Here they are on the front porch of the Final Four, four regional finals of varied flavors and considerable intrigue.
The Sweet 16 certainly did its job of setting up the weekend.
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Duke vs. Connecticut, two programs that are responsible for 11 of the past 34 national championships.
Illinois vs. Iowa, the first all-Big Ten regional final in 26 years. The Elite Eight game nobody saw coming.
Michigan vs. Tennessee. One program that has played in seven national championship games, and another that has never made it to the Final Four. The only one of the eight teams still standing without a single past appearance, led by a 71-year-old coach who once made it with another school but desperately wants to get back before time runs out.
Purdue vs. Arizona. The Boilermakers began the season as No. 1; the Wildcats have probably become the most popular choice to end it that way. Purdue is back in the Elite Eight, led by three veteran seniors who have been in West Lafayette forever; Saturday night will be the 445th combined game for Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn. Arizona is yet to trail one second in this NCAA tournament with three freshman starters.
It took a lively past two nights to get to those matchups. One loud message from the Sweet 16 was that the Big Ten tsunami rolls on. Michigan, Purdue, Illinois and Iowa advanced, meaning the Elite Eight is 50 percent Big Ten. Just like it was 50 percent SEC last spring.
But that was hardly the only extraordinary development. Duke had to turn to a guy barely three weeks removed from surgery on a broken foot.
Connecticut went up 25-6 on Michigan State but needed to make all six free throws in the last 44 seconds to hang on, after going 4-for-10 from the line in the first 39:16.
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Sixth-seeded Tennessee, loser of four of six coming into the NCAA tournament, had to save the SEC from extinction.
The Arizona offense included 14 points from six Wildcats, and Nebraska tried to play defense against Iowa with only four Cornhuskers. The NCAA tournament had never seen the first in its history, and nobody can remember the last time it saw the second. Nebraska, because of a communications snafu, was like a hockey team trying to kill a penalty power play.
So how many unusual numbers and feats could be squeezed into eight games? Turns out, quite a few. The Big Ten would already be guaranteed one team in the Final Four and could have three. “College basketball has been cyclical forever,” Michigan coach Dusty May said Friday night after the Wolverines moved past Alabama. “ Hopefully, this is a long cycle for us in the conference.”
Strange forces seem at work here. Houston’s considerable regional home court advantage had been nationally discussed for a week as a locked-and-loaded weapon. Never mind. Playing two miles from campus, the Cougars led Illinois for only 89 seconds. Loyer hit four 3-pointers for Purdue against Texas. The rest of the team was 0-for-12. Michigan outscored Alabama in bench points 33-6. Iowa’s run is led by a coach and a guard – Ben McCollum and Bennett Stirtz — who two years ago were together at Northwest Missouri State, getting knocked out of the Division II tournament 43-42 by Minnesota State.
“In 20 years, it will be an insane story,” McCollum said. “A guy that goes from D-II with his coach and then goes to Drake and then goes to University of Iowa and actually makes it further in the tournament in Division-I than he did in Division-II.”
Duke would rally from 10 points down to escape St. John’s.
That was Caleb Foster, three weeks off a foot fracture, scoring all his 11 points in the second half. “Ninety-nine percent of guys do not come back to play under the circumstances of what’s happened to him,” coach Jon Scheyer said afterward. “It was incredible the way he willed us. There’s no analytics. There’s no stats that can measure how big this dude’s heart is for what he did.”
⏮️ MISSED IT? Watch the heated ending in Duke vs. St. John’s Sweet 16 battle
Tennessee would be the SEC’s last chance.
The Volunteers used 51 percent shooting and a 43-22 rebounding blowout to knock off Iowa State 76-62. Or else no SEC after Friday. That puts Tennessee in its third consecutive Elite Eight, knocking again at a door that has never opened. The Sweet 16 would be no country for old men, most of them anyway. The 70-something coaches fell away: Kelvin Sampson, Tom Izzo, Rick Pitino. But Rick Barnes plays on, trying to do for Tennessee what he did for Texas 23 years ago. “We do have a standard on a lot of things,” he said Friday night. “We’re pretty much a no-nonsense program. We talk about that through the recruiting process. We tell everyone it’s going to be tough. We want them to come and want to help them live their dreams, and along the way, we would love to have a chance to play for a national championship.”
Connecticut would need the poise and presence the years have given Alex Karaban.
That was his 16th NCAA tournament win, and only Duke’s Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley have more. ”He’s established himself as the biggest winner and the most decorated player in UConn history,” coach Dan Hurley said. “That’s hard to do at a place like ours.”
And yet, at one point Friday night, Hurley had to ask for more from Karaban when he had taken only three shots by halftime. He would need to blunt the Michigan State charge that Hurley was sure was coming. “My message to him is, if you’re going to go out in this tournament, you’ve got to go out on your shield. You’ve got to go out firing, or you’re going to have a lot of regrets. You can only do it with older players at this stage of the tournament.”
Lute Olson’s name would pop up. Arizona is trying to close on its first Final Four since 2001, Iowa its first since 1980. Olson was the coach for both those Final Four teams.
The three scorers in the Sweet 16 were Alabama’s Labaron Philon Jr. with 35 points, Texas’ Tramon Mark with 29 and Arkansas’ Darius Acuff Jr. with 28. All three lost.
Duke is 35-2 but keeps dodging pianos falling on its head. Four of the Blue Devils’ past six wins were by six or fewer points.
Arizona is the No. 1 seed in the West. Purdue is 0-9 all-time against No. 1 seeds.
Iowa won its third NCAA tournament game in seven days. The Hawkeyes had won four in the previous 24 years. As a No. 9, they are the lowest-seeded Big Ten team to ever get this far.
“Maybe they should have seeded us better. No, I’m just kidding. They seeded us right where we should be,” McCollum said. “Cinderella, whatever they want to call us, just we’re in the Elite Eight. That’s what they need to call us.”
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Alabama, the nation’s top scoring team, put up 49 points against Michigan in the first half – and 28 in the second.
The leading rebounder in an Illinois-Houston game of trees was a guard. Keaton Wagler had 12 for the Illini.
The other 15 teams that played the past two nights averaged 26 shots from the 3-point line. Arizona put up only eight and scored 109 points.
Tennessee has 87 field goals in the NCAA tournament, and 61 of them have come with an assist.
Illinois is 361st and last in the nation in forcing turnovers. Dead last. But who needs turnovers when your offense is so powerful it can scamper off on a 17-0 run against Houston. Houston.
Until this year, Iowa had not defeated a power conference opponent in the NCAA tournament in this century.
Arizona’s 63.6 percent shooting was the best in the Sweet 16 in 21 years.
The week’s narrative has not been about just the survivors and advancers, but those left behind. All those legendary names. “I’ve never not been just in complete awe of the finality of a season,” Sampson said after the Cougars’ exit.
When a coach is 71, every loss in March brings questions about his future plans. Izzo, for example.
“We all talk about retirement. Why?” he said Friday night. “What the hell am I going to do? The minute I don’t feel good, the minute I don’t feel like I’m giving my AD or president or school every ounce of energy I have every day, or that energy drops, you don’t have to worry about it. I don’t steal money. I won’t steal anybody’s time. But it’s sure as hell not going to be now. I’ve got some things to accomplish.”
Just not this weekend.
