As little order as there has been in college basketball this year, an NCAA Tournament Elite Eight that so far includes a 3 seed, two 9 seeds and an 11 seems strangely appropriate.
A bizarre season and bizarre NCAA tourney became only moreso Thursday, as lower seeds won three of four regional final games. Such a down-is-up, left-is-right tourney has it been that an 11 seed winning Thursday night was barely an upset at all compared to the other happenings.
The 11 seed moving on is Loyola Chicago, which edged No. 7 Nevada 69-68 to continue an incredible postseason run. A team that would not have been in the tourney if not for winning the Missouri Valley Conference final, the Ramblers’ first NCAA Tournament trip in 33 years now has won three tourney games by a combined four points, and the school is suddenly just three wins away from duplicating its 1963 feat when it won the national championship.
Loyola once again overcame a slow start by locking down defensively and playing efficiently on offense. In particular, the Ramblers unleashed one of the most beautiful 10-minute stretches of basketball that perhaps has ever been played in the NCAA Tournament to start the second half.
Leading 28-24 at the break, Loyola hit 13 consecutive shots to start the second half, not missing in the first 10:52 out of halftime. Ten of the 13 shots were layups, as shorter Loyola repeatedly beat Nevada with cuts, crafty drives and reverse layups. (It should be pointed out, the Wolf Pack’s defense in this stretch also wasn’t pretty)
It was reminiscent for a time of Villanova’s “perfect game” against Georgetown in the 1985 NCAA final. Even so, Nevada was not done, fighting back admirably to tie the score at 59-59 with 4:06 left. The Ramblers had every answer, though, and Marques Townes delivered the dagger with a three-pointer at the end of the shot clock with 6.2 seconds left for a four-point lead, after the Wolf Pack curiously decided to trust their defense and did not foul.
Loyola’s style of play has had any number of modern buzzwords attached to it about ‘spacing’ and ‘NBA concepts’ and such. The Ramblers aren’t doing anything that hasn’t been done in basketball for over 80 years-spacing, cutting, passing the ball and unselfishness are as fundamental parts of the game as they come (read almost anything written about offense by John Wooden). When Loyola gets cranking, though, it’s a picture of beauty.
Loyola’s opponent in the South Region final will be No. 9 Kansas State. The Wildcats in purple-who barely got past 16 seed UMBC in the second round-were expected to be fodder for No. 5 Kentucky playing in Atlanta, not far from home and with the vast majority of the fan base. Instead, it was K-State snagging the 61-58 win for the school’s 12th Elite Eight appearance.
The game was a fascinating matchup, with Kentucky’s lanky freshmen against a veteran Kansas State team of junkyard dogs on defense. K-State is one tough squad defensively and forced 15 turnovers, and the Wildcats got a huge drive and score by Barry Brown with 18 seconds left for the go-ahead points. Now, Kansas State takes aim at its fifth-ever Final Four and first since 1964…which is just one year more recent than Loyola’s lone trip to the national semifinals and championship.
In the West Region in Los Angeles, Michigan is now the grand standard-bearer, the mighty 3 seed that is far and away the highest remaining on the left side of the bracket. The Wolverines pulverized No. 7 Texas A&M 99-72, jumping all over their opponent in the first half with 10 three-pointers and dominating throughout.
If it wasn’t obvious before the game, it became so very soon after the start that, for all of its power inside, the Aggies were not a good matchup for Michigan’s four- and five-out offense. The Wolverines hit 14 of 24 from three-point range and shot 61.9% for the game, as if to prove that their very fortunate one-point escape against Houston in the second round shouldn’t be held against them as they proceed through this tourney.
Michigan now will face Florida State in the regional final, the Seminoles still another 9 seed still plying their trade after a 75-60 win over No. 4 Gonzaga. FSU knocked out the defending national runners-up, who seemed out of it from the start after learning second-leading scorer Killian Tillie would not play due to the flare up of a back injury.
Take a look at the season statistics and one will ask themselves just how Florida State ever lost 11 games this year, including to the likes of Wake Forest. The Seminoles have a rangy defense, and indeed their key to winning this one was holding the Zags to just 33.9% shooting. Gonzaga seemingly never could get comfortable inside as Florida State finished with nine blocked shots. But FSU also hit 46.6% of its shots and had six players with at least seven points, balance being a hallmark of a team that regularly goes 11 deep. And suddenly, the Seminoles are just a win away from just their second Final Four trip ever, and first since 1972.
Side Dishes:
- The CBI final is set after San Francisco outlasted Campbell 65-62 to move to the best-of-three championship series. The Dons will face North Texas, and as we mentioned yesterday, have the opportunity to become the second NCAA Division I school to win three different D-I national postseason tournament championships.
- One game was played in the CIT, where Sam Houston State went on the road and rallied past Texas-San Antonio 76-69. John Dewey III scored 18 for the Bearkats, who hit 27 of 34 from the foul line and outrebounded the Roadrunners 41-32.
- Evansville announced on Thursday that it has come to terms with Walter McCarty. An Evansville, Ind., native, McCarty is best known by college hoops fans as a valuable member of Kentucky’s 1996 national championship team, and most recently he has been an assistant for the Boston Celtics with Brad Stevens.
- While one Missouri Valley Conference school hired a coach, another has an opening again after Niko Medved left Drake after one year to go to Colorado State, where he was formerly an assistant for six years before taking his first head coaching job at Furman. Acknowledging that coaches working paying jobs have the right to do what is best for their families and that head coaches jumping to better jobs doesn’t happen nearly as much as many think, we’re seeing a few more instances of coaches going one-and-done at schools the last couple years, and it’s not a good trend.
- Longwood formally announced yesterday that it has hired Griff Aldrich as its new coach. Aldrich was an assistant with UMBC the past two years with the title of director of recruiting/program development. Aldrich played for and later coached under current William & Mary coach Tony Shaver at NCAA Division III Hampden-Sydney (Va.), and also spent time in the business world before returning to coaching full-time two years ago. It’s an interesting, somewhat “out-of-the-box” hire, but that’s not a bad thing at a school that has long struggled since moving to the Division I level.
- Incarnate Word has hired Dr. Carson Cunningham as its new coach. Cunningham comes from Carroll (Mont.), where he posted a 107-52 record in five years and three trips to the NAIA Division I Tournament. Cunningham played collegiately at Oregon State and Purdue, finishing up with the Boilermakers in 2001 and scoring 1,289 points in his college career. He also is an author who has written several books (a fun one we’ve read is Underbelly Hoops, about his time in the old CBA).
- Miami (Fla.) sophomore Bruce Brown is planning to test the NBA Draft waters, though he will not hire an agent. The 6-foot-5 Brown averaged 11.4 points, 7.1 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game this season in a season that was cut short due to a foot injury.
- The Ohio Valley Conference announced that it will keep its postseason tournament at the Ford Center in Evansville for the next two years, through 2020. Formerly well-entrenched in Nashville, the tourney was moved to Evansville this year and drew generally excellent reviews, with better crowds and excellent hospitality.
Tonight’s Menu:
- The second night of NCAA Tournament regional semifinals has action in the East and Midwest. The night starts with No. 5 Clemson facing top seed Kansas in Omaha, Neb., in the Midwest Region (7:07 p.m. Eastern, CBS). The Jayhawks will be heavy favorites, but the Tigers were red-hot the first two rounds and could certainly pull this off if they continue their play. That game will be followed by No. 11 Syracuse against 2 seed Duke (9:37 p.m., CBS). The Orange will deploy the zone to cause as much trouble as they can, but the fact is 1) the Cuse will almost certainly need more offense than it generated its first two rounds and 2) the Blue Devils have probably the most talented starting five in the tourney. Duke also is practicing against zones every day now with how frequently it plays zone itself (and also faced it in ACC play), so there’s no reason it should be thrown off by it the way Michigan State so badly was.
- The East Region in Boston is led off by 5 seed West Virginia vs. No. 1 Villanova (7:27 p.m., TBS). It will be interesting to see if the Wildcats can get WVU to back off its press if the Nova beats it early and often, but also whether the Mountaineers have enough halfcourt offense to win even if they are successful in harassing the Wildcats. The second game has Texas Tech against Purdue in a 2-vs.-3 matchup that for us is one of the most attractive games of the regionals (9:57 p.m., TBS). Dakota Matthias will presumably chase Keenan Evans around the court, and we’ll see if Matt Haarms can fill in ably for Isaac Haas again.
Have a fantastic Friday.
