Sweet 16 Recap:
And Then There Were 8
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The Elite 8 is set, and we're seeing some new faces on the leaderboard! Here's how things stand going into today's games:
So congrats to SoaringOverWDW, sitting atop the leaderboard this morning -- a familiar name who has been lingering near the top all tournament long! Similar congrats to MKaras314, who I feel like has been in the top 10 in most, if not all, of these recaps.
Between Florida getting bounced and some other games, we saw quite a bit of movement from some of y'all. Grandma Bubba jumped 113 places, and we now know what BIG thing it was that Working on Something BIG was working on. And Lulu's 83 point Round 3 effort has moved them from #69 to #6. Nice work!
It's not all good news, however. Some of you have likely been GOING THROUGH IT as you've watched your brackets tumble down the leaderboard. Running Down a Dream definitely nailed the "down" part of its moniker, rocketing the wrong way in the standings 113 places from 31 to 144. Big Yikes. Here's a recap of the strongest performers, using that term in the loosest possible sense, in a race to the bottom.
Speaking of ironically named brackets...
"Out by the 2nd round" (#7, 331 pts): Deep into the Sweet 16 and somehow still not out. The bracket that predicted its own early demise is now the 7th-best bracket in the pool. Irony is too weak a word.
"A Loser @ The Top Of My Game" (#10, 329 pts): Sitting comfortably in the top 10. The self-deprecating approach is working out beautifully.
"Fast Breaking Bad: My bracket is Walter White levels of cooked" (#46, 298 pts): Objectively not cooked — not yet. 298 points and still in the hunt. The meth lab is operational.
"Florida Man Arrested for Driving Cat Into Ocean" (#124, 277 pts): Down 85 spots after a rough Sweet 16.
"Gators provide economic benefits through the ecotourism industry. Many take swamp hoops tours, in which the Florida Gator's are a featured WINNER!" (#312, 167 pts): The longest name in the pool has the third-lowest score. Florida, the featured WINNER, is out. The economic benefits of bracket tourism are not accruing.
Celebrity & Novelty Bracket Update
Let's take a quick moment to look at some of our "just for fun" brackets:
JAY BILAS (🎙️ #8, 330 pts): Jay Bilas picked Illinois and Iowa State in the Final Four — both still alive. He's sitting at #8 overall and honestly outperforming most of the humans in this pool after a really underwhelming start.
HANNAH STORM (📺 #24, 310 pts): The best Sweet 16 performance among the celebrity brackets — 61 R3 points, rocketing from #78 to #24. Picked Florida and Michigan in the Final Four, which means she's half right. The Florida half is the bad half.
PRESIDENT OBAMA (🇺🇸 #42, 303 pts): Climbed 17 spots with 49 Sweet 16 points. Still has Illinois and Iowa State in the Final Four, so kind of a mixed bag moving forward.
BUGS BUNNY (🥕 #15, 323 pts): Our beloved cartoon champion fell from #9 to #15 after picking Florida and Iowa State in the Final Four. What a maroon.
MASCOT BRACKET (🦁 #167, 268 pts): The most dramatic fall of the Sweet 16 — down 89 spots from #78 to #167. Mascot logic had Florida and Alabama in the Final Four. The gator lost to the bear, and the elephant lost to a wolverine, and this is why you don't use fangs as a bracket strategy.
COIN FLIP (🪙 #263, 232 pts): The coin flip actually had a good Sweet 16 — 50 points moved it up 30 spots, meaning that a significant portion of you have failed to beat pure dumb luck. And while it's remaining bracket isn't great, it does have Michigan so it could well accrue more points.
AIR BUD (#310, 177 pts): The golden retriever continues to occupy the bottom of the pool. Had Florida and Georgia in the Final Four. Both eliminated. Good dog, wrong picks.
BAD LUCK BRIAN (#314, 128 pts): Locked in last place. Will lose this tournament.
Anyone else notice that covering people with towels during interviews has been a legit THING this tournament? Been seeing this a lot, been a fun diversion this year...
We did have some pretty competitive games over the last couple of days! Quick recap if you missed any...
Thursday's Games
Purdue 79, Texas 77
If Trey Kaufman-Renn has learned anything in four years at Purdue, it's that the second shot matters as much as the first. With 0.7 seconds on the clock and the game tied, Kaufman-Renn tipped in a Braden Smith miss to send the Boilermakers to the Elite Eight by the thinnest of margins. Kaufman-Renn finished with 20 points on an absurd 7-of-7 start to his night, and Smith added 16. Texas's Tramon Mark was nothing short of heroic — grimacing through an injured leg in the closing minutes to drop 29 points, the most by a Longhorn in an NCAA Tournament game since Kevin Durant in 2007. A Dailyn Swain three-point play tied it at 77 with 11.9 seconds left and looked like it might send the game to OT. Then Smith drove, missed, and Kaufman-Renn was exactly where he needed to be. Purdue moves on to face Arizona on Saturday.
Texas coach Sean Miller reached his ninth Sweet 16 — the most of any coach who has never reached the Final Four.
Iowa 77, Nebraska 71
The Hawkeyes — who knocked off top-seeded Florida two rounds ago on a buzzer-beater — dispatched fellow Big Ten rival Nebraska to reach the Elite Eight for the first time since 1987. Bennett Stirtz led the way with 20 points, and Alvaro Folgueiras (16 points) delivered the dagger: with Nebraska down to four defenders late, Folgueiras caught the Huskers disorganized on an inbound, slammed it home, absorbed contact, and converted the free throw for a six-point swing that ended the drama. Nebraska, in just its second and third NCAA Tournament wins ever, had led by 10 early and stayed close well into the second half, but went ice-cold after halftime (28.1% shooting) while Iowa got hot at exactly the right time. Iowa transfer Pryce Sandfort put up 25 for Nebraska in a losing cause.
The South Regional final is now an all-Big Ten affair: Iowa vs. Illinois on Saturday. One of them is going to the Final Four. The Big Ten is locked in.
Illinois 65, Houston 55
Kelvin Sampson's Cougars got to play in their own city for the Sweet 16 — two miles from campus, to be exact — and were thoroughly outworked by an Illinois team that didn't care whose house this was. David Mirkovic had 14 points and 10 rebounds, Keaton Wagler added 13 and 12, and Andrej Stojakovic (whose dad, NBA All-Star Peja Stojakovic, was in the stands) chipped in 13 as Brad Underwood's Illini used a defensive stranglehold and a brutal 17-0 second-half run to blow the game wide open. Houston shot just 34% — their lowest-scoring output of the season — and star freshman Kingston Flemings, a projected NBA lottery pick, finished 4-of-10 for 11 points. The Houston fans who hadn't already left by the final buzzer watched Illinois's orange-clad faithful celebrate in their building — not unlike those of us at the Mizzou game last weekend that had to watch orange-clad Hurricane fans celebrate amidst an overwhelmingly black and gold crowd.
Arizona 109, Arkansas 88
Arizona, which had lost in the Sweet 16 three times, finally crashed through the wall in emphatic fashion — putting up 109 points on Arkansas and making NCAA Tournament history in the process. Brayden Burries led six (six!) Wildcats in double figures with 23, Koa Peat added 21, and Arizona became the first team ever to have six players score at least 14 points in a tournament game. The Wildcats shot 64% in a nearly flawless first half to build a lead they never relinquished. Arkansas star Darius Acuff Jr. poured in 28 — 88 points across three tournament games for the freshman — but got almost nothing from his supporting cast, and the Razorbacks' second half descended into chaos with a technical on Nick Pringle, a technical on coach John Calipari, and a flagrant ejection of Billy Richmond. Arizona's twelfth straight win ties a school record. They're in the Elite Eight for the first time since 2015 and one win from their first Final Four since 2001.
Friday's Games
Duke 80, St. John's 75
A 1-seed should not be sweating a 5-seed in the final minute, and yet Duke escaped looking more like a team that almost lost than one that dominated, and the story of the night was Caleb Foster — a guy who fractured his foot in Duke's regular-season finale, hadn't played since, and then waltzed off the bench in the second half to drop 11 points on a fractured foot. St. John's gave everything it had — Zach Ejiofor led the Johnnies with 17 points and kept them in it until the final buzzer. But Duke guard Isaiah Evans went 10-of-15 for 25 points, and in the end, that was the difference. Duke moves on to face UConn in the Elite Eight.
Michigan 90, Alabama 77
Michigan walked into the United Center and really just did their thing. Yaxel Lendeborg posted 23 points, 12 rebounds, and 7 assists — nearly a triple-double — and his second-half takeover sealed it. Alabama's identity this year was three-point shooting, but the Crimson Tide shot just 14-of-47 (30%) from deep. Michigan, meanwhile, went 13-of-27 (48%) from distance. The Wolverines also had a 33-6 edge in bench points, with freshmen Trey McKenney (17 pts) and Roddy Gayle Jr. (16 pts) both contributing. The win set a new Michigan program record at 34 victories. One footnote: Alabama was without Aden Holloway for the third straight game following an arrest, and Labaron Philon Jr. — who poured in a career-tying 35 points — may have played his last college game.
UConn 67, Michigan State 63
This one was a masterpiece of chaos. UConn jumped out to a 25-6 lead in the first ten minutes, shooting 6-for-7 from three. Then Michigan State — because it's Tom Izzo and it's March — staged an absolutely bonkers comeback, erasing 19 points to briefly lead in the second half, 45-44. The Huskies pulled it out, however. Tarris Reed Jr. finished with a game-high 20 points, and Alex Karaban knocked down three big threes and improved his March Madness record to a preposterous 16-1 over the past four seasons. Michigan State's Kur Teng had a chance to tie it with a three at the buzzer. It rimmed out. Dan Hurley lives to coach another day; Tom Izzo responded to retirement questions with "Why? What the hell am I going to do?"
Tennessee 76, Iowa State 62
The 6-seed Vols outrebounded 2-seed Iowa State 43-22 and it wasn't really that close. Tennessee's physicality was a nightmare matchup for a Cyclones team that was already missing injured big man Joshua Jefferson. Nate Ament led Tennessee with 18 points, Ja'Kobi Gillespie added 16, and UT never really looked back. Iowa State shot 15-of-25 from the free throw line, which is the kind of number that will haunt TJ Otzelberger's dreams. Tennessee has now made the Elite Eight three straight seasons and will face Michigan on Sunday.
What's Next
Enjoy the games this weekend! Watch for the next update Sunday night or Monday around lunch time.
— Jamie
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