NCAA Match reaches Candy 16
Following a three-day breather after a weekend of chaos, the men’s NCAA Tournament returns to motion with the start of the Sweet 16.
The primary of 4 video games within the West and East areas ideas off Thursday at 6:30 p.m. ET when Michigan State performs Kansas State. Following the Spartans-Wildcats conflict will likely be Connecticut vs. Arkansas, which knocked off No. 1 seeded Kansas. Florida Atlantic, which ended the Cinderella story for No. 16 seeded Fairleigh Dickinson, will tackle Tennessee within the evening’s third sport, and a heavyweight showdown between UCLA and Gonzaga will conclude the evening.
Observe alongside for dwell updates all through the remainder of the day.
MEN’S TOURNAMENT:Complete scores and schedule
WOMEN’S TOURNAMENT:Complete scores and schedule
Observe the insanity: Latest Men’s NCAA Tournament College Basketball Scores and Schedules
Halftime: UConn 46, Arkansas 29
An unplanned change in resorts did not preserve No. 4 UConn from leaping out to a commanding lead over 8-seeded Arkansas.
The Huskies, who had been pressured to alter resorts in Las Vegas after CT Insider reported their rooms had been in terrible situation, had been dominant within the first 20 minutes. At one level, UConn mounted a 14-0 run.
UConn’s Jordan Hawkins led all scorers with 10 factors within the half. Teammate Adama Sanogo is on double-double watch with eight factors and 6 rebounds earlier than the break. Nick Smith Jr. led Arkansas with 9 factors.
Even award-winning actor Invoice Murray was having fun with the Huskies’ dominance. In attendance to help his son, Luke, who’s an assistant coach at UConn, Murray was proven cheering from the group because the Huskies went on their run.
Kansas State star Markquis Nowell wants assist off courtroom after showing to twist ankle
Kansas State guard Markquis Nowell fell awkwardly whereas trying a brief runner and needed to be helped off the courtroom lower than 5 minutes into the second half of the No. 3 Wildcats’ Candy 16 matchup in opposition to No. 7 Michigan State.
Nowell had performed each minute for KSU, which was main 50-46 with 15:31 left, and had scored seven factors with 10 assists.
One of many breakout stars of this 12 months’s event, Nowell is the Wildcats’ second-leading scorer (17.1 factors per sport) and ranks second nationally in assists (7.8 per sport).
Nowell eliminated his shoe and had trainers tape his ankle up earlier than he returned to the courtroom. Whereas the ankle was clearly bothering him, he nonetheless flashed his offensive creativity.
– Paul Myerberg
Halftime: Kansas State 43, Michigan State 38
Markquis Nowell was an offensive magician, weaving pinpoint passes to teammates to offer No. 3 Kansas State a five-point lead over 7-seeded Michigan State on the break.
Nowell racked up 10 assists within the first 20 minutes and added a deep 3-point discipline aim for the Wildcats.
The Spartans, in the meantime, obtained a torrid first-half effort from Joey Hauser (12 factors, three rebounds). Hauser linked on 2 of 4 makes an attempt from 3-point vary. Michigan State additionally received the first-half rebound battle 18-12 and pulled down seven offensive boards in comparison with only one for Kansas State
Why you would possibly see Barry Sanders throughout Michigan State’s Candy 16 sport
Loads of school basketball followers maybe not utterly clued into Michigan State basketball seemed to be bowled over when Professional Soccer Corridor of Famer and Detroit Lions legend Barry Sanders appeared on their tv screens carrying a inexperienced and white MSU cap — and sitting behind former MSU soccer coach Mark Dantonio and Kirk Gibson — throughout the Spartans’ second-round NCAA event sport Sunday in opposition to Marquette.
However as all Spartan supporters know, there is a quite simple clarification as to why Sanders was in Columbus, Ohio, for the sport. His son, Nick, is a freshman on the MSU basketball team.
– Phil Pal, Lansing State Journal
Las Vegas is now poised to be a hub for college sports with a number of NCAA occasions scheduled over the following a number of years, starting with Thursday’s West Regional at T-Cellular Area. From golf to bowling to hockey — the 2026 Frozen 4 will even be held right here — the NCAA emblem will quickly be as ubiquitous on the Las Vegas Strip as adverts for superstar chef eating places and Cirque du Soleil reveals.
It’ll all lead as much as 2028, when the NCAA brings its crown jewel occasion, the lads’s Last 4, right here for the primary (and doubtless not final) time.
“It was simply getting over the stigma that it was Las Vegas,” stated Jim Livengood, the longtime athletics director at Washington State, Arizona and UNLV.
— Dan Wolken
With Mick Cronin in cost, the forecast for UCLA’s storied basketball program remains perpetually sunny. The Bruins are within the Candy 16 of the lads’s NCAA Match for the third straight season.
Up subsequent: a rematch in opposition to Gonzaga, which at the 2021 Last 4 outlasted UCLA in time beyond regulation, 93-90.
“We’re 4 video games away from hanging a twelfth banner,” Cronin stated, referring to UCLA’s 11 nationwide championships. “That is how we have a look at it. That is how we speak about it.”
— Josh Peter
The men’s Sweet 16 round tips Thursday night, with motion within the Huge Apple and Sin Metropolis.
►No. 3 Kansas State vs. No. 7 Michigan State
Time/TV: 6:30 p.m. ET, TBS
►No. 4 Connecticut vs. No. 8 Arkansas
Time/TV: 7:15 p.m. ET, CBS
►No. 4 Tennessee vs. No. 9 Florida Atlantic
Time/TV: 9 p.m. ET, TBS
►No. 2 UCLA vs. No. 3 Gonzaga
Time/TV: 9:45 p.m. ET, CBS
Greatest shot at making Last 4
The 2022 Last 4 in males’s basketball was, in the long run, dominated by bluebloods. This 12 months’s model could possibly be extra about new bloods.
Of the 16 remaining groups, solely 4 have received a championship (Michigan State, UCLA, UConn, Arkansas). Three of these are in the identical area, so there’s a excessive chance that any individual new will likely be chopping down the nets in Houston.
Seven of the Candy 16 groups (Alabama, Creighton, Florida Atlantic Miami, San Diego State, Tennessee and Xavier) have by no means even been to a Last 4. We ranked them in order of their probabilities to make the nationwide semifinals for the primary time.
— Eddie Timanus
What have we discovered?
Surprises and upsets outlined the primary two rounds of the lads’s NCAA Match, sending a few of school basketball’s largest names packing – together with Kansas, Purdue, Duke, Virginia and Kentucky – as Fairleigh Dickinson beat Purdue and Princeton topped Arizona and Missouri to write down two of the highest Cinderella tales in current event historical past.
Amid this flurry of unpredictability, what occurs subsequent is anybody’s guess.
With the Candy 16 set to start, we detailed eight lessons learned from the primary weekend of the event.
— Paul Myerberg
‘Spartan sturdy’
Ranked exterior the highest 25 for a lot of the season, Michigan State wouldn’t have been thought-about a lot of a menace to get to the Candy 16 aside from one factor: They have Tom Izzo on the sidelines.
It’s not that Izzo is unbeatable or has an ironclad monitor file in March. Like each different nice coach, he’s had his share of peculiar flameouts. However each few years, Izzo finds a method to push a crew deeper into the event than it’s alleged to go.
Michigan State’s second-round win in opposition to No. 2 seed Marquette was the sixteenth time Izzo has overwhelmed a higher-seeded crew within the NCAA Match, beating out Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim for the all-time file. Maybe extra impressively, it was the sixth time he has gotten to the Candy 16 with a crew seeded fifth or worse.
The Spartans tackle No. 3 seed Kansas State within the first males’s Candy 16 sport Thursday.
— Dan Wolken
Princeton males, girls win first-round video games in similar 12 months, make Ivy historical past
This was a event to recollect for the Ivy League even earlier than Princeton’s males reached the second spherical.
That is the primary 12 months the Ivy’s groups have received first-round video games in each tournaments. A day after the Princeton males surprised Arizona, the Tenth-seeded Princeton girls upset N.C. State on Friday evening on a 3-pointer with seven seconds left.
“We had been watching (the lads) within the locker room proper earlier than follow,” Julia Cunningham stated Friday evening. “Watching them, all of the protection they’re getting from the media, it was so properly deserved. We checked out one another and thought, we’re subsequent, now it’s our flip.
“It’s particular,” she added. “A particular week to be a Tiger.”
The Princeton girls had been overwhelmed within the second spherical by Utah, however the Tigers’ men will take on Creighton on Friday within the Candy 16.
– Nancy Armour
Last USA TODAY Sports activities coaches ballot
Houston entered the NCAA Tournament with the No. 1 rating within the USA TODAY Sports activities coaches ballot, regardless of its loss within the American Athletic Convention championship sport previous to the disclosing of the brackets.
The Cougars, who had been enjoying with out main scorer Marcus Sasser within the loss to Memphis, retained 21 of 32 No. 1 votes to stave off second-ranked Alabama. The Crimson Tide acquired eight firsts after successful the SEC title in spectacular style on Sunday.
Houston and Alabama are the lone No. 1 seeds remaining within the event after Kansas was knocked off by Arkansas within the second spherical and Purdue, the highest seed within the East, was upset within the first spherical by Fairleigh Dickinson.
— Eddie Timanus
