Kansas has been sent packing by Northern Iowa in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

This has to be the biggest second-round upset in the history of the event.  The Panthers weren’t afraid to get physical with the Jayhawks, and forced them into 15 turnovers while committing only nine themselves.  Kansas was of course the overall #1, and their departure means that Kentucky probably takes over as the favorite to win the title.  They play Wake Forest in a second round game in New Orleans later tonight.

Northern Iowa Celebrates! (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

Ali Farokhmanesh hit a three — his fourth on the day — with about 25 seconds left to put the Panthers up four just as they were looking their shakiest.  He then sank two free throws with 4.8 seconds left to put a lid on the Panthers’ amazing performance, giving him 16 points on the day.  Sherron Collins and Tyshawn Taylor went a combined 0-10 from three-point land, while Farokhmanesh, Jordan Eglseder, and Johnny Moran combined for 8-16 shooting from behind the arc.

The Panthers’ dismissal of the Jayhawks brings to mind the tournaments of 2000 and 2004.  In 2000, a pair of #8-seeds got the best of two top-seeded squads.  Stanford was the #1 seed in the South region and was beaten by the #8-seed North Carolina in the second round.  Arizona was the #1 seed in the West and also suffered a second round loss.  They were beaten by #8 Wisconsin, and both Wisconsin and North Carolina went on to the Final Four.  In 2004, two #1-seeds went down in the second round on the same day — Kentucky (#1 in the St. Louis region) lost to #9 UAB and Stanford (top seed in the Phoenix region) lost to #8 Alabama.

Take a look at the Midwest bracket.  The region that ESPN’s Doug Gottlieb rightly called “The Region of Death” is now wide open, with #3 Georgetown having been dispatched by Ohio University on Thursday night.  #2 Ohio State and #4 Maryland are the two top seeds left, but every supposed underdog team will play with renewed vigor, knowing there are no Jayhawks with whom to deal.  The Buckeyes will take on #10 Georgia Tech and Maryland will play #5 Michigan State on Sunday afternoon.  The winner of the Maryland/Michigan State game gets the Panthers in the Sweet 16.

We tweeted it after the UNI vs UNLV game, but it's worth repeating: Ali just bumayed.

More on this throughout the evening.  Oh, and if you’re a favorite today…you better come strong.

We’ve got two pretty cool matchups today here in San Jose.  First, we’ll start with the strange situation of everyone’s favorite giant-killer, #5 seed Butler, acting as the heavy favorite over #13 seed Murray State, who of course advanced on Thursday when Danero Thomas’ shot at the horn against Vandy dropped.  In the second game, we’ll enjoy the Pac-10 renaissance for at least another game, as #11 Washington will try to continue its hot streak (now eight Ws in a row) against #3 New Mexico.  We’ll be checking back in throughout the day with our thoughts on the games.

Game 1: #5 Butler vs. #13 Murray State

1st Half

• Getting ready to come out for the tip of this game, I got into a conversation with two of the young female intern-types who were helping out with the drinks for media.  They were discussing whom to root for in this game, and one said to the other: “well, you have to go with the underdog, Murray.”  Sensing a teaching moment (hey, Scottie), I said, “yeah isn’t it interesting that Butler is the favorite when they’re usually the giant-killer and Murray is the underdog now?”  They were both amazed with that role-reversal and asked a bunch of questions about it.  But it illustrates a point about programs such as Butler and Gonzaga — there comes a tipping point where you’re no longer viewed as the plucky little team anymore, and I think Butler is close to getting there (Gonzaga has been there for years).
• Butler came out off to a great start 12-3 as Murray State looked a little off kilter, which is to be expected coming off a great win like they had on Thursday.  But eventually they got their sea legs under them and were able to start getting some stops.
• It’s always interesting to watch The Butler Way…  they take care of the ball; they look for open teammates; they crash the boards; they contest every shot.  Rarely will you see a shot out of the offense, although I did count a couple of them this half.
• Murray’s defense really picked up about mid-half and it showed in that Butler ended up shooting a horrid 8-28 from the field (29%).  The Bulldogs were held scoreless for the last 6:24 of the first half.  In that time, Murray went on a 9-0 run.  That may not sound like much, but in a game trending toward the 50s, that’s a huge disparity.
• It took a while to figure out, but the crowd is definitely pro-Murray State.  Again, that’s just weird.  Usually Butler is the team that has the non-partisans on their side.  Ed Daniel’s follow jam with about a minute left on the break really brought the house down.  If this stays close down the stretch, definite home advantage to Murray.
• I’ve been very impressed with Murray’s Isaiah Canaan in this pod so far.  He has 8 points and has a real swagger about him like nobody can stop him offensively.  Only a freshman and six feet tall standing on a phone book, he is undoubtedly going to be a star in this program the next few years.
• Coming into the second half, I’m reminded of how Butler had played so poorly in the first half on Thursday, but then used the first five minutes of the second half to completely put UTEP under.  Will that happen again today?  I somehow don’t think it will.  I just don’t see Murray getting as frustrated into making poor decisions as UTEP did the other day.  I really like the poise of this Racer team.

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Now it’s a party.  The first round is done.  The next 48 hours of games will define which big-time teams can handle the pressure cooker that is the Big Dance, and it will identify the Cinderellas we’ll be talking about for years.  If you’re a double-digit seed, winning one game is nice, but you don’t receive your wicked stepsisters, pumpkin coach, and glass slipper until you at least reach the Sweet 16.  Oh, you’re a big-conference bigwig?  Then the next round is still probably less than what was expected of you.  People don’t remember Second Rounders.  They remember teams that make the Sweet 16 and beyond.  The first round was fun.  But it’s over.  Here are the teams vying for the Sweet 16 on Saturday:

• #2 Villanova vs #10 St. Mary’s
• #5 Butler vs #13 Murray State
• #6 Tennessee vs #14 Ohio
• #1 Kansas vs #9 Northern Iowa
• #3 Baylor vs #11 Old Dominion
• #3 New Mexico vs #11 Washington
• #2 Kansas State vs #7 Brigham Young
• #1 Kentucky vs #9 Wake Forest

We’ll be here all day, watching the games with you.  We hope you’ll join us, and we definitely look forward to seeing you in the comments section as we all climb in to ride this rollercoaster for the third time.  See you right here about fifteen minutes before the first tip!

12:55: Here we go!  For the Sweet 16, gentlemen…let’s play!  Some interesting matchups throughout the day.  Looking especially forward to Baylor vs ODU and KSU vs BYU.  To me those look like the more intriguing games.

1:05: St. Mary’s off to a quick start!  The inside battle between Omar Samhan and Mouphtaou Yarou and/or Maurice Sutton is gonna be fun to watch.  God, Samhan looks bigger every time I see him.

1:15: I guess Jay Wright’s “minor teaching point” is over.  Samhan could not have asked for a better start to this game.  Eight points on 4-6 shooting.  SMU does not look intimidated early.  I fact, Villanova still looks like they’re getting over whatever hangover they were nursing that caused them to almost get beaten by Bob Morris.

1:26: Samhan just rooked with that second foul.  I agree with Raftery.  That should have been a no-call.

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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 first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament.  Enjoy.

NCAA First and Second Rounds

Dateline: Various

Context: As we head into the second round of the NCAA Tournament, what better time than to revisit some of our favorite games from the Saturday/Sunday of the first weekend in the last few years.  It’s our contention that some of the very best games happen at this round because most of the pretenders are already gone and the vast majority of the teams remaining are completely legit.  This isn’t meant to be exhaustive, so feel free to put up your YouTube links to some others in the comments.

2007 Second Round – Ohio State vs. Xavier

2005 Second Round – Wake Forest vs. West Virginia

2004 Second Round – Kentucky vs. UAB

2003 Second Round – Arizona vs. Gonzaga

Each day this week during the first two 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.

South Region Notes (Patrick Sellars)

• Everybody expects Baylor to have problems with  Old Dominion’s zone in their second round matchup. The zone ODU ran against Notre Dame in their first round game was one of the key reasons the Monarchs came out on top. Here is a great breakdown of tomorrow’s game from the American Chronicle.
• The Boston Herald takes a look at St. Mary’s center Omar Samhan and how much his opponents respect him , despite the trash talking.
• ESPN’s Brian Bennett questions whether this Duke team is different than the recent Blue Devils teams that lost early in the NCAA tournament.
• Mark Turgeon is one of the best up and coming coaches in college basketball, and here is an article recapping his unique coaching style. As a former Oregon assistant there are whisperings over in Eugene about whether they will offer Turgeon the job, and if he would even consider leaving what he has at Texas A&M.
• The New York Times sums up Cal’s first round win over Louisville. It’s pretty amazing that the Pac-10 is 2-0 in the tournament thus far, both wins coming against Big East teams.

Midwest Region Notes (Tom Hager)

• Tennessee head coach Bruce Pearl says that Ohio is a lot like his previous team, UW-Milwaukee.  In addition to being an extremely confident group, they Bobcats rely heavily on three point shooting.
• President Obama is at the 96.6th percentile of ESPN brackets after the first round.  However, he did have Georgetown going to the Elite Eight, so his chances at the grand prize may be less promising.
• For one of the first times all season, Cole Aldrich will be going up against somebody who is actually bigger than him in UNI’s Jordan Eglseder.  The Panthers’ big man was arrested earlier in the year on DUI charges, and his numbers have taken a slight dip since his return, but he will play a huge role in any upset bid by Northern Iowa.
• CBS Sports’ Gregg Doyel said that this Northern Iowa team is like other memorable cinderellas such as George Mason and Davidson.  His reasoning?  He has gone on record saying how UNI has no chance of winning,and that is what he said about the Patriots a few years ago.
• Despite playing for two previous teams before the Bobcats, Mike Freeman says that no player typifies Ohio basketball more than Armon Bassett.  Bassett was a key catalyst for Ohio’s rout of Georgetown, and he has 148 points in his last five games.

East Region Notes (Ryan Restivo from SienaSaintsBlog)

• Don’t look now but Kentucky coach John Calipari said he is concerned about Wake Forest who outrebounded Texas by 25 in their win Thursday. “They got 20 offensive rebounds against Texas, who prides itself in that toughness and that rebounding,” Calipari told the AP. “I just watched tape and, you know, you get sick to your stomach.” The Demon Deacons have momentum and nothing to lose against the Wildcats, the New Orleans Times-Picayune points out.
• Cornell waited for its moment for two years and finally put on a show over Temple using players that were largely overlooked by major college basketball.
• Wisconsin barely survived its first-round game against Wofford, who caught a tough break to end their first NCAA Tournament appearance.
• Is Washington soft? No way. The Seattle Times said Coach Lorenzo Romar let his players play in the final seconds and won the game his way.
• Darington Hobson hurt his wrist but he still has New Mexico thinking big.
• Missouri shut down Clemson’s Trevor Booker in their win today. CBSSports asks, will Bob Huggins and West Virginia be able to handle the pressure?

West Region Notes – (Andrew Murawa)

• While Murray State and its 31 wins didn’t exactly come out of nowhere to beat Vanderbilt in the first round, they know for sure now that they won’t be catching anyone by surprise, especially their second round opponent, Butler.  And even though senior forward Danero Thomas has become an overnight star in the wake of his buzzer-beating game-winner on Thursday, it’s back to business for him and his teammates who still have work to do.
• For its part, Butler will lean heavily on Kentuckian Shelvin Mack to help send the Racers back to Kentucky with just a single NCAA win. The Bulldogs, however, find Murray State to be a very familiar team: a very good college team hidden away in a relatively nondescript Midwest midmajor conference.
• While Jimmer Fredette has more important things on his mind today, BYU fans can look forward to sweating out his NBA draft decision this offseason.  While the Cougars have relied heavily on Fredette this season, it may have been his struggle with mononucleosis in January that helped BYU head coach Dave Rose discover what sophomore Michael Loyd, Jr. could do when given the chance
• Kansas State’s focus on Saturday will be to contest every shot Fredette takes and that challenge will primarily fall to Jacob Pullen. Meanwhile, BYU knows that they’ll need to improve their effectiveness on the glass against the Wildcats after getting outrebounded by Florida on Thursday.
• And, once again, Sunday’s game times have been released, with Syracuse and Gonzaga getting the early spotlight at 12:10pm EDT and Xavier/Pitt among a trio of games wrapping up the first weekend of the tournament with an estimated start-time of 4:50pm.

Over the next two days in a series of separate posts, RTC will break down all 16 of the second round 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 the Saturday games.

1:05 pm – #2 Villanova vs. #10 St. Mary’s  (Providence pod)

A great opening game of the day for the group of teams that produced the best opening day of the NCAA Tournament ever. A lot of experts are going to be calling for an upset here and based on the way these two teams are playing we can’t say that we blame them. The Wildcats came into the NCAA Tournament having lost five of seven games and nearly lost to Robert Morris (down by 7 with less than 4 minutes left before some controversial calls went ‘Nova’s way). On the other side, the Gaels stormed through the West Coast Conference Tournament and knocked off Richmond, a team that a lot of people had as a potential sleeper, in the first round. The key to this game will be how Reggie Redding handles Omar Samhan. After watching Samhan rip apart the Spiders, Jay Wright has to be concerned about his interior players going against one of the best low-post players in the country. On the other side, Saint Mary’s has to figure out how to deal with Scottie Reynolds and the rest of the Wildcat backcourt. They are certainly better equipped to match-up with Villanova’s perimeter players with Mickey McConnell and Matthew Dellavedova than the Wildcats are to handle Samhan. Saint Mary’s perimeter players pack enough offensive punch to make keep up with Villanova’s guards, but Mouphtaou Yarou and Redding shouldn’t challenge Samhan too much defensively. The one wildcard here is Reynolds. Will he “learn” from Wright’s “teaching moment” and become the Scottie Reynolds we knew for most of the past two seasons or will be the 2-15 from the field Reynolds?

The Skinny: Samhan overwhelms the Wildcats on the inside and advance into the Sweet 16 as this year’s Cinderella.

3:20 pm – #5 Butler vs. #13 Murray State  (San Jose pod)

The second game of the second round will feature the top mid-major program in the east versus an upstart who would love to get there themselves.  In their first round game, if you haven’t heard, the Racers’ Danero Thomas hit a shot at the buzzer to knock Vanderbilt out of the Tournament, but what you may not know about that game is that Murray State pretty much controlled it throughout.  It was very late when Vandy regained the lead and set the stage for Thomas’ game winner.  The point: Murray is better than your typical #13 seed Cinderella.  Butler, on the other hand, had a weak first half and a superb second half to put away UTEP.  It was two of the staples of Butler’s attack — relentless halfcourt defense and the three-ball — that allowed the Bulldogs to quickly take the lead and never look back against the Miners.  As for this game, Murray State does many of the same things that Butler does, it’s just that Brad Stevens’ team does those things better.  It will certainly be interesting to see how Butler responds to being the Big (Bull)Dog in an NCAA Tournament game, as they’re usually the upstart taking on some higher-seeded Kansas or Florida type of team.

The Skinny: We’d love to take Murray State here, but Butler isn’t going to let a johnny-come-lately out-Butler them en route to the Sweet Sixteen, so we expect Butler to hang on and win by 6-8 points.

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Alright, we’re through with three-fourths of the first round, and it’s time for the Friday night session.  This round of games always has some interesting television matchups as CBS tries to maximize interest in the after-work crowd.  We’re going to be tracking all of the games but we’ll move around to the most interesting ones as appropriate.  Here’s the lineup:

• #8 Gonzaga vs. #9 Florida State
• #7 Oklahoma State vs. #10 Georgia Tech
• #1 Duke vs. #16 Arkansas-Pine Bluff
• #5 Michigan State vs. #12 New Mexico State
• #1 Syracuse vs. #16 Vermont
• #2 Ohio State vs. #15 UC Santa Barbara
• #8 Louisville vs. #9 California
• #4 Maryland vs. #13 Houston

Let’s tip it off and see where it takes us…

7:15:  FSU-Gonzaga has already started and Gus Johnson is just waiting to explode over something.  I think that he senses this game might be his best chance tonight, with Vermont-Syracuse at his venue next.  One piece of news is that Norm Roberts has been fired at St. John’s, making him the second NYC-area Big East coach to be let go within the past few days.

7:21: So far, Gonzaga offense >> FSU defense.  A 9-0 run by the Zags has given them a nice early margin.  Georgia Tech is pitching a shutout over on the other channel, 6-0 so far.  With both of those ACC teams, you’re never really sure what you’re going to get.  So far it looks like “good” GT and “bad FSU.”

7:31: Goodness, the Seminole offense is ugly.  If they get themselves down too far here, they’re never going to be able to come back.  Quick aside, I was just thinking about this and they confirmed it.  The Big 12 is 5-1 right now, with the lone loss coming with Texas in overtime against Wake Forest.  The others: Big East (3-3), SEC (2-2), Big Ten (3-1), A10 (1-2), MWC (2-2), ACC (1-1).

7:37: The Zag offense is smokin’ hot right now – well over 50% from the field.  This one isn’t looking very good for FSU whatsoever.  Focusing over on Ga Tech-Oklahoma State for a while, which is at 15-15 at the moment.  Our sense on this game was that it would be a close game with OSU pulling it out at the end.  We’ll see whether that rings true.

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Yesterday’s Zeitlin/Moore/Walsh live-blog of the afternoon games was such a roaring success that we’ve decided to do it again.  Except without Zeitlin, Moore and Walsh.  Right.  Well, maybe they’ll stop by as guest panelists.  There is absolutely no way no how that today’s slate of games could possibly come close to matching the madness of yesterday, but we’ll still be there waiting on the next IshDanerAli shot to go down.  We obviously can’t promise you excitement on the court, but we can assure you that there will be zero mentions of Penn, St. Joe’s and Boston University.  Hope to see you guys around this afternoon…

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The single greatest First Round day in NCAA Tournament history.  Four last seconds shots, and this montage doesn’t even include the half-dozen other games that went down to the wire. Phenomenal.

First, at around 4:43 PM this afternoon in Silicon Valley…

Danero Thomas Gets Us Started (KC Star/M. Sanchez)

And then approximately 9:24 PM in OKC…

Ali Farokhmanesh Keeps Us Going (AP/T. Gutierrez)

Heading back to San Jose for QP’s bank shot at 9:59 PM…

Pondexter Keeps the Madness Going...

And finishing up at around 12:31 AM on Friday morning in the Big Ish-y…

Ish Finishes Us Off On a Magnificent Day of Hoops (AP/J. Bazemore)

Could things possibly be better tomorrow?  The mere contemplation of that possibility makes us a little shaky (well, that and the six coffees and two-and-a-half red bulls tonight).

Maybe this was overlooked amidst the relentless barrage of close games and buzzer-beaters yesterday, but West Virginia’s Da’Sean Butler had a little fun with the Twitter at the expense of conference rival Georgetown’s shocking loss to Ohio University, 97-83.

Spike Lee, of course, was at last week’s Big East Championship game wearing a Georgetown jersey.  He claims that he’s been a Hoya fan since the Ewing era, and maybe he has, but it’s still plenty interesting for a New York guy through and through to be seen rooting for a team from the District instead.  Much like you, we just watched that Reggie Miller vs. Spike Lee thing on ESPN’s Thirty at Thirty this week, so maybe Butler is auditioning for the new role of Spike’s nemesis?

As for Da’Smack, we’re not sure that making fun of a first round loser is the greatest idea one day before playing your own opening game (and especially the way the Big East has looked so far), but hey, we’re not the guy with seven hundred and forty-one game-winners this season either.  If he can back it up…