Best and worst of the NCAA tournament: Day 3
STARTING FIVE
1. The ACC wasn’t the nation’s deepest conference this season, but it’s making a case that it’s the strongest at the top. Four ACC teams advanced to the Sweet 16 on Saturday and Notre Dame and Syracuse have a chance to join the party if they can dispatch of 14th-seeded Stephen F. Austin and 15th-seeded Middle Tennessee on Sunday. Granted the NCAA tournament’s small sample size isn’t a good barometer of league strength and that Duke, Miami, North Carolina and Virginia all advanced without facing better than a No. 9 seed, but that’s still impressive. Of the ACC’s seven NCAA tournament entrants, only Pittsburgh has been eliminated thus far.
2. The ACC team that had to work the hardest to advance was Virginia, which thwarted Butler’s upset bid with a 77-69 victory fueled by an incredible display of offensive efficiency. The slow-paced Cavaliers scored 54 second-half points and shot 19 of 26 from the field after halftime. At one point late in the second half, Virginia had missed only five shots and had scored via offensive rebounds on three of them. The Cavaliers needed every one of those baskets because Butler enjoyed enough success of its own to stay close the entire second half. Only a blown call on a Roosevelt Jones block in the final minute kept the Bulldogs from having a chance to tie down three.
3. Kentucky’s second-round loss to Indiana looked a lot like many of the Wildcats’ worst performances this season. An erratic frontcourt didn’t perform up to expectations, Jamal Murray needed 18 shots to score 16 points and brilliant as Tyler Ulis was, he could not carry the team to victory by himself. It seemed Kentucky was turning the corner late in the season when Derek Willis entered the starting lineup and Skal Labissiere’s flashes of potential became more frequent, but this was a harsh reminder that the Wildcats never achieved consistency. That the reminder came at the hands of the rival Hoosiers only made it sting more.
4. Only two weeks ago, Gonzaga needed to win the WCC tournament to avoid the NIT. Now the Zags are a win over either Syracuse or Middle Tennessee away from the program’s second straight Elite Eight. Gonzaga earned Mark Few’s sixth Sweet 16 appearance with a 82-59 throttling of Utah on Saturday. Domantas Sabonis thoroughly outplayed fellow elite big man Jakob Poeltl and Kyle Wiltjer scored an efficient 17 points, but the key to Gonzaga’s victory was the continued improvement of its guards. Eric McClellan scored 22 points and the rest of his teammates sank open threes and made good decisions with the ball.
5. Utah’s meltdown against Gonzaga has the Pac-12’s NCAA tournament teetering between disappointment and disaster. Of the league’s seven teams that earned a bid, only top-seeded Oregon still has a chance to advance to the Sweet 16. You can make excuses for Cal (injuries) or Arizona (nightmare draw), but there’s no reason the Utes shouldn’t have been competitive against Gonzaga. Something Larry Krystkowiak will have to analyze during the offseason is why his team this season tended to fold against good teams anytime adversity struck. The Utes lost by 24 to Miami, by 17 to Wichita State, by 18 and 31 to Oregon and now by 23 to the Zags.
BEST PASS
With Miami’s 21-point lead gone and momentum squarely on Wichita State’s side, Angel Rodriguez made the sort of high-risk, high-reward decision that has been the point guard’s trademark at Miami. Rodriguez lofted an alley-oop pass over three Wichita State defenders and Sheldon McClellan caught it and threw down a momentum-changing dunk. The alley-oop was just one of Rodriguez’s many big plays in Miami’s victory. He scored 28 points including 10 in the final 2:07 of the second half.
BEST DUNK
The exclamation point on Kansas’ one-sided 73-61 victory over UConn was this high-flying Wayne Selden alley-oop jam. Selden delivered maybe the best NCAA tournament performance of his career, scoring 22 points, grabbing seven rebounds and dishing out three assists. It was a welcome sight for a Kansas team that has seen Selden disappear this time of year earlier in his career.
BEST CELEBRATION
Spirits were high in the Iowa State locker room after the Cyclones’ 78-61 rout of 12th-seeded Arkansas-Little Rock. So high, in fact, that Steve Prohm busted out some dance moves and injured guard Naz Long caught it all on his cell phone camera. To be fair to Prohm, there was plenty for him to celebrate. Forward Georges Niang erupted for 28 points and Iowa State held Little Rock to 37 percent shooting.
HEARTFELT QUOTE
“A couple years ago, I told Fred that we would be back in the Final Four after we lost to Louisville walking down the tunnel, and I wasn’t able to keep that promise to him. We weren’t able to get back, and that goes to show how hard this tournament really is.” — Wichita State guard Ron Baker after he and Fred VanVleet played their final college game. The pillars of the Shockers’ program both shot 4-for-12 from the field in their loss to Miami.
BEST TWEET
CREEPIEST MASCOT
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
