It might not look like a big upset on paper, but 5-seed Indiana’s win over 4-seed Kentucky made a serious impact on a large number of Tournament Challenge entries.
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Kentucky head coach John Calipari reacts on the sideline during the second half of a second-round men’s college basketball game against IN in the NCAA Tournament, Saturday, March 19, 2016, IN Des Moines, Iowa.
The Indiana Hoosiers have been pretty dominant in their games this season and boast an impressive 26-7 record. The hiatus came following a raucous court storming in Bloomington and a dispute over whether to play at neutral sites or on campus.
The Wildcats’ rough start netted 10 points over the game’s first 11-plus minutes, allowing the Seawolves to stick around despite their own horrid shooting, which included 14 straight missed shots during one early stretch. Was he thinking he’d just played his final game at UK? I wish it was later down the road. “Unfortunately we didn’t. I thought we could kind of hang around a little bit”, Stony Brook coach Steve Pikiell said.
Ulis scored 27 points for Kentucky (27-9), which suffered its earliest NCAA Tournament exit since 2008 – when it lost to a Marquette team then led by Crean.
A season ago, after UK’s dreams of an undefeated national championship ended with a Final Four loss to Wisconsin, Ulis was inconsolable in the Wildcats locker room.
“Tyler is dragging us across the finish line”. The Hoosiers made the Selection Committee rethink their No. 5 seeding of head coach Tom Crean’s team with a rather easy 99-74 win over 12th-seeded Chattanooga in the first round of the tourney.
“They both play extremely hard, extremely smart”.
“We’ve played athletic teams all year but we just have to be aggressive”, Hartman said.
IN and Kentucky will duke it out for a place in the Sweet Sixteen on Mar. 19 as March Madness fever continues to grip the nation. Indiana’s ball movement, spacing and shot-making were on full display against the Mocs, as the Hoosiers shot 65 percent, hit 10 3-pointers and had almost twice as many assists as turnovers.
Freshman shooting guard Jamal Murray had 16 points for Kentucky, but it took him 18 shots to get there. Kentucky will play IN on Saturday. Is there something else I could have done to help them get over the hump? “How to mix it up, how to find new ways to get my shot off. I just learned so much”.
“I didn’t try and force anything”, Ferrell said.
Neither Crean nor Calipari said that the excitement surrounding Saturday’s matchup would likely change the status of their once-annual matchup.
Following the game, a number of current and former IN athletes took to Twitter to congratulate the Hoosiers on the win. Players understand they are playing for even more than bracket survival – “one for Hoosierland”, senior point guard Yogi Ferrell said in an on-court interview with CBS.
In Saturday’s Round of 32 game against Indiana, Wildcats players might not be able to rely on a surge of Big Blue fans to spur them on. Boy, were they ever right. “But hopefully someday it will”, Crean said. The Wildcats won three of the previous four postseason meetings, including a 102-90 victory over the Hoosiers in the Sweet 16 back in 2012…. “I felt we could have thrown it into the post and scored, but we miss, I’m guessing five 1-footers, seven 1-footers”. Bryant had a team-high 19 points, Yogi Ferrell had 18 and Troy Williams added 13.
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Guard Joel Berry (15 points), forwards Justin Jackson (15 points) and Isaiah Hicks (13 points) and guard Marcus Paige (12 points) contributed to North Carolina’s balanced attack. “I don’t know. I never really watched a lot of basketball growing up”.
