We continue the Sweet Sixteen tonight with games from the South Region in Arlington, Texas, and the Midwest Region in Indianapolis. Here are the breakdowns for tonight’s games.

#1 Louisville vs. #12 Oregon Midwest Regional Sweet Sixteen (at Indianapolis, IN) – 7:15 PM ET on CBS

It’s Russ’ World, We Just Live In It (Credit Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

The Midwest Regional descends on Indianapolis this weekend, with Louisville and Oregon kicking off the action in a matchup of red-hot teams. If not for Florida Gulf Coast’s otherworldly Tournament performance last week, we would likely be looking at the two most impressive teams of the first weekend. As the top overall seed in the Tournament, Louisville’s tour de force in Lexington may not have been unexpected, but it did drive home the notion that the Cardinals are still the team to beat – in this region, and beyond. On the flip side, Oregon’s pair of resounding victories were not expected (despite getting significant play as the most underseeded team in the field on Selection Sunday), but have quickly afforded the surging Ducks a lot of respect. They will head into a virtual road game as massive underdogs on Friday, but the last two weeks have proven that this is a talented and tough basketball team.

Do not expect Oregon to struggle with the aggressive Louisville defense as much as North Carolina A&T and Colorado State did. A quick briefing of the Oregon statistical profile may suggest otherwise – the Ducks are 264^th nationally in turnover percentage – but that number is a bit misleading. For one, quick tempo teams are generally going to turn the ball over more, and Oregon plays fast (48^th nationally in possessions per game). Also remember that starting PG Dominic Artis (I know, I know — how could we forget at this point?) missed more than half the Pac-12 season, and that backup PG Johnathan Loyd is just now beginning to hit his stride. These two guards will come as close to replicating the quickness and athleticism of that Louisville Siva-Smith combo as any duo the Cardinals have seen all season. Throw in athletes almost everywhere else on the floor – Emory and Dotson on the wings, Kazemi and Woods in the post – and there can be reasonable expectation that Oregon might actually be able to weather the turnover storm that has felled many Louisville foes.

If Oregon can manage that turnover battle, expect this to be a 40-minute game. Points will not come easily for the Cardinals against a well-school (and athletic) Oregon defense, and the Ducks are also a better rebounding team — at least on paper. Dana Altman’s X-factor will be the burgeoning freshman Dotson. If Dotson and others – here’s looking at you EJ Singler — can replicate the three point barrage that undid Saint Louis, Altman’s group has a legitimate change to swing the upset. Too much to ask for? Probably. This is not your typical #12 seed (how is Oregon a #12 seed again?), but they have run into a #1 seed that is playing its role all too well. I expect Oregon to prove a worthy challenger in all facets – managing turnovers, defending the dynamic Louisville backcourt, finding ways to score themselves – but ultimately they run into a team that is just a little better across the board. The Ducks will hang around, but Louisville should be safely bound for the Elite Eight.

The RTC Certified Pick: Louisville

#1 Kansas vs. #4 Michigan – South Regional Semifinal (at Arlington, TX) – 7:37 PM ET on TBS

The last time Michigan advanced this deep into the NCAA Tournament was all the way back in 1994 with the Fab Five coached by current San Diego State head coach Steve Fisher. Ranked in the Top 10 for much of the season, John Beilein’s team certainly won’t be content just advancing to the second weekend; it is Atlanta or bust for the young Wolverines. To advance to Sunday’s South Regional Final, they will have to knock off a team with a wealth of NCAA Tournament experience in the Kansas Jayhawks. Kansas advanced to the championship game last season losing to Kentucky, but are missing two key components of that squad—Thomas Robinson and Tyshawn Taylor. While Bill Self has led Kansas to another very successful season—a Big 12 regular season and tournament championship and 30+ wins for the fourth straight year—this edition of Kansas basketball is lacking a rock-solid point guard and dominant scorer. One could certainly make the argument that freshman Ben McLemore is that scorer, but he has largely been a no-show in Kansas’ first two games scoring just 13 points on 2-14 shooting from the field. The combination of Elijah Johnson and Naadir Tharpe at point guard has dished out 11 assists to ten turnovers. Nobody will argue their frontcourt dominance anchored by the defensive prowess of Jeff Withey, but seniors Kevin Young and Travis Releford are prototypical role players and not go-to threats. As such, when looking up and down the roster, this has been yet another good coaching job by Bill Self. If Kansas is to defeat Michigan and advance to Atlanta, Ben McLemore must play up to his Top 5 NBA Draft pick ability. Kansas’ most glaring weakness happens to be Michigan’s clear strength: point guard play. This game will be decided in the backcourt, and Trey Burke along with Tim Hardaway Jr. are simply playing much better basketball than Elijah Johnson and Ben McLemore. Also, let’s not forget the emergence of freshman Mitch McGary who has stepped up in a big way with Jordan Morgan’s nagging ankle injury. Morgan may return to the regular rotation tonight, but he is just 6’8” and would struggle handling Jeff Withey on the insdie. John Beilein doesn’t expect McGary to have a double-double kind of game like he had against Virginia Commonwealth, but if he is able to neutralize Withey then it is mission accomplished. Kansas would be the first one to tell you that they played just 20 good minutes of basketball in their first two games. If they get off to another slow start out of the gate like they did against Western Kentucky and North Carolina, they’ll be hard-pressed to climb their way back into the game.

The RTC Certified Pick: Michigan

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1. Another day another UCLA coaching search update. With Shaka Smart officially out of the picture, talk about Butler’s Brad Stevens is starting to heat up. First, ESPN broke the completely obvious news that he is UCLA’s top target, while also briefly reporting that Stevens and UCLA were in contract negotiations. Later, FoxSports reported that Stevens was actually in Westwood in the middle of negotiations with UCLA. This report has not been confirmed anywhere, though. However, as should be expected of the calm and quiet Stevens, he’s not commenting on the job at all, other than to say he is still the coach at Butler. And all Butler president James Danko can offer is that he hopes his head coach stats. Elsewhere, N.C. State head coach Mark Gottfried tweeted out that he is “committed” to staying in his current job, which really means nothing, as offering that statement does little but make him have to answer some tough questions if he were to wind up taking the UCLA job. Although you can probably read the tea leaves to find that Gottfried hasn’t received a whole lot of encouragement from those in charge of the UCLA search.
2. One other thing on the UCLA coaching search: for some reason, writers tangentially associated with the Colorado program keep trying to float Tad Boyle as a candidate for the Bruin job. And for no apparent reason. Certainly he’s a fine coach and the job he has done taking the Buffaloes to consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances (and, let’s face it, it should be three straight – CU got screwed in 2011) while building up a passionate new fanbase is commendable. But the UCLA job search would probably have to go pretty poorly, with name after name passing on the job, before Boyle gets hired. Again, no offense to Boyle who I think the world of as a coach and expect to have a bright future, but at this point, as a “deranged buffalo” points out, he just hasn’t done enough quite yet to merit the attention of athletic directors at the six elite “blueblood” college basketball programs.
3. Oh, and in case you forgot, the USC coaching job is also open, though there is nowhere near the speculation about it as there is across town. With some of the top candidates already out of the picture, names like Tommy Amaker, Tubby Smith, Tim Floyd, Mike Hopkins and, get this, Ben Howland, are at the top of the list.
4. Speaking of coaching searches, Oregon head coach Dana Altman has been a party in a couple entertaining searches. First, there was the extended and wildly optimistic Oregon search that wound up landing Altman, only after like 600 (note: that number is only an estimate) other coaches turned down Nike U. But Pac-12 fans may have forgotten the 2007 debacle where Altman accepted Arkansas’ offer for their head coaching position, only to renege a day later after a change of heart. I only bring this up now because, (1) well, I needed an additional point for my morning five, but also because (2) it goes to show just how drawn out and dramatic these coaching searches can be and (3) it is a testament to how lucky Oregon is to have Altman, one of the best coaches in the nation.
5. And, as we wrap up another week, we also wrap up the career of some great Pac-12 players, as Arizona’s demise in the Sweet 16 last night ends the college careers of Mark Lyons, Kevin Parrom and Solomon Hill. Hill, for one, did not go down without a fight, as Bruce Pascoe writes. He scored nine-straight in the middle of the half to rescue the Wildcats from a rough patch spanning the half and to keep his team within shouting distance of Ohio State. While his career at UA is done, he does go down in the record books, tied with Kyle Fogg for most games played in Wildcat history.

1. Texas Tech once hired Bob Knight. So why not Tubby Smith? Sources indicate the Red Raiders have met with Smith, a one-time national champion at Kentucky and the recently-fired head coach at Minnesota. The Red Raiders, who also netted Billy Gillispie two years ago after his promising coaching career fizzled at Kentucky, seem to have a knack for associating themselves with big names in the coaching business. Smith is clearly the best candidate on the list for Texas Tech at this point. It still remains to be seen what sort of consideration interim coach Chris Walker will get, but Smith is a respected name, regardless of how his tenures at Kentucky and Minnesota ended. And they never even ended that badly, comparatively speaking.
2. Smith might even be the perfect fit at Tech, according to one writer. He’s right about one thing– inking Smith to a deal would certainly create a “splash” in Lubbock, something this school could need. His six-year run with the Golden Gophers was not stellar, and he never finished above .500 in Big Ten play. He did make three NCAA Tournaments and slammed UCLA in the second round this year, but his team collapsed after a terrific start this year. Failing to reach the second weekend would have seemed unacceptable in December, but that’s how far the team fell within the span of a few months. Playing in a brutal Big Ten didn’t help, but point is, Smith wasn’t great at Minnesota. But he could be great in another situation, considering his success at Kentucky. Yes, yes, he won a title with Rick Pitino’s players and, sure, maybe it’s easier to win at a Kentucky, but you’re not going to find many available head coaches with Smith’s pedigree.
3. Amath M’Baye‘s decision this week to declare for the NBA Draft was a bit shocking, especially for Lon Kruger and his Oklahoma teammates. But perhaps it’s not such a bad decision after all. M’Baye has a life to live, and he has a family to help overseas and a professional career to pursue. As the article points out, he’d be almost 25 by the end of next season. He will graduate in fewer than two months. If he feels as though waiting a year to turn pro would slow his progress, then maybe it’s the best thing for him to move on. It’ll hurt, but it won’t cripple Oklahoma’s roster, and it will keep M’Baye moving forward in his own life. Win-win all around.
4. This story made waves in August, but it’s still a fun one: Kansas’ Justin Wesley will play Wilt Chamberlain in an upcoming film called “Jayhawkers.” How’s that for having big shoes to fill? Funny thing is, Wesley had never acted before starting this project. The film’s creator just needed somebody to fill the giant role and asked Bill Self for advice. They almost settled on Thomas Robinson, but Wesley’s body type was a little more conducive to the role. So Wesley it was, and the rest is history. Get your popcorn ready.
5. Marcus Foster turned down an in-state offer from SMU (plus Oklahoma and other nearby schools) to play at Kansas State next year. That has to hurt more after Foster earned Player of the Year honors in Texas’ Class 3A division. Even with Martavious Irving and Rodney McGruder graduating, he’ll still have to fight with Will Spradling, Angel Rodriguez, Shane Southwell and others for playing time as a freshman. But he’s good enough to do it. He can play a lot of different positions, and he also plays bigger and tougher than his 6’2” frame would suggest. The guy averaged 27 points per game in high school, too, hence the Player of the Year award. Bruce Weber will find a spot for him, and it’ll probably happen the second he steps in Manhattan.

Deepak is a writer for the Big Ten microsite of RTC. Follow him on Twitter for more about B1G hoops at @dee_b1g. 

Duke was scorching hot during the non-conference season which vaulted them to the #1 ranking in the polls but one of their tougher games was against Ohio State at Cameron Indoor during the Big Ten-ACC Challenge. Why is that game important when assessing Michigan State‘s game against Duke? Because despite their offensive woes back in November, the Buckeyes were able to control the tempo for most of the game because they held the Duke backcourt – Seth Curry and Quinn Cook – to a combined 4-16 shooting from the field which stymied the Blue Devils’ offense for most of the game. The Spartans play good perimeter defense by holding their opponents to just 29% shooting from beyond the arc so it is likely that they won’t have too much trouble with Curry or Cook, but Ryan Kelly could cause some havoc which will be the key to the Sweet 16 match-up between these teams. Kelly can shoot from anywhere in a half-court set (55% eFG) and will challenge the State defenders to play good defense consistently against the pick-and-roll. The following are two thoughts around the Spartans’ chances of being effective against Ryan Kelly.

Branden Dawson will be busy on the defensive end against Duke. (Al Goldis/AP)

• Branden Dawson’s services are needed on Friday night on the defense. Dawson is best equipped player to take on the assignment of chasing Kelly around the screens and covering him on the pick-and-roll plays. Even though Dawson gives a few inches in height to Kelly (6’11” to 6’6″), the sophomore wing has the weight to prevent Kelly from dribbling past him into the paint. Dawson is also quick enough to run around the screens to defend Kelly’s perimeter shot and exhaustion won’t be an issue for him because he isn’t one of the primary scoring options for Tom Izzo. Unlike Dawson, if Adreian Payne is asked to run around Kelly, he will be tired and State needs him to produce on the offensive end. Historically, Izzo’s successful teams have always had a designated defensive stopper, for example Travis Walton from 2009. Dawson has the athleticism and the commitment to defense which could make him that stopper that State needs to make a Final Four. In case he gets into foul trouble, freshman guard Denzel Valentine can step in to give him a breather.  Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

Tonight’s Lede. Introducing The Second Weekend. The biggest story of the first weekend turned a nation of disenchanted hoops viewers into an almost undivided Florida Gulf Coast cheering section. The dunks, the dance moves, the head coach’s fairy tale wife, and everything else that endeared the country to FGCU was the perfect March story. It was a lot of fun, and it may not yet be over. It also obscured one surprising fact: aside from the wacky West region, the first three rounds played out pretty much according to plan. Wichita State and La Salle were shots out of the dark, but the rest of the field – even Oregon, seed optics aside, by all accounts looks like a top-four or five seed – was qualifiably chalky. Thursday night’s games gave us a little bit of everything: That wholly unpredictable 13-9 matchup out of the West, Indiana tried to crack open the tried-and-true Orange 2-3 zone, Marquette attempted (and succeeded) to win a game without throwing every Golden Eagles fan into cardiac arrest in the closing minutes and Ohio State looked out onto a region of utmost opportunity, with only two putatively favorable games standing in the way of a trip to Atlanta. After a week to collect your first weekend thoughts, we begin anew with more games to breakdown, slice up and analyze with objective eyes.

Your Watercooler Moment. Bye-Bye Hoosiers. 

The Orange zone flummoxed IU all game long (Getty Images).

Setting aside the hegemonically dominant title teams for which matchups – stylistic and individual – don’t negate talent and athleticism advantages, most National Title hopefuls need favorable team-on-team scenarios to keep the dream alive. They need their spread motion offense to churn at high speeds, to swing the ball around at a rapid pace and to not get bogged down into the most unfailingly meddlesome zone defense of all time. Indiana needed all of those things to fall just right in order to get by Syracuse Thursday night, but none of them did. The matchup nightmare that is Boeheim’s zone detonated Indiana’s uptempo offensive attack, and the Hoosiers – as has often been the case against stylistically discordant opposition this season – couldn’t make the right adjustments at the right times. Syracuse dominated from the jump by invading passing lanes and running shooters off the three-point line and never allowing the Hoosiers to dictate the terms of engagement. This was Syracuse’s game, to be played by Syracuse’s grinding half-court style, to the extreme detriment of an IU team many projected to not only advance out of a manageable East region, but also challenge Louisville in the national title game. One part of that equation is off the table, and the Orange – a team that caught lightning in a bottle at the end of the regular season and (save the second half of the Big East tournament championship game) has played well above its four-seed designation ever since – deserve all the credit. Indiana is going home earlier than it (and most fans) ever expected to, and frankly, there isn’t much the Hoosiers could have done to prevent that dour conclusion. Syracuse played like the one-seed it purported to be for large chunks of the season, and Indiana just didn’t hold up its end of the bargain.

Tonight’s Quick Hits…

• When Season-Long Doubters Are Put To Rest. If Ohio State doesn’t make the Final Four, it will be a disappointment. The favorable draw it was dealt with so much high-seed carnage in the first three rounds laid a golden two-game path to the Georgia Dome, a path that began Thursday with No. 6 Arizona. The Buckeyes are better than Sean Miller’s team, but if OSU was going to fall in Los Angeles, it was going to be because DeShaun Thomas was burdened with too much of the scoring load. This problem isn’t specific to Ohio State’s NCAA Tournament prognosis; the Buckeyes have dealt with this issue all season. And on Thursday, they dealt with it by unleashing LaQuinton Ross for 17 points, 14 of those coming in the second half, and a game-winning three with two seconds remaining that had the same basic set-up as Aaron Craft’s dagger to fell Iowa State in the third round. The only difference? Craft passed it up and Ross stroked it to push the Buckeyes into the Elite Eight.

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Andrew Murawa (@amurawa) is reporting from the West Region semifinals in Los Angeles, California, this weekend.

Three Key Takeaways.

1. No Shock. While Wichita State came into its first two games as underdogs, the Shockers were the favorite on Thursday night. And they played like it. Against a La Salle team featuring a variety of options around the perimeter, the Shockers displayed not only the athleticism and quickness to stick with all of those smaller offensive options, but guys like Carl Hall and Cleanthony Early – both bigger than all but one player in the La Salle rotation – operated with impunity in the middle. Wichita dominated on the glass, grabbing 45.9% of their own misses and 77.9% of La Salle’s, while outscoring the Explorers in the paint 40-26 (a number that was 24-10 at half). The Shockers never trailed and spent the final 36 minutes of the game leading by at least eight points.
2. But Can They Play With The Buckeyes? The Shockers have time and again shown an ability to play with their opponents in this NCAA Tournament regardless of the style of play they face. Against the rugged Pitt Panthers, the Shockers fought them tooth and nail on the glass and dominated them despite shooting just 2-of-20 from deep. Against the high-scoring Gonzaga Bulldogs, Wichita got it done with improbably hot shooting, knocking down 14 threes. And against La Salle they locked up perimeter scorers on the defensive end and pounded it inside on offense. Ohio State is certainly a different animal all together, but this Shockers team has the athleticism at all areas of the floor to compete with the big favorite.
3. Ron Baker, Late Season Addition. The Shockers missed their redshirt freshman guard for 21 games this season due to injury, but he is back with a vengeance. He scored 16 efficient points against Gonzaga and did a ton of other work, racking up a +19 plus/minus number in that game. Tonight he was his same versatile self, knocking down a couple more threes on the way to 13 points for the night and a +22 plus/minus (second on his team only to Hall’s +24), supplying heady passing, timely shooting and some great defensive effort

Star of the Game.  Carl Hall, Wichita State. The newly shorn Shocker big fella controlled the paint tonight, knocking down seven of eight first half shots and grabbing six boards in helping his team build up an insurmountable 16-point halftime lead. While he wasn’t nearly as effective in the second half as the game turned into a guard-dominated affair (he wound up with 16 points, eight boards and three blocks), the damage had been done.

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RTC is reporting from the East Region semifinals in Washington, DC, this weekend.

Syracuse Got to the Rim Repeatedly Tonight in DC

1. The Syracuse Zone Just Shut Down the Nation’s Best Offense. According to KenPom, Indiana came into today with a 122.8 offensive rating, the best in the country. IU also averaged 78.6 points per game this year, a statistic that put the Hoosiers among the top handful of teams in college basketball. This evening? At the 10:00-minute mark in the second half, the Hoosiers had a total of 37 points, marking the third straight game that the Orange had held an NCAA Tournament team (Montana and Cal) in the 30s or below. The fact of the matter is that no team, not even one the quality of Indiana, can adequately prepare for the albatross-long arms of the Syracuse zone and the athleticism of their interior people. Every shot within the arc was contested — the Orange ended up with 11 blocks — and the great equalizer of the three-point shot was cut off as well — IU shot 3-of-15, including an oh-fer from Jordan Hulls.
2. Cody Zeller Was Exposed. We noticed this during last weekend’s Temple game as well, but Zeller has trouble finishing plays inside against long and athletic forwards. This shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone, as it’s as elementary a concept as there is in college basketball — it’s difficult to score over long athletes. But Zeller has a tendency to make himself smaller by contorting his body so that it’s parallel with the ground, and even when he goes straight up to the rim, it hasn’t been with authority. Syracuse blocked or got a piece of six of Zeller’s misses tonight, and you had better believe that NBA scouts will be reviewing the tape of his last two games in particular to get a better sense of whether Zeller has the toughness and the explosiveness to finish at the rim in a league where everyone is a long athlete.
3. Bad Syracuse Only Made a Brief Appearance. If Syracuse is to win three more games to give Jim Boeheim his second national title, they’ll obviously have to keep playing exceptional defense in the same way that they did tonight. The recurring issue with this team has been what might endearingly be called “losing their minds” for large stretches of games. We saw it in the final three minutes of the California game last weekend, where the Orange blew a comfortable late lead to give the Bears a chance. We’ve seen it multiple other times this season as well. Except for a very brief stretch in the early part of the second half tonight, though, the Orange avoided that particular calamity here — MCW only had a single turnover, and while Brandon Triche (six) and CJ Fair (four) had way too many of the team total of 15, there weren’t enough of them in a row to give Indiana the lift it needed to make a substantial run. The closest the game ever got in the second half was a six-point margin at 38-32, but a layup on the other end allowed the Orange to race right back out to a quick double-figure lead. Bad Syracuse probably only appeared for a couple minutes tonight, and the team will need to keep it under wraps in order to push to the Final Four and beyond.

Star of the Game. Michael Carter-Williams, Syracuse. Given that his family has been dealing with a tragic fire at their home in the Boston area this week, it was a reasonable question to ask whether MCW would be fully focused on the game tonight. Needless to say, he seemed more locked in than he has for most of the season, scoring 24 points, grabbing six rebounds and four steals, but most importantly, only committing a single turnover. When MCW is on his game, Syracuse is very tough to beat.

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Andrew Murawa (@amurawa) is reporting from the West Region semifinals in Los Angeles, California, this weekend.

Three Key Takeaways.

It Was a Sea of Red in LA Tonight

1. Madness. After 39 minutes, 40 seconds and change, these two teams were dead even subsequent to a wild exchange of runs. One team killed it for the first 15 minutes, the other controlled the next 20-plus. And then down the stretch it was two prizefighters standing in the middlle of the ring throwing haymakers. Arizona’s seniors Solomon Hill and Mark Lyons threw together a barrage of scoring. Ohio State responded with play-making from Aaron Craft and shotmaking from LaQuinton Ross. And both teams went at it defensively. There was a crazy late run for Arizona to tie things up, but for the second straight game with the clock running down in regulation, the Buckeyes got a huge three-point bucket, this one from the newly confident Ross in the waning seconds, to provide the difference.
2. The Buckeyes Have Found Their Additional Scorers. Much of the year the talk was about “who can Ohio State find to be its second scorer?” DeShaun Thomas has regularly been the leading man for the Bucks, pacing the team in scoring all year long and again tonight. But down the stretch tonight, it was Ross who made play after play after play for them, and in a variety of ways. He scored 14 of the Buckeyes last 17 points and he did it both with the drive, the ability to get to the line and, shown most spectacularly on the final bucket, with deep three-point range. Once a highly regarded recruit, it has taken awhile, but Ross has blossomed in a hurry in March. Meanwhile, Thomas was largely silent late after scoring 20 points in the games’ first 31 minutes.
3. Tale of Two Arizonas. For the first 15 minutes or so, the Wildcats looked like the best team on the court, with Lyons getting to the hole regularly and drawing a couple of fouls on Craft. The freshman bigs were contributing, Nick Johnson looked like the best player on the floor and the Arizona fans in attendance were confident. Then, over about an 11-minute stretch spanning the half, the Ohio State defense turned on the juice, the Cats got frustrated and they gave up a 22-6 run over an 11:24 period. To knock off a team as solid and experienced as the Buckeyes, you’ve really got to play well for all 40 minutes.

Star of the Game.  LaQuinton Ross, Ohio State. For the second straight game, Ross came up large for the Buckeyes, scoring 17 for the game. Fourteen of those came after the break and all of those came in the last eight minutes. As recently as March 10 against Illinois, he was earning just single-digit minutes, but as the Buckeyes forge ahead into the Elite Eight, Ross has become a major factor, a 6’8” match-up nightmare who can shoot over smaller, quicker defenders or blow by bigger defenders.

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RTC is reporting from the East Region semifinals in Washington, DC, this weekend.

Marquette Fans and Their Interesting Wardrobes Move On…

1. Marquette Played Like It Has Been Here Before. This is Buzz Williams’ third straight Sweet Sixteen with the Golden Eagles and it showed. Two years ago, Marquette got creamed by North Carolina in the Sweet Sixteen; last year his team competed better against Florida before the Gators pulled away and won by 10 points. This time around, it was Williams’ group that came into the regional as the experienced squad — key players such as Vander Blue, Jamil Wilson, Davante Gardner and Chris Otule had already been to the Sweet Sixteen twice before, while not a single player on the Miami roster had such great experience. Preparation, of course, is key, but the mental game can almost be as important as the physical one. Marquette played with a poise and focus that belied its status as the underdog here tonight.
2. These Golden Eagles Are One Resilient Group. Marquette made it a point to punch the Hurricanes right in the mouth from the opening tip and it worked. Their game plan was quite clearly to out-tough Miami to the ball and to find the big men inside off dribble penetration and ball reversals. The Golden Eagles only took a total of six three-point attempts all evening (making three), bolstering the point that they thought the weakness in the Miami defense was on the interior. Keeping in mind that the Golden Eagles lost two second round draft picks in Darius Johnson-Odom and Jae Crowder last season, the ability for Marquette players to get better year-over-year and keep the program not only relevant but improving is phenomenal. Most people who know the sport of college basketball recognize that Williams is one of the best coaches in the business, but with a run like this (again), it’s time for the rest of America to start to notice.
3. You Gotta Make Shots. It’s a simple-sounding proposition, but Miami started cold, played cold, and finished cold tonight. A 20.7% first half was followed by a better 47.1% second half, but many of those makes came after the game was out of reach. The Hurricanes ended with a 34.9% shooting night, with the backcourt of Shane Larkin (4-of-8), Durand Scott (3-of-13), Trey McKinney-Jones (3-of-10) and Rion Brown (2-of-12) really finding a miserable existence throughout the game. Jim Larranaga said afterward that his team was out of sync all night and that his team didn’t “look like [them]selves” due to a number of external factors.

Star of the Game. The Marquette Big Men. Maybe Miami’s Reggie Johnson was missed after all. The trio of Chris Otule, Davante Gardner and Jamil Wilson consistently found themselves in good position to receive passes near the basket and convert them. They combined to score 41 points on 15-of-25 shooting from the field, grabbed 15 rebounds and only committed three fouls. None of the three were dominant, but Miami had no answer for pushing them away from the basket and keeping them quiet, either.

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As the season winds down and Big 12 teams continue to find themselves eliminated from the post-season, we’re taking a look back on a team-by-team basis at the 2012-13 season. Next up: Oklahoma State.

Final Record: 24-9 (13-5)

The Expectations: Oklahoma State was considered a mixed bag before the season began. There were whispers that Travis Ford should worry about his job status, and even though he’d brought in stud freshman Marcus Smart, Ford had gained an undesirable reputation as the Guy Who Recruits But Can’t Coach. Everybody universally agreed that with Smart, sophomore Le’Bryan Nash, Markel Brown and several other returning contributors, this team had good enough individual players to compete near the top of the Big 12. But would they be the right assortment of pieces? This had been a bad team a year ago, and heart-and-soul guard Keiton Page had graduated. Luckily, scouts and opposing coaches raved about Marcus Smart in the preseason. They told us he wasn’t a typical freshmen — that he was mature beyond his years and the missing piece that would help Nash reach his expectations as a scoring wing. He wasn’t necessarily a natural point guard, though, so there were questions as to whether he’d be effective in that position.

The Actual Result: Smart can play point. Pretty freakin’ well, actually. So well that he was named Big 12 Player of the Year. As the team’s top defender, top scorer, top assists man and second-leading rebounder, Smart was that rare freshman leader who demanded respect from his teammates and completely revamped the attitude within his program. He opened up more opportunities for Nash, and that was evident right away. In the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, the Cowboys dismantled North Carolina State thanks to 43 combined points from Smart and Nash — the Wolfpack were ranked in the top-10 at the time. The Cowboys struggled from a New Year’s hangover and lost four of six games from December 31 to January 21. They couldn’t close the deal at home against Gonzaga in one of the more anticipated home games at Gallagher-Iba in quite some time, and then they lost three road games at Oklahoma, Kansas State and Baylor. That’s when the light truly went on in Stillwater. On February 2, the Cowboys won at Kansas and rode into mid-February with a seven-game winning streak. With a chance to take control of the league and sweep Kansas on February 20, Oklahoma State dropped a double-overtime heartbreaker to the Jayhawks an in ugly game that set basketball back by at least five decades. It couldn’t break KU’s hold on the Big 12, but it prevented Kansas State from winning the league outright by knocking off the Wildcats at home in the regular season finale. KSU returned the favor by handling OSU fairly easily in the Big 12 semifinals the next week. Then, the NCAA Tournament selection committee decided to play a cruel joke on Oklahoma State, rewarding its 24-win season with a #5/#12 match-up against Oregon. The Ducks, ranked in the Top 25 for much of the year, were probably under-seeded by at least four lines. At least. Guess what happened? Oklahoma State lost.

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