ncaatournament Page 14 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Glance That Put Michigan State In The Final Four
It is one of those historical ironies of the sport that Duke is heading home because the refs didn’t call many fouls on them. Usually, the free-throw disparity—the Blue Devils took 13 to Michigan State’s six—and perceived favoritism works in Duke’s favor. But not on Sunday, not in the closing second...
Coach K's Trust In R.J. Barrett Ruins Duke's Final Four Dreams
With two-and-a-half minutes remaining in regulation, Zion Williamson attracted a double-team in the post and found an open RJ Barrett at the top of the three-point arc so that his Canadian teammate could give Duke a 64-63 lead. No one knew it at the time, but that shot would wind up being the last p...
Auburn Defied The Odds And Sent Kentucky To Their Graves
It couldn’t have been easy for Auburn to believe that they could win against Kentucky today. Chuma Okeke, the hero of their Sweet 16 win over North Carolina, tore his ACL in that victory, and even with their sophomore center, the Tigers wouldn’t have been favored against a Wildcat team that had beat...
Sabrina Ionescu Dismembered Mississippi State To Get Oregon To Its First-Ever Final Four
After two straight years of coming up short in the Elite Eight, triple-double queen Sabrina Ionescu and her Oregon Ducks finally beat a one seed in the NCAA Tournament, and with their 88-84 win over Mississippi State, they book a trip to the first Final Four in program history....
UConn Is Still UConn, Which Means They're Back In The Final Four
For the first time since before their historic streak of Final Four appearances began, the Connecticut Huskies weren’t favored by the NCAA Selection Committee to win their region and advance. UConn was a surprising two seed, not a one this year, but in their Elite Eight battle today against top-seed...
An Injury Scare Jumpstarted Kyle Guy And Virginia
A rocky first half for Virginia in their 80-75 OT win over Purdue appeared to get even worse with a couple minutes to go and the team down by four. On a Boilermaker possession, a defending Kyle Guy got tangled up with Purdue’s Eric Hunter. The UVA junior guard went down with what looked like a painf...
Carsen Edwards Went Full Supernova For Purdue And Somehow It Wasn't Enough
An ecstatic Elite Eight duel between Virginia and Purdue on Saturday night ended in Boilermaker heartbreak. Despite the superhuman efforts of junior guard Carsen Edwards, who tried with all his might to drag Purdue to the Final Four, the Cavaliers came out with an improbable 80-75 victory....
Tariq Owens Made A Mind-Blowing Play That Shouldn't Have Counted
Texas Tech locked down Gonzaga in the second half and beat the Bulldogs 75-69 to earn a trip to the Final Four on Saturday, and one of the biggest plays of the game was a block from Red Raiders big man Tariq Owens on Gonzaga standout Rui Hachimura. Down by six with a minute to play, Hachimura got th...
Tre Jones Spat In The Face Of His Doubters
The way to beat Duke is to make Tre Jones take threes, or so the thinking went until the Blue Devils’ 75-73 win over Virginia Tech on Friday night. The freshman point guard, who is now shooting 26.5 percent from long range after last night, was left to do whatever he wanted at the arc when UCF almos...
Kentucky Got A Hobbled PJ Washington Back On The Floor, And That Was Enough
Kentucky was only supposed to get 15 minutes from PJ Washington on Friday. The Wildcats’ star player had been out since spraining his left foot back on March 16, in the semifinals of the SEC Tournament against Tennessee. He had missed both of Kentucky’s first two NCAA Tournament games, a stomping of...
Zion Williamson Puts On Another Show And Duke Wins Thanks To Another Blown Buzzer-Beater
With Cam Reddish out nursing an injury, Duke needed Zion Williamson to do it all tonight against Virginia Tech, and boy did he deliver. The Blue Devils skated past the Hokies, 75-73, and Williamson led all scorers with 23 points. That was somehow his most meager scoring output of his NCAA Tournament...
Auburn Flushed North Carolina Down The Toilet With Frightening Ease
There was only one word that came to mind while watching Auburn destroy and befuddle North Carolina in the Sweet Sixteen tonight: aggression. Everything Bruce Pearl’s Tigers did was proactive, all their drives were more decisive, and any hesitancy from the Tar Heels was gleefully pounced upon. They ...
Colgate Rented Ohio State's Pep Band For Its NCAA Tournament Game, Pissed Off Its Own Pep Band
The Colgate Raiders men’s basketball team made its third-ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament after winning the Patriot League’s automatic bid by winning the conference tournament over Bucknell. The Raiders were given the 15-seed in the NCAA’s South Region, where they fought gamely but ultimately ...
Virginia's Suffocating Defense Finally Joined The Party
What can you do in five minutes and 43 seconds? Plenty of things, from clipping your nails to heating and eating a Hot Pocket, but if you were Oregon’s men’s basketball team on Thursday, the one you could not do was score a field goal. That’s because the vaunted Virginia defense finally demonstrate...
Texas Tech Drained Michigan Of Its Will To Live
Texas Tech sucked the life out of Michigan in the most brutal of ways on Thursday night, riding adequate offense and criminally exasperating defense to a 63-44 win and a trip to the Elite Eight. For all 40 minutes, the two-seeded Wolverines didn’t look like they even belonged on the same court as th...
Purdue Sneaks Past Tennessee In Overtime After Ryan Cline Goes Supernova<em></em>
After three straight years of getting dumped out of the NCAA Tournament in the Sweet Sixteen, Purdue is finally going to the Elite Eight. They seemed headed for a breezy win over Tennessee for the bulk of their game tonight, but a wild Tennessee comeback probably should have been enough to steal the...
Rick Barnes, What
Purdue and Tennessee are playing overtime in a genuinely fantastic, insane college basketball game. Lots of threes, lots of clutch plays, lots—lots—of missed free throws. Purdue’s Carsen Edwards knocked down a pair of late freebies to tie it up for Purdue, which left Tennessee to inbound the ball u...
How To Beat Duke
Duke is technically 31-5 so far on the year. But everyone knows that 60 percent of those losses don’t count. The top-seeded Blue Devils are a completely different and much worse team without Zion Williamson, and when he’s in the lineup, they’re 28-2, with zero losses since Jan. 14. That’s a really ...
Brandon Clarke's Numbers Shouldn't Be Possible
It’s something like an understatement to say that junior big man Brandon Clarke went off against Baylor during Gonzaga’s second-round 83-71 win on Saturday. He did go off, though, and was the single biggest reason the Zags cruised into the Sweet 16. Clarke blew away all other scorers with 36 points ...
UC Irvine Coach Says He Called Oregon's Louis King "Queen" To Rattle Him But Also Because Of Chess?
UC Irvine head coach Russell Turner gave a peek behind his coaching strategy after the Anteaters’ 73-54 loss to Oregon in Sunday’s second-round game, and he inadvertently revealed that he’s as creative as a Facebook denizen who loves sports meme pages and calls the Dallas Cowboys the “Cowgirls.”...