No. 8 Wisconsin seed toppled defending champion and top-seeded Villanova on Saturday, and No. 7 SC shocked No. 2 Duke on Sunday night. “They made great adjustments”.
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“Obviously we’re playing against some great teams from here on out, it’ll be hard, but I believe in my guys, I believe in myself and I believe if we stick to our brand of basketball and leave it all out there on the court we have a good chance”. Until the last second of that game, I thought we had a chance to win, so I wasn’t thinking about this or dealing with this.
The Badgers will face the Florida Gators on Friday at Madison Square Garden in NY. Even taking Wisconsin’s struggles ahead of the tournament into account, you did Villanova no favors.
“I thought we battled and we gave it all we had”. You’re going to come down to games like this. “So, you have to accept it”.
But there’s nothing little about the NCAA men’s basketball Sweet 16.
“Watching the NCAA tournament this year has been like rooting for the 1985 Bears, investing in Apple AAPL, -0.50% or betting on Tom Brady”, wrote Sports Illustrated’s Pete Thamel. But hey, at least they admitted to making a mistake, right? It was not the bench then, but perhaps the minutes that got them. They’re a tough, talented, very experienced team.
Trevon Bluiett has been sensational and coach Mack is somehow getting the most out of a team that looked all but finished when it lost starting guard Edmond Sumner back in January for the season to a torn ACL. If your bracket is busted, you’re definitely not alone.
But there are a lot of people at Villanova who believe that the Wildcats should be mentioned with Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina as perennial contenders every season – the teams that are nearly automatically penciled into a top two or three seed every single season by default.
In today’s digital age, it doesn’t take much to become an overnight internet sensation. The South Carolina players need to be as tough minded as their coach. He led the team with 6.6 rebounds per game. The Wildcats also have a terrific player in Archbishop Wood’s 6-foot-1 guard Collin Gillespie, who was named Most Valuable Player in the Catholic League.
That is, until the second half started. And after talking about what Josh Hart, Kris Jenkins and Darryl Reynolds meant to his program, the topic of the future of the Villanova basketball program was broached and Wright put a smile on his face.
Gonzaga led Northwestern 34-12 late in the first half.
It wasn’t called, but, as you may have gleaned, Collins’ technical was.
Can Villanova make an NCAA run next season? Seventh-seeded in the Midwest, Michigan hasn’t lost since its airplane scare on the way to the Big Ten Tournament in Washington, D.C.
Trailing 45-36 with 16:09 to play, the German native scored on a layup to start a 17-6 run that gave MI its first lead since the opening minutes. UM coach John Beilein had his team get the ball in the lane in the second half.
Back in the dark ages of college basketball – when the NIT was in its last vestiges as more prestigious than the NCAA Tournament until the early 1950s – Wisconsin won the 1941 NCAA title.
The best moment? The celebration afterwards.
Brown then hit one of two free throws and the Badgers defended the last second play off of the miss as Villanova couldn’t get a good look at a last second game tying shot.
“I knew coming in here there was all kind of tradition and you always want to add, see if you can add something to it”. As a No. 8 seed, it ranks as the most improbable of the four in a row. The thing with all those algorithms, they can’t calculate heart, will to win, toughness, desire. On paper, Florida is the best team left in the East, and by a significant margin: The Gators have been almost three points per 100 possessions better than Baylor on the year, and that gap is almost five points per 100 possessions over Wisconsin, and nearly 10 over SC. Kelan Martin is a versatile forward who leads the Bulldogs with an average of 16 points a game.
Beat Arkansas and advance to the Sweet 16? But the way SC stormed past Duke, albeit in its home state, was impressive.
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Yep, Sunday was a pretty good day to be a Tar Heels fan.
