Hewitt Turns Down St. John’s.  It always seemed like a drop in prestige from our viewpoint, but you never know the myriad factors that influence a coach’s decision, so we thought there was a reasonable chance Hewitt would bolt Atlanta for Jamaica (New York, that is).  Turns out that he’s sticking with his Yellow Jacket home after all, as Andy Katz reported today that Hewitt will not be taking the SJU offer.  Once St. John’s gives up the pipe dreams of courting Rick Pitino or Billy Donovan, the school is expected to go hard after Seth Greenberg at Virginia Tech or Steve Donahue at Cornell. 

Tim Getting is the sports editor for the Northern Iowan, and was kind enough to contribute this article on his school’s Cinderella story.

Preview – A Realization of Royalty

Entering their fifth tournament appearance in seven seasons, Northern Iowa expected to be less of a Cinderella and more of a Sleeping Beauty. They treated loyal Panther fans and unloyal Hawkeye fans to the program’s best regular season ever, winning a school-record 25 games and peaking at No. 18 in the AP Poll. They won the Missouri Valley Conference regular season title outright then went on and took the MVC tournament championship too. The McLeod Center court in Cedar Falls was fully defended with a 14-0 record that included wins over Siena and Old Dominion. This was all achieved with practically the same team that nearly defeated Purdue in last March’s madness.

Selection Sunday dawned and the Panther players wore fake grins as Mr. Gumbel relayed the news that UNI earned a No. 9 seed and a potential second round matchup with the nation’s best team. It now seemed as if a charming awakening would have to be replaced with a slipper-fitting appointment if UNI had hopes of leaving Oklahoma City alive.

Dreaded or Divine SI Cover (SI/G. Nelson)

The slipper fit snug on the foot of Ali Farokhmanesh, and the Iranian Idol propelled the Panthers into the Sweet 16 with consecutive game-winning threes. So will the magic and trite princess metaphors last another round? That will be answered Friday as UNI takes on Michigan State in St. Louis.

Overview

Friday’s game provides a unique coaching showdown in an old pro and young gun who impart physical mentalities on their cowpoke (yes, we have progressed from a princess to a cowboy metaphor). Michigan State coach Tom Izzo holsters a 33-11 tournament record while appearing in his third-straight Sweet 16. His boys specialize in boards where they boast the country’s best rebounding margin at +8.7. Coach Jacobson leads his herd into its first-ever Sweet 16, priding his Panthers on defense as their scoring defense (55 ppg) is the nation’s second-best.

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It’s here.  We’ve endured the three-day layoff and it’s time for more hoops.  We know you already know, but here’s our lineup for today in the order in which they’ll be showing up on our screens:

• #1 Syracuse vs #5 Butler
• #2 West Virginia vs #11 Washington
• #2 Kansas State vs #6 Xavier
• #1 Kentucky vs #12 Cornell

Everyone’s been talking about Cornell  (and Northern Iowa in the Midwest) — and well they should — but we doubt Butler, Xavier, and Washington will go quietly.  That’s how great this tournament has been; because of the achievements of teams like Cornell and Northern Iowa, we’ve heard next to nothing about what Xavier and Washington have done! Syracuse will not have Arinze Onuaku and you’ve heard about the Darryl Bryant injury by now, so we expect the Huskies will try to make life difficult for Joe Mazzulla.  It should be an amazing four games tonight, to say the least, and we’ll crank up the live window (located after the jump) about 15 minutes before the first tip.  We hope that as you watch the games you’ll join us for some live discussion, as well.  It’s Sweet Sixteen time!

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Over the next two days, RTC will break down the regional semifinal games using our best analytical efforts to understand these teams, the matchups and their individual strengths and weaknesses.  Our hope is that you’ll let us know in the comments where you agree, disagree or otherwise think we’ve lost our collective minds.  Here are Thursday night’s games from the East and West Regionals.

7:07 pm – #1 Syracuse vs. #5 Butler  (West Region)

We’re starting to worry about this Arinze Onuaku situation.  Sooner or later, Jim Boeheim’s team is going to need the 11 points, five rebounds and general defensive anchor support on the front line that the 6’9, 260-pound big man provides.  Rick Jackson is a serviceable replacement, but the fact that Onuaku reportedly hasn’t even suited up in practice since his injury against Georgetown on March 11 is cause for alarm.  Even if Syracuse survives to advance to next weekend’s Final Four, how productive could he possibly be?  So far, Syracuse hasn’t shown a need for him yet.  The Orange ran over Vermont and Gonzaga without breathing all that hard thanks to the superb play of Wesley Johnson and friends, but there will be a team in the very near future where they’ll need more than Jackson alone can provide.

That team will not be playing SU in the Sweet Sixteen, however.  Butler is an excellent team and Brad Stevens has gotten players other than Gordon Hayward and Matt Howard to step up this season, most notably Shelvin Mack who went 9-12 from long range in the San Jose pod against UTEP and Murray State.  Syracuse is not UTEP or Murray, though, and the wide-open looks that Mack was getting in those games will no longer be as readily available thanks to the length and quickness of the Orange’s perimeter defenders.  Furthermore, Butler center Matt Howard has enough trouble staying out of foul trouble against Horizon League teams; it’s not realistic to think that he’ll be able to play 30+ effective minutes against Jackson, Johnson and Kris Joseph inside.  The main problem we foresee is that Butler is not a very good offensive team in general — when Hayward and Mack aren’t firing on all cylinders, the Bulldogs have trouble scoring points.  Add that to the fact they’ll be facing one of the best offensive teams in America, and you have a situation where numerous things need to go exactly right for Butler to get this win tonight.  Even without Onuaku on the floor for another game, we just don’t see Butler finding enough offense to win this game.

The Skinny: The last time the Bulldogs made it this deep into the NCAAs, they ran into a long, athletic team by the name of Florida in 2007.  They played the defending and future national champions as closely as they were played in that tournament thanks to their control of the tempo, strong defense and  attention to detail, but it still wasn’t enough because the Florida offensive attack was simply too good.  We think the same thing will happen in this game.  Syracuse has too many weapons for the Butler defense to key in on all of them, and even if they catch SU on an off night, where will the Butler points come from?

7:27 pm – #2 West Virginia vs. #11 Washington  (East Region)

Most prognosticators felt that Washington had Sweet 16 talent coming into this season. Lorenzo Romar was returning reigning Pac-10 Freshman of the Year Isaiah Thomas, defensive stalwart Venoy Overton and a forward named Quincy Pondexter ripe for a breakout season. While Pondexter’s prediction panned out, guard play was shaky, road wins were hard to come by, and the Huskies found themselves on the NCAA bubble with seven losses in a weak Pac-10. A conference tournament win punched their ticket, though, and the Huskies have taken advantage of the opportunity, erasing a double-digit second half lead to beat Marquette and wiping the floor with Mountain West champion New Mexico. Their toughest test yet will come Thursday against Big East Tournament champion West Virginia. Washington needs to produce a near carbon copy of their performance against New Mexico. In other words, they need to play a near-perfect game. Thomas must keep his head on straight and continue to make outside jumpers. Overton must frustrate Da’Sean Butler, Elston Turner must continue to produce offensively and Pondexter must out-duel Devin Ebanks.

For West Virginia, Washington seems like a favorable matchup. They may have preferred Joe Mazzulla guarding Isaiah Thomas more than the sidelined Darryl Bryant anyway. Mazzulla is the superior defender and Bryant has been woeful shooting-wise the last three weeks. They also match up well with the length of Washington. Bob Huggins can throw a lineup out on the floor of players 6’6 or above with huge wingspans, meaning the long WVU defense could fluster Pondexter and force him into difficult shots. One possible negative to the Bryant injury is that it increases the likelihood that the Mountaineer offense will become too reliant on Butler to bail them out. He’s done it time and time again this season and in postseason tournament play. Does he have more magic up his sleeve?

The Skinny: West Virginia has a plethora of defenders that can frustrate Pondexter and they boast the best late-game scorer in the nation in Butler. That combination should prove enough to take care of Washington in fairly methodical fashion. Avoiding their typical slow start would be prudent.

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We’ve been anxiously awaiting the next thirty days for the last eleven months.  You have too.  In fact, if this isn’t your favorite time of year by a healthy margin then you should probably click away from this site for a while.   Because we plan on waterboarding you with March Madness coverage.  Seriously, you’re going to feel like Dick Cheney himself is holding a Spalding-logoed towel over your face.  Your intake will be so voluminous that you’ll be drooling Gus Johnson and bracket residue in your sleep.  Or Seth Davis, if that’s more your style.  The point is that we’re all locked in and ready to go.  Are you?  To help us all get into the mood, we like to click around a fancy little website called YouTube for a daily dose of notable events, happenings, finishes, ups and downs relating to the next month.  We’re going to try to make this video compilation a little smarter, a little edgier, a little historical-er.  Or whatever.  Sure, you’ll see some old favorites that never lose their luster, but you’ll also see some that maybe you’ve forgotten or never knew to begin with.  That’s the hope, at least.  We’ll be matching the videos by the appropriate week, so all of this week we re-visited some of the timeless moments from the regionals of the NCAA Tournament.  Enjoy.

NCAA Regionals

Dateline: 1990 NCAA Regional Finals – Duke vs. Connecticut

Context: As we move into the regional finals, there have been SO MANY memorable shots, games and storylines over the years.  How to choose just a handful of them?  Ultimately we decided to just go with our gut, hopeful that you’ll forgive us if we don’t show the Laettner shot for the zillionth time.  Ok, we lied.  You’ve seen the 1992 Duke vs. Kentucky shot more times than you can possibly handle, but how many of you remember the first time that Christian Laettner solidified his Mr. March bona fides?  The situation was this: In 1990, Duke was in the middle of their Buffalo Bills run, having made the Final Four in 1986, 1988, and 1989, yet having still never won the national title.  Jim Calhoun’s rising Connecticut program had its best team in history, coming into the East Regional final at 31-5, the #1 seed in the region and fresh from a Sweet Sixteen game against Clemson they won on a miraculous length-of-the-court play where Tate George hit a turnaround shot at the buzzer.  After 39+ minutes of battle between Nadav Henefeld, Chris Smith, Alaa Abdelnaby and Danny Ferry, it appeared that UConn’s dream season would result in their first-ever Final Four appearance, but with 2.6 seconds remaining, the sophomore Laettner had other ideas.  This shot made Laettner a March legend a full two years prior to the perfect game he threw against Kentucky that elevated his career to one of the greatest of all-time in college basketball.

(ed. note: we have no idea why this video is in fast-mo, but this was the only version we could find)

For the third consecutive year, Roy Williams will lead his North Carolina Tar Heels to the Final Four of a postseason national tournament.  Ok, it’s the NIT, but Carolina should get a little credit for winning tough road games at Mississippi State and UAB to move into the semifinals at Madison Square Garden next week.  Tonight two other teams joined UNC and Ole Miss: Rhode Island, who went into the cauldron of Blacksburg and came out with a 79-72 win; and Dayton, who ran all over Illinois to send two Atlantic 10 teams to MSG.  Here’s the remaining bracket, schedule and times.

It’s interesting to note that none of the four #1 seeds made it to the semis despite having home court advantage for the first three rounds.  #1 Arizona State was knocked off in the first round by Jacksonville, while UNC outlasted #1 Mississippi State in the last round before the other two — #1 Illinois and #1 Virginia Tech — lost tonight.  It’s dicey to draw conclusions from NIT performance because you never know how motivated teams will be to try their hardest, but at least from the eye test, all of the above teams other than perhaps ASU were taking the experience seriously.

Regardless, these two matchups next week should make for an appetizer in the middle of next week while we’re all starved for action waiting for the other, more grandiose Final Four to get busy in Indianapolis.

The big news today in this area was of course the news that Tony Barbee is leaving UTEP to take the Auburn job.  We handled that separately here.

The other piece of coaching news is that Hofstra’s Tom Pecora has signed with Fordham for a non-puny sum of $705,000 per year.  Wow.  In the same New York Post article, Joe DeLessio says that Paul Hewitt is still the leading candidate to take the St. John’s job but a hefty buyout of $3.5M is holding up things.

In a pre-emptive strike by Northern Iowa to try to hang on to their hot commodity coach Ben Jacobson for as long as possible, the school offered him a big raise and a ten-year contract extension yesterday (which he accepted).  With each passing win in this Tournament, Jacobson’s stock will continue to rise.

Moving from the world of fact to the rumor mill, let’s start with one even more ridiculous than the Tubby to Auburn one last Friday: UCLA’s Ben Howland to DePaul?  Excuse us while we clean up the water we spit out all over the computer screen.  At first blush, this is borderline insanity.  Notwithstanding the fact that Howland is a SoCal guy who has taken that team to three Final Fours in his tenure there, it’s… freakin… DePaul.  We’d give this a 1% chance if we were talking about another traditional powerhouse, like, say, Indiana.  But DePaul?  How can anyone take this seriously?  What are they going to offer him — $10M per year?  And yet, even the Bruin faithful believe there’s more to this than just rumor.  For what it’s worth, Ben Howland stated today that he has “zero interest” in this job, which is about the amount we would expect him to have.

Each day this week during the regional rounds of the NCAA Tournament we’re asking some of our top correspondents to put together a collection of notes and interesting tidbits about each region.  If you know of something that we should include in tomorrow’s submission, hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Midwest Region (Tom Hager)

• Northern Iowa head coach Ben Jacobson was rewarded today with a 10-year deal worth $450,000 a year.  He is currently making $289,000 a year.  Speaking of Jacobson, apparently the university has more trust in Jacobson than his own son, who originally picked Kansas to beat the Panthers.
• Michigan State’s focus is going to be on defense.  The Panthers are 21-0 this season when they scored at least 60 points, and MSU head coach Tom Izzo is concerned about stopping a team that shoots such a high percentage from the field and free throw line.
• According to David Gilsan, Tennessee’s key to keeping the game close will be utilizing their depth, something the Buckeyes did not do when they had no bench points against Georgia Tech.
• For all the fans who were surprised by the strength of Ali Farokhmanesh on the cover of Sports Illustrated.  We’ve done some investigating and wonder if SI is doctoring its photos.  Inconclusive, but interesting nonetheless.

West Region (Andrew Murawa)

• The top-seeded Orange have been without their senior center Arinze Onuaku since he injured his right quadriceps on March 11, and to this point they haven’t really needed him. But as the competition gets a bit stiffer this week, the Orange will continue on without him on Thursday and likely throughout the weekend, as he hasn’t yet taken part in practice. The Final Four is starting to look like a more realistic goal for his return.
• Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim knows that regardless of who plays for his Orange, Butler is a talented team that will give his team problems.
• One of the themes of the West Region is the strength of Xavier and Butler, two teams that come from non-BCS conferences but who have become national powers. Just don’t use the term “mid-major” around Xavier head coach Chris Mack.
• And while Kansas State vs. Xavier may not seem like a matchup with a lot of history, they did have a matchup on New Year’s Eve a couple years back, and senior guard Jacob Pullen is still holding a grudge. He’ll have to play under control though, as it may be the battle of All-American-type guards that will decide the outcome.

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And thus ends those ridiculous rumors of Tubby Smith bolting Minnesota for the basketball backwater of the Plains of Alabama.

Tony Barbee Instructing His Star at UTEP

UTEP’s Tony Barbee will be the next contestant attempting to navigate the football-obsessed geography of the SEC West.  He brings a solid resume to the job, having rebuilt the UTEP program in his four years emphasizing pressure defense with a host of athletic guards and forwards.  Barbee’s record of 82-51 and 39-25 in Conference USA included one conference regular season championship this year in addition to an NCAA appearance last week (the Miners lost to Butler).  What you like if you’re Auburn brass is that his program improved in every one of his four seasons from a losing record in 2006-07 to the point of reaching the Big Dance this year.  He brings a Calipari commitment to defense (as both player from 1987-91 and assistant coach from 1999-2006) and a knack for recruiting to the job — his acceptance of and ability to get former Louisville headache Derrick Caracter to play hard was amazing.

Still, even with Barbee’s pedigree and a new arena to sell on recruits, getting Auburn to the level of a serious player in the SEC West is no easy task.  If you created a list of BCS basketball mediocrity, the War Eagles would undoubtedly rise to the top that list very quickly.  Only four times in the last seventeen years has Auburn won more than 20 games, and yet they’ve never won fewer than 12 in that period.  A typical Tiger season is around 16 total wins, a 6-10 SEC record and a borderline NIT/CBI type of team.  Good enough to pull one upset against the likes of Tennessee?Vandy and the SEC West team du jour in a given season, but never consistent enough to do much more than that.  Part of the reason for this is an almost universal apathy for the basketball program in eastern Alabama — you’d be hard pressed to find a BCS program that cares less about the ‘other’ sport that pays the bills.  We’ve heard anecdotes that many Auburn alumni were angry that the school planned on building a new basketball arena in the first place, instead preferring that the money be spent on upgrading the football program’s facilities.  Furthermore, the level of coaching talent in the SEC West has improved significantly in just the past two years.  Instead of mediocre coaches such as John Brady or Mark Gottfried running the show at LSU and Alabama, respectively, you have up-and-comers Trent Johnson and Anthony Grant at those places.  Rick Stansbury is solid at Mississippi State and Andy Kennedy is steadily improving the Ole Miss program.  The only truly weak link at this point appears to be John Pelphrey at Arkansas.  We’re sure that Barbee will be paid handsomely in his new position at Auburn, but we’re just not sure how successful he can be there.

You weren’t the only one who was a little upset about the Kansas loss to Northern Iowa last weekend…