0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/26/2016
The Sweet 16 on Friday cleared the very low bar set by Thursday’s regional semifinals. Two thrillers accompanied two decisive wins, as the Elite Eight acquired its final, full shape. Four No. 1 seeds are in the Elite Eight for the first time since 2009. Four ACC teams are in the Elite Eight, two of […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/25/2016
On a night devoid of Sweet 16 drama, four teams cruised into the Elite Eight. None of them had to face excruciating endgame pressure. None of them had to contemplate their NCAA tournament mortality in the final few minutes of regulation. The fact that four teams stand on relatively equal footing in terms of the […]
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Thursday’s Sweet 16 games did not produce memorable moments or dramatic stories, so a notebook approach is the best way to sum up the night. The winners will get their evaluations, but first, we turn to the losing teams, as the NCAA tournament field shrank from 16 to 12. MARYLAND Of the four losing schools […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/24/2016
The arrival of the 2016 Sweet 16 means that it’s the silver anniversary of the 1991 Sweet 16, with the anniversary of the 1991 Final Four not that far off. It’s an anniversary which contains a mixture of sweetness and sadness… and also some disgust at what America has become. First, the basketball, which is […]
University of North Carolinas coach Dean Smith, right, reacts to the closing moments of their loss to the University of Arkansas in the NCAA Final Four game, Saturday, April 1, 1995, Seattle, Wash. Arkansas won 75-68 to advance to Mondays championship game. (AP Photo/Eric Draper)
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North Carolina and Virginia certainly aren’t boasting about this reality, but it’s there: The Tar Heels and Cavaliers face more pressure than any other Sweet 16 programs. Yes, that includes Oklahoma. Yes, that even includes Kansas. One could conduct a genuine debate about Virginia versus Kansas — that’s a close call — but ultimately, the […]
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The cover photo above shows Hugh Durham and Adolph Rupp. On the surface, it’s a younger coach talking to one of the greatest coaches in college basketball history. The context surrounding that photo contains a much more fascinating story, one which serves as a portal to Hugh Durham’s taste of basketball immortality. The news broke […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/23/2016
Duke-Oregon — the last of four Sweet 16 games on Thursday night — is not the best game in the upcoming regional semifinal round. That’s Indiana-North Carolina. However, the duel between the Blue Devils and the Ducks does happen to be the best coaching collision you’ll see on either Thursday or Friday. Sorry, Tom Crean and […]
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The Texas A&M Aggies and the Miami Hurricanes occupy the same basic positions entering the Sweet 16 of the 2016 NCAA tournament. The routes taken by these two teams to get to this point — over the past week, yes, but also the season — could not have been more different. A&M and Miami will […]
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This Friday, Indiana will return to Philadelphia for an NCAA tournament game against North Carolina. Some of the Hoosiers’ greatest moments as a program — plural — have come in the City of Brotherly Love, a subject we wrote about here. It raises the larger point: Some schools and coaches simply love particular cities and […]
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In the latter half of the 1970s and the early 1980s, few cities crackled with more basketball-based electricity than Philadelphia. The 76ers made four NBA Finals from 1977 through 1983, powered by Dr. J — Julius Erving — after the death of the ABA and the exodus of the league’s high-end talent to the NBA. […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/22/2016
Before Billy Tubbs took Oklahoma to the Final Four, he took the Lamar Cardinals to the Sweet 16 (above) back in 1980. Lamar is a member of the Southland Conference. Stephen F. Austin very nearly carried the Southland into the Sweet 16 this past weekend, but a last-second putback enabled Notre Dame to nudge the […]
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The Sweet 16 starts Thursday, initiating the second of three NCAA tournament weekends. Last week, we dug into the history of NCAA tournament bids and wins — that’s the concern of the first weekend. This second weekend reveals the programs that might not stand on the mountaintop, but have certainly been able to climb a […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/21/2016
Mark Few has always been a good coach at Gonzaga, but at a program which clearly spent a lot to build itself into a national, name-brand operation, good isn’t necessarily good enough. It’s a statement which not only sounds harsh; it is harsh. The key question: Is such a statement out of touch with expectations […]
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Tom Crean has been a complicated coach to measure in moments of defeat and humiliation. This week, he’s a complicated coach to measure in a moment of shining triumph. Crean’s Indiana Hoosiers knocked out John Calipari’s Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday in the NCAA tournament. Crean didn’t merely avenge a loss to Calipari in the 2012 […]
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So much more will be said about the 2016 NCAA Tournament today and in the coming days before the Sweet 16, but as we empty out the notebook after the first of three weekends, let’s start with a word about Syracuse. The 2016 Orange are to this tournament what UCLA was to the 2015 edition […]
