SEC sits in the driver’s seat with men’s Sweet 16 field set

The last four, where only seeds no. 1 must be used?

No one stayed until April a crazy day, but teams SEC?

Elite eight with five legal age coaches to retire?

Houston faces what is equal to the road game?

John Calipari. . . Cinderella?

In the end, a more dramatic ending, now that Maryland and Colorado State reminded everyone that this month lives for?

All stories for Sweet 16. Otherwise known as SEC and nine other teams.

The best dogs marched for the next week.

Florida was assigned a difficult task to get rid of double defending champions. Connecticut was not easy, but Gators did big games at the end to escape 77-75. Florida, 18 years removed from the national championships in the back, has not participated in the second week since 2017. “We took another step by the time it was for us,” said coach Todd Golden. “Florida basketball is back where they belong.”

Duke scored 93 and 89 points in his first two rounds and watched for all 101 seconds, the largest deficit of two points. Blue Devils had 39 assists and eight turnover in two games. Cooper Flagg had 32 points, 16 rebounds and 11 assists in 51 Yeah his ankle is fine registration. It makes 13 victories in a row and 29 in their last 30 games. Baylor committed only five turnover Sunday and had a gap of 18-3 in offensive recesses. The bears still lost 23. “For us, to win this span, I think they talk about the level of the instinct of the killer, which our boys, competitiveness and connectivity have,” said coach Jon Scheyer. Another for Duke is Arizona, who got around Oregon with 29 points from Caleb Love. This name could ring the bell for Blue Devils. Love scored 28 against them in 2022 Final Four as Tar Heel in North Carolina.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnbu0wvd6ng

Auburn knocked Creighton with a lot of defense, apparently won his second wind after he lost three of the last four in the regular season and the SEC tournament. “We played as a team 1 in the country, we behaved like a team 1 in the country, we prepared as a team 1 in the country,” said coach Bruce Pearl.

Houston lasted the strong challenge of the Gonzaga team desperately and tried to keep his strip alive nine consecutive sweet 16 trips. Too much LJ Cryer (30 points) to make it happen. “I mean, who is doing it? Please do not take them for granted,” said Houston coach Kelvin Sampson in honor of Zags. “This is for us No. 6 (in a row) and I hope people do not take it for granted.”

Playback: Full final 2:33 from thriller Houston-Gonzaga in the second round of the NCAA tournament

He does not need much imagination to imagine the final four with all the seeds No. 1. This happened only once before, in 2008, but then it seems to be a year, with a chalk tournament with short dramatic turns. Until Maryland and Colorado State failed on Sunday evening. 15 lead changes, two in the last six seconds and Derik Queen’s last second shot saves Terrapins 72-71, just in time for the audience. Until then, in the last 48 games of the tournament in the last five minutes in the last five minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhzslfmpod

As it is, only 10 out of 52 games earned five or fewer points, but 29 double digits and 12 of the 16 best seeds in the regions are still around. The shocking upset and exciting finishes were so sparse that the question is to wonder if the portal world of the Nile/Transfer has space for March fraudsters. Is the madness itself in danger?

It seems that little favorite, even statistics have not yet received. In the half -time in Cleveland, Alabama did not have eight turnover and Saint Mary. Alabama led the 13th. Michigan state Jase Richardson, her best perimer shooter this season, began 0-for-9 and missed all five of his three-point attempts. The Spartans postponed the new Mexico anyway, which made him a difficult weekend for Pitinos. Rick came out on Saturday and Richard Sunday with his father.

On paper, the remaining biggest story of the losers was Calipari and the 10-SEMEN Arkansas.

The SEC team, who trained more than a human person with six final four, Cinderella’s story? Welcome to 2025. John’s within 48 hours and never ending by more than four points. They were particularly hard for the oppression of all Americans. Kansas Hunter Dickinson scored only 11 points, none in the second half. St. John’s RJ Luis Jr. shot 3: 17.

March Madness: 14 facts about the greatest disturbance of the tournament

There are other interesting sweet 16 stories in the work.

Sec

The league started with 14 teams and seven left the way. It sounds like a lot, but that means there are seven teams left, or 43.75% of the remaining consoles. No conference has ever had so much. Ole Miss wrapped the weekend with a big bow and ran over 3-SEMEN Iowa State by 13 points to advance to the first Sweet 16 in 24 years and the second evening. Insurgents think big dreams like any of their sectins. “Ole Miss wins the tournament, probably? No. Is it possible? Absolutely,” said coach Chris Beard. “It’s not arrogance, it’s absolute faith. If I didn’t believe this team was able to continue winning this tournament in this tournament, I shouldn’t be a coach in Ole Miss.”

Could the Final Four really be one conference? Once unimaginable. No, no, impossible.

Long gray line on the bench

Michigan State’s Tom Izzo and Tennessee’s Rick Barnes are 70. Houston Kelvin Sampson is 69. John Calipari is 66. But not this month.

The throne of university basketball is now open. . .

Contoncut three Breat Batid ended, although Huskies were hard. “If it ended for us, I wouldn’t want it to be in the game where we lost with a lower seed,” said Uconn’s Dan Hurley. “I think there is some honor, as it went down.”

Of the 16 teams still standing, eight never won the championship and three of them were never on Final Four.

Purdue’s happiness

Boilermakers play on Friday Houston in Lucas Oil Stadium at the Indianapolis center. If you want to get geographical deposits, Purdue’s Campus is 66 miles northwest of Lucas Oil, the hometown of Matta Painter is 64 miles to the northeast and the Secondary School Braden Smith is 25 miles north. In other words, it will be a crowd boilermaker. It is not every day when seed no. 4 in the region gets what is equal to the home game against seed no. 1.

Purdue won his first two tournament games with almost the same score, 75-63 and 76-62. This was overtaken by his opponent 86-48 and presented them from a free throw of 33-12. But none of this was against Houston. Cougars are 32-4 and won 28 of their last 29. They lost only once from November. The loss was only one point of overtime to Texas Tech. Houston is 10-0 in real road games. Boilermakers will need more than a place.

Dual personality Texas tech

So which Red Raiders will see Arkansas on Thursday in San Francisco, those who fired 46 times from behind the three-point line against UNC Wilmington in the first round or those who went in to do dirty work and defeat the drakes by set off in color 50-20 bulldogs? Whatever Texas Tech was selected this season to end the seventh in Big 12, and Arkansas started 0-5 in SEC. Now one of them will be the game from Final Four.

Veterans Day in Newark

Two of the guardians of the Byu are married. One, leading shooter Richie Saunders, is 23 years old, speaks four languages ​​and is vice president of the charity foundation. The second, third leading shooter Trevin Knell, is the oldest player in the 26th tournament. He has been between Redshirts, Pandemic and Time Away for Mormon Mission. Look at this way: When Knell played his first university game for Byu in 2019, Cooper Flagg was a 12 -year -old high school. Since 2011 they have led to the first Sweet 16 and now have been facing another team for years. Alabama starts four grad students, and these veterinarians have only held under 80 points since mid -November.

Michigan’s rise from the ashes

Last season, 8-24. This season Sweet 16. Wolverines in March almost quietly became a yearly force. This is their eighth progress for the second week in the last 12 tournaments and are 12-0 in the last six first and second rounds. “When you get here,” said the new coach Dusty May, “That’s what you do.”

Michigan does it by a committee plus a few seven feet with 70 points from the bench in the first two rounds. He can assemble a quite surprising package in Florida Atlantic. Here’s another chance. Wolverines play Auburn on Friday in Atlanta. This means that the top team throughout the tournament is just 95 minutes from its campus.

Tennessee’s search and see who is next to try to stop it

Vols are still waiting for the last four. Kentucky was 17 of them. Of their 241 meetings of series were never at the NCAA tournament, but 242. It will be Friday in Indianapolis. Since 2007, Tennessee has lost in Sweet 16 or Elite eight times and four were either one or two points or for overtime. Transfer Khaz Lanier switched from the uncertainties from northern Florida to scoring 29 and 20 in his first NCAA tournament games. Maybe it’s my turn.

As for Kentucky, it’s good to be back, hey? Wildcats, who did not return a point from last season, won more games over one weekend with all new faces than in the last four NCAA tournaments together. “We got a lot of underdogs in this team,” Lamont Butler said. “People who have been doubted all their lives. They grew up in basketball, many of us have not been very accepted and nothing like that. For us to be at this stage, we wanted to take the opportunity.”

By the way, Tennessee has only seven defeats this season. Two of them were from Kentucky.

Maryland’s dramatic queen

If the three Jalen Lake for Colorado State with six seconds remaining on Sunday ended from Terrapins, it would cause Maryland for Heartbreak Hall of Fame. Terps has lost four games since mid -January, they come to shots with 17 seconds remaining, 7.8 seconds, half on the buzzer and 0.4 seconds in the Big Ten tournament. But the queen grabbed this game back with her Fadeaway banker. He was not acting especially as a newcomer, more or less demanded the ball within the time limit before the last game, as in the fact that I want a beeping ball. “As soon as he said it, it was quite a simple decision,” said coach Kevin Willrd later. “I was a little nervous,” Queen said, “but I knew we had one.”

Does Karma Maryland convert? It must be, Florida is another.

Tom Izza’s journey

He was in eight finals. Can it do nine at the age of 70? If the Spartans can get around Ole Miss Friday, they will be exactly where Izzo is the most dangerous. It is 8-2 in elite eight. They had to gather from 10 down to defeat on Sunday in New Mexico in the grinder. “I had three different players who asked them to come out of the game because they were tired,” Izzo said. “That was the biggest thing for me that happened, because it means they’ll spill it, and I asked them to do it, spilled it.”

So things are rising. Maybe the next weekend is really going crazy as soon as the teams SEC will have to start playing each other.