion,” he said. “If it's really about the student-athletes, then give more opportunities for student-athletes that have had a good season.”

McDermott reunites Friday with Tennessee coach Rick Barnes, an old friend from when both were coaching in the Big 12. McDermott said when he was considering the Creighton job, he was on his way to an interview and called Barnes to talk about the idea of making such a move.

Barnes asked McDermott every question and addressed all possible angles of the potential decision that he could think of during the call. It lasted the entire 40-minute drive.

“I think (that) speaks to who Rick Barnes is,” McDermott said.