Three Key Takeaways.

1. Ugly Offense Favors the Medusa. I don’t believe I’ve ever witnessed a team make eight field goals in a single half where seven of those were threes. Yet that’s what Louisville did in the first half, and remarkably, they led the game by five at the intermission. Neither team was going to set the other’s defense on fire in this slugfest, but the fact that Louisville was able to scrape up as much offense as it could find in the first half through perimeter shooting allowed it to stick around long enough to put together a game-winning run in the second half. When MSU started to see its own blood, they panicked a bit and lose composure — at that point, the game was over.
   
2. Chane Behanan Makes Plays. If I had to pick a single Cardinal on the offensive end to highlight here, it would have to be the freshman Behanan. The do-everything forward was seemingly in the right place on a number of UL’s offensive possessions, finding put-back opportunities and steals when the Cards needed it most. In a tight defensive game like this one, ripping balls away from the burly and physical MSU big men to drop layups are game-winning plays, and that’s what Behanan did several times tonight.
3. Pitino Has This Team Believing. They’re truly not that talented individually, and they have an awful lot of trouble putting the ball in the hole consistently, but Rick Pitino has done one of his best coaching jobs at Louisville in getting his players to buy in and believe in their system. If you think back to Pitino’s running-and-gunning teams at Providence and Kentucky, it’s rather ridiculous to think about a team of his playing possession-by-possession and favoring the halfcourt. Yet, that’s the reality and guys like Peyton Siva, Dieng, Behanan and the rest are making it work. He’s one win away from his sixth Final Four.
   

Star of the Game. Gorgui Dieng, Louisville. The Louisville center completely changed the complexion of the game with his defense tonight. His seven blocks and three steals had an awful lot to do with Michigan State’s horrific 28.6% shooting night. He also grabbed nine rebounds and even threw in his first trey of the season for good measure.

The NCAA Tournament is here and there’s more news, commentary and analysis than any of us can possibly keep up with. To make things a little easier, we’ll bring you a list of daily links gathered about teams in each of the four regions all the way through the Final Four.

Midwest Region

• Ohio University has seen its share of stars come through its program, but that has not translated into postseason success until this year. Cincinnati may be playing in Boston as part of the East Regional, but several individuals from the Cincinnati area have played key roles in the growth of Ohio’s program.
• Meanwhile, Ohio U. has been looking for a way to differentiate itself from their more well-known neighbors in Columbus and this year’s NCAA Tournament run may be doing the trick.
• The big topic for North Carolina is the right wrist of Kendall Marshall. Yesterday, Marshall had his cast removed, but even Roy Williams is unsure of Marshall’s status. The one thing everyone is certain of is that Marshall’s injury highlights the importance of Dexter Strickland‘s injury earlier this season. As a result of Marshall’s injury, the Tar Heels might be forced to rely on unproven guards Stillman White and Justin Watts.
• It has been a rough month for the ACC, but North Carolina State is providing the conference with some unexpected strength. Richard Howell has struggled this season to avoid foul trouble, which could be a major issue against the talented Jayhawk frontline.
• It will never live up to the shot by Mario Chalmers, but Elijah Johnson‘s three-pointer against Purdue might just go down in Kansas lore if Bill Self’s team can continue their run. Johnson’s ability to hit that shot also reflects his growth from a role player to a leader on this Kansas team.

West Region

• Buzz Williams may think that he doesn’t ‘belong’ in a regional with Tom Izzo, Rick Pitino, and Billy Donovan (and their 14 Final Four appearances combined), but he’s there regardless, and the colorful (and light-footed) head coach has a pretty good shot to play on with what might be his best team in Milwaukee.
• Florida knows that if it is going to pull off the upset in the regional semifinals tonight, it’ll take a team effort to combat the Golden Eagles’ football-like mentality when it comes to defense.
• The Gators have played better in March in large part because of their elite freshman, Bradley Beal. Billy Donovan sat the basketball prodigy down several weeks ago and instructed him to stop worrying about stepping on the upperclassmen’s toes. It seems to be working.
• Rick Pitino has his Louisville Cardinals staying in an isolated resort a half-hour from downtown Phoenix, locked in and focusing completely on tonight’s game against Michigan State. In a battle of meaningless streaks, Pitino seeks to go 10-0 for his career in Sweet Sixteen games, while Tom Izzo seeks to take his fourth #1 seed to the Final Four (his previous three #1 seeds also went)
• Tom Izzo gets credit for a lot of things, but he probably doesn’t get enough credit for avoiding upsets in the NCAA Tournament. As Michael Rosenberg writes, Izzo has largely beaten the teams that MSU is supposed to beat, which probably doesn’t make Louisville feel very good going into tonight’s contest.

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Rush The Court is back with another edition of One on One: An Interview Series, which we will bring you periodically throughout the year. If you have any specific interview requests or want us to interview you, shoot us an email at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Last week we were lucky enough to spend 15 minutes with one-half of the Inside the NBA analyst crew on TNT, Charles Barkley. This week we are back with his compatriot on that show as well as during Turner Sports’ studio coverage of the NCAA Tournament, Kenny Smith. The Jet is promoting Coke Zero during March Madness with its Watch & Score Instant Win Game, where fans  pick a team to advance to the next round and a with a correct pick, a shot at winning a trip to the 2013 Final Four in Atlanta. 

Kenny Plays off Barkley on Inside the NBA on TNT

Rush the Court: Kenny, let’s jump right in to the biggest news coming out of the weekend, which is that the point guard at your alma mater, North Carolina, has a broken wrist and may or may not be able to play this coming weekend. Can you relate the situation facing Kendall Marshall and UNC right now to the situation you dealt with in your freshman season there when you broke your wrist?

Kenny Smith: Except for the timing of it, it’s pretty much exact. He broke his wrist. I broke my wrist. He has a pin in his wrist. I have a pin in my wrist. At the time, I was out three or four weeks and it was earlier in the season, but I had to wear a cast when I came back. Keep in mind, though, this is not an injury. This is not an injury like a sprained ankle. This is a break. It’s broken. He has a broken wrist. Guys can play through a sprained ankle or whatever else if it’s an injury, but this is a broken bone. What makes him a great player is his ability to distribute the basketball. His effectiveness is a little different than what I could do then, in terms of scoring and so forth, but I am not sure that he can get back on the court and play with a broken wrist.

RTC: He had surgery on Monday and nobody seems to be able to say whether he’ll be able to play or not at this point. My question is whether a guy who isn’t necessarily a great scorer needs to have full capacity of both hands in order to help his team out. Can he dribble or distribute the ball at all with a pin in his wrist five days after breaking it?

KS: The question isn’t whether he can do those things, the question is whether he can get on the court. Because if he can get on the court, he can manage it. But when you’re talking about a broken wrist and whether it will bend without terrible pain or even if you can move it at all, that’s the bigger issue. But if he can get on the court, he can manage it. The problem is that very few people in his position can get on the court that quickly.

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Yesterday we released our Sweet Sixteen Podblasts covering Thursday night’s East and West Regions. Today we’re releasing our South and Midwest Region versions, featuring guest appearances from RTC NCAA Tournament correspondents, Kevin Doyle (South), and Evan Jacoby (Midwest). We’ll be back next week with full Final Four analysis, so keep an ear out for that too.

South Region

Midwest Region

Kevin Doyle is the NCAA Tournament’s South Region correspondent. 

The South Regional begins Friday night in Atlanta with with Baylor vs. Xavier followed by Kentucky vs. Indiana. Our East Regional Reset and West Regional Reset published Tuesday, while our Midwest Regional Reset published earlier today.Make sure to follow RTCSouthRegion for news and analysis from Atlanta throughout the weekend.

New Favorite: #1 Kentucky (34-2, 16-0 SEC). Nothing new here as Kentucky remains the clear-cut favorite to advance to New Orleans. Big Blue had nothing more than a mere tune-up in its first two games of the Dance getting by Western Kentucky and Iowa State with ease. Although the Cyclones actually were tied with Kentucky in the second half, the game was never in doubt and the Wildcats rolled to a 16-point victory. Next on tap for Cal and his kids: A rematch with the Indiana Hoosiers who handed them their only loss of the regular season. In that game back in December, however, Anthony Davis and Terrence Jones combined for just 10 points — expect a different outcome in round two.

Cat-lanta Will Be Overrun With Blue This Weekend

Horse of Darkness: #10 Xavier (23-12, 10-6 Atlantic 10). X looked down for the count just weeks ago. They never seemed to recover after their brawl against cross-town rival Cincinnati, and limped to a rather pedestrian 10-6 record in the Atlantic 10. Don’t look now, but the Musketeers are getting it together at just the right time. Lest we forget that this was a Top 10 team in December with wins against Vanderbilt, Purdue, and Cincinnati, but Xavier is returning to that early season form. Tu Holloway is playing like the future NBA’er that he is — his miraculous bank shot to propel Xavier to a comeback win against Notre Dame and then his 21 points against Lehigh are telltale signs that his squad is a legitimate threat. It will be no easy task to get past Baylor, but the three-headed monster of Holloway-Lyons-Frease is capable of putting up quite the fight. If Xavier is able to stay within a few possessions down the stretch, there may not be another player in the Tournament whose hands I would want the ball in other than Holloway’s.

Biggest Surprise (1st Weekend): #15 Lehigh 75, #2 Duke 70. Truth be told, there were probably four teams worthy of consideration for this spot as the South Region witnessed four double digit seeds win its first round game — only six other upsets occurred in the entire second round. However, it really is a no-brainer that Lehigh was the biggest shock of the opening weekend. It was common knowledge that Duke’s defense was subpar — especially with the absence of Ryan Kelly from the lineup — and that C.J. McCollum would for all intents and purposes have his standard 20+ point night. But, would this really all add up to the #15 seeded Lehigh Mountain Hawks knocking out the Dukies? Yes, it did. As Coach K said in his postgame presser, C.J. McCollum was the best player on the floor last Friday night, and that was enough to send the Blue Devil faithful that packed the Greensboro Coliseum home shaking their collective heads. Just two nights later, Lehigh jumped out to a 35-20 lead over Xavier and seemed destined to earn a spot in the Sweet Sixteen mind you, this is a school that had never won an NCAA Tournament game in its schools history prior to this year — but they could not close the door against the Musketeers.

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After such a successful weekend picking teams to advance in our brackets (what, you didn’t go 46-2 like us?), the RTC Podcast crew is back for another set of analytical Podblasts covering each region this week. Today we release a Podblast for the two regions that will get under way on Thursday night in Boston and Phoenix, the East and West Regions. Brian Otskey joins us as the NCAA East correspondent, and Andrew Murawa is back as the NCAA West correspondent. Tomorrow we’ll have the South and Midwest Regions published for your podcasting pleasure.

East Region Sweet Sixteen Podblast

West Region Sweet Sixteen Podblast

Three weeks ago today we started March Madness with over 320 teams dreaming of a national title. We’re now down to only 16, and four of those are from the great state of Ohio! The power conferences represent well, with the Big East and Big Ten each putting four teams into the regional semifinals, and the ACC, SEC, and Big 12 adding two more each. The Atlantic 10’s Xavier and MAC’s Ohio are the two strangers at the party.

Three key takeaways.

1. Louisville Plays Ugly But Effectively. The Cards’ defense is one of the best in the country, and its pressure defense and trapping schemes kept New Mexico off balance for most of the evening. Outside of the Lobos’ three best players — Drew Gordon and Kendall Williams — the rest of the team shot a putrid 9-of-32 from the field. Louisville did a great job at forcing the ball into the hands of these players and inviting them to try to make plays that they were not comfortable with making. The Cards also shut down New Mexico’s three-point attack tonight, holding the Lobos to a five-trey, 22% effort, one of their three worst long-range performances on the season.
2. Russ Smith is a Special Sort of Crazy. He may smile a lot like fellow New Yorker Kemba Walker, but his game is quite a bit more wild and unpredictable. That’s part of the charm, and Pitino said as much in the postgame news conference. When on target, as Smith was for much of tonight — 17 points, three steals — he can be the offensive X-factor that the Cardinals need to come up with enough points to beat good teams. But when he’s off, as in his previous four games where he shot 5-of-32 from the field and committed 10 turnovers, he can serve to destroy any momentum that the Cards may have had. Still, you can tell that Pitino really believes in him, and thinks he can harness the obvious talent that the sophomore has at his disposal.
3. Still Unsure About Steve Alford. Alford has to be commended for winning the Mountain West (both a share of the regular season and the tournament), but in the last three seasons, he’s brought a 30-win team and a 28-win team to the round of 32 and been unable to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. Drew Gordon might be the only player on either roster who is an NBA first round pick (apologies to Wayne Blackshear), but in just looking at the two teams matching up against each other, it wasn’t obvious which team was from the power league and which wasn’t. The point is that in both 2010 and 2012 the talent differential wasn’t that great, if it existed at all, and yet it appeared that his players were too sloppy and suffered too many mental breakdowns to successfully win the game. It’ll be interesting to see if Alford can break through this round at some point in the near future.

Star(s) of the game. Peyton Siva, Louisville. It may seem odd to choose a player who only scored six points on 2-6 shooting, but his split through a double-team to drive for a bucket was perhaps equaled only by his jump-stop leading to an assist to a cutting Gorgui Dieng in importance. Put simply, he made the plays necessary to win the game for his team tonight.

Quotable. “Russ Smith, nobody wanted, I don’t care what he tells you.” — Rick Pitino, on the wild yet talented guard who scored 17 points tonight.

Sights & Sounds. Russ Smith was so happy with his game tonight and the big win that he decided to insert himself into Rick Pitino’s interview after the game. That would be him, doing the rabbit ears, behind his coach.

What’s Next? Louisville advances to play the winner of #1 Michigan State vs. #8 St. Louis next weekend in Phoenix. If it ends up being the Spartans, that game could be uglier than anything we’ve seen all season in college basketball. Still, an Izzo vs. Pitino matchup is never a bad thing, so if it comes to pass, expect fireworks of one kind or another.

Three key takeaways.

1. Indiana Never Stopped Believing. Even when Bradford Burgess, a career 76% shooter from the foul line, stepped up with a three-point lead and two shots coming, it was clear that Indiana still believed that it was going to win the game. After Burgess missed both, Victor Oladipo’s drive to the left to get to the rim and-one was a game-winning kind of play. At that point, with VCU having only scored four minutes in the previous 12 minutes, it was just a matter of IU finding the way to win. After another missed three from VCU, Will Sheehey’s shot was almost destined to go down.
2. Victor Oladipo and Will Sheehey Were the Heroes, But Christian Watford Saved the Day. Oladipo and Sheehey will probably get most of the ink for their two game-changing offensive plays for Indiana in the last minute of action, but it was Watford’s mini-explosion near the tail of the first half that brought IU back from the brink. Down 42-33 and looking very much like a team on wobbly legs, Watford took it upon himself to steady his team by hitting back-to-back threes and a couple of free throws to cap an 8-0 run to close the half and get IU back in the ball game.
3. Is This It For Shaka? We’ve had the benefit of observing Shaka Smart in the NCAA Tournament for the better part of both last year’s and this year’s runs, and there’s absolutely no question that he is incredibly driven. Whether he’ll continue that drive at VCU or another school like Illinois is up for debate, but the way his players are fully committed to him and buy in completely to his game plans highly suggests that he will be successful no matter where he ends up. Is Illinois the right place — so much of success there depends on the Chicago pipeline, but it’ll certainly be interested to see him courted in the next month or so.
   

Star(s) of the game. Christian Watford, Indiana. As mentioned above, it was Watford’s personal 8-0 run that brought his Hoosiers back from the brink of being in big trouble heading into the halftime break. He ended the game with 16/5 with four threes and two steals, but in terms of stifling momentum, his contributions were invaluable.

Quotable. “Forever, I don’t get over games like this.” VCU head coach Shaka Smart, responding to a question about how it felt to lose this game in the way that the Rams did.

What’s Next? Indiana will move on to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time in a decade (2002, under Mike Davis), where the Hoosiers at that time took down overall #1 Duke in a classic battle. Will IU have the chops to bring down another #1 in Kentucky.

Are you exhausted, exhilarated, enchanted? You should be, as the NCAA Tournament’s first weekend is NEVER less than all of those things. It’s the biggest lock in all of sports, and that’s why we love it. Two days and the CoM has seen its contenders cut in half, but unlike Zeno’s Paradox, we’ll eventually get to one and one alone. Does anyone else find the clustering of teams kinda cute and also hilarious… yeah, that’s just us. Gotcha.