RTC Region correspondents Kevin Doyle (South) and Evan Jacoby (Midwest) contributed to this preview.

#3 Baylor vs. #10 Xavier – South Regional Semifinal (at Atlanta, GA) – 7:15 PM ET on CBS

Baylor was supposed to be here, Xavier was not. That is the beauty of March Madness and the NCAA Tournament though: play it out on the floor. One can review all the matchups, crunch the numbers, and look at past tournament history, but sometimes simply getting hot at the right time is a more important factor than anything else. The Xavier Musketeers, an up-and-down team all year following the brawl against Cincinnati back in December, are peaking at just the right time. After a 21 game stretch in the middle of the year that saw Xavier go 10-11, they rebounded by winning five of six; the melee seems like a thing of the distant past right now. What teams should now begin to take notice of: Tu Holloway is back to playing at the level of an All-American. Not to mention, Kenny Frease is looking like one of the most dominant big men in the country after dismantling the Lehigh front line last Sunday. Despite all of this, Baylor is a downright scary team to be playing this weekend, especially with the shooting prowess of Brady Heslip who is a combined 14-22 from downtown. Xavier’s three-point defense is one of the best in the nation as they allow opponents to shoot just 30% from the outside, but can they contain the hot shooting Heslip and the steady Pierre Jackson? Consequently, if Heslip and Jackson are not connecting from distance, the onus will be on Perry Jones III. The Jones-Frease matchup down low is one to keep an eye on, and if we are to take any stock in the first two games, Frease is the one playing better of the two as Jones has combined to score just nine points on 4-14 shooting against South Dakota State and Colorado. A streaky scorer throughout the year, Jones has scored in single digits nine times and double digits 19 times; the Bears will need the latter of Jones’ scoring efforts to keep Xavier honest on defense. Baylor’s only losses this year have come against Big 12 opponents, and I expect this trend to continue as the Bears hold off Holloway and the Musketeers.

The RTC Certified Pick: Baylor

#1 North Carolina vs. #13 Ohio – Midwest Region Semifinals (at St. Louis, MO) – 7:47 PM ET on TBS

The storylines leading up to this game have been completely taken over by Kendall Marshall’s “wrist watch”, but once the ball tips off on Friday night and Marshall is presumably unable to play, then we can finally focus on the matchups in-game. Of course, Marshall’s expected absence will then be the main factor to watch in the game. How will North Carolina distribute minutes at the point guard position against the harassing perimeter defense of D.J. Cooper? Expect Roy Williams to explore several different options, including seldom-used reserves Stilman White and Justin Watts. Both White and Watts average under seven minutes per game and were never expected to be significant factors for the team, but they are the only players with experience at the lead guard spot. But since neither guy is likely to make much of an impact offensively, UNC also could experiment by placing Harrison Barnes at the position in a point-forward role. Barnes has the size to see over any defenders but has never been asked to run an offense. P.J. Hairston and Reggie Bullock, two primary wing shooters, could help Barnes bring the ball up in a point guard by-committee approach, as well.

Regardless, as long as the point guard replacements or by-committee members don’t turn the ball over at an alarming rate, then Carolina should still have the advantage in this game on both ends because of its tremendous forwards. Ohio’s regular rotation only includes two bangers in the post in Reggie Keely and Jon Smith, and while Keely is a solid post defender with bulk at 265 pounds, neither of those players is taller than 6’8”. It will be an adventure trying to defend the most talented front line in the country. Tyler Zeller, John Henson, and James Michael McAdoo should have a field day in the paint, and the lack of a point guard means that every UNC possession should include an early paint touch. Expect big numbers from this trio. But if Ohio is somehow able to key on the UNC bigs and stop the domination in the paint, then the Bobcats can pull another upset by gaining an advantage on the perimeter. Nick Kellogg and Walter Offutt must hit a high percentage of shots from the outside and D.J. Cooper will need another breakout performance to carry this team. It just seems unlikely that Ohio has enough firepower to hang with Carolina’s athletes on the interior. With or without Marshall, roll with North Carolina in this one.

The RTC Certified Pick: North Carolina

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Tonight’s Lede. Half of our Elite Eight teams are set, with the East and West regions completing their semifinal matchups on Thursday night. The East Region in Boston finished as expected, with chalk advancing to the Elite Eight in the form of Syracuse and Ohio State for what should be a fantastic regional final on Saturday. But the story in Phoenix was much different, as the favored #1 and #3 seeds went down in games that were dominated by the lower seeds. Only one game on the night finished in single digits but there was plenty of exciting basketball that took place. And the one game that was a close one happened to be one of the Big Dance’s best. Let’s break it down… 

Your Watercooler Moment. Jordan Taylor’s Shot Falls Short, #1 Syracuse Survives.

Wisconsin is Devastated After Coming so Close Against Syracuse (Getty Images/J. Rogash)

Our first game of the night was a classic, one that featured two very different teams that both executed at an extremely high level offensively. Four-seed Wisconsin brought its patented ball-control, super-slow tempo game plan into Boston with hopes of knocking off top-seeded Syracuse with a methodical approach, good shooting, and strong collective defense. But no defense could stop what either team was bringing to the table in this one. The Badgers executed their plan offensively, hitting an amazing 14-27 from three-point range in a wonderful display of outside shooting that would usually be enough for a victory. But the Orange were just as strong on the other end, converting 55.1% of their field goals with easy baskets in the paint from a variety of one-on-one scorers. The two teams combined for just 12 turnovers and this game came down to the very last shot, one that fell short on a long three-point attempt from Jordan Taylor on a broken offensive play. Despite the fairly low 64-63 final score, the game featured crisp execution throughout its entirety. Syracuse was just one possession better, thanks to its easy offense earned through superior athleticism and playmaking in the half court. It’s on to the Elite Eight for the Orange!

Also Worth Chatting About. The First #1-Seed to Fall are Tom Izzo’s Spartans.

Everyone knows that March is Michigan State’s month. Tom Izzo has brought the Spartans to six Final Fours in his tenure, and he had never been knocked out of the NCAA Tournament before the final weekend when his team was a #1 seed. That came to an end on Thursday, when Michigan State was outplayed from the start by Rick Pitino’s #4 Louisville Cardinals. The Spartans racked up more turnovers (15) than made field goals (14) while shooting 28.6% from the field. Louisville was too athletic and strong defensively, essentially beating Michigan State at its own game. The Cardinals won the battle on the boards, in the turnover margin, and from behind the arc (they shot 9-23 compared to 5-21 for MSU). Gorgui Dieng racked up seven blocks and three steals to go along with nine rebounds in an elite defensive performance, and Peyton Siva ran the offense well with nine assists. Izzo’s March mystique could not get his players to put the ball in the basket, and our first #1 seed finally goes down.

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Three Key Takeaways.

1. Florida Out-Toughed Marquette. Except for a few moments where Marquette brought its patented Buzz Williams hustle and toughness to the fore, the ‘soft’ Gators mostly out-toughed the Golden Eagles on this night. They beat them on the boards by one, blocked six more shots, and didn’t back down at all when MU got in their face. We’ve been critical of Billy Donovan’s teams (other than the “oh-fours”) in the past because of too much perimeter play and a lack of fortitude, but this bunch never wavered when facing a team that makes its living of off that stuff.
   
2. Marquette’s Stars Never Seemed Comfortable. It’s hard for us to give too much credit to Florida’s defense, but something was definitely bothering both Jae Crowder and Darius Johnson-Odom tonight. The two players combined for a 10-30 shooting night, and without their offensive capabilities, Marquette was never going to seriously threaten the Gators. Perhaps worse than that, though, with the two stars struggling, the rest of the starting lineup didn’t do much better. Jamil Wilson, Vander Blue, and Junior Cadougan went for 11 total points on 4-20 shots themselves. Ugh.
   
3. Gators’ Lack of Size Hasn’t Hurt Them Yet. This wasn’t the matchup where the Gators’ lack of talented size caught up with them, but you have to figure that it will eventually. Sometimes with the right matchups, though, a team can get on a roll, and that’s exactly what the Gators have done. Billy Donovan talked about how the team didn’t appear to play very well down the stretch of the regular season, but he attributed much of that to the level of competitions they were playing in those games. We’re not sure what that says about this year’s NCAA Tournament field (at least the Gators’ path to the Elite Eight), but with how well Louisville is playing, they’ll have to earn it on Saturday afternoon.
   

Three Key Takeaways.

1. Aaron Craft struggles, but still came up big. Craft has become a hero for the fans of advanced metrics and hard-nosed defense, but he struggled tonight for a large part of the game. He played his usual excellent defense, but the shots were not falling and he made several ill-advised passes and missed his first five shots before getting his shot to fall. His totals were not impressive (11 points, four rebounds, and five assists) he provided the defensive pressure that kept the Bearcats from breaking through when they came on strong in the second half.
2. Give credit to Cincinnati for rebounding. They may have come up short in the second half against the Buckeyes, but Bearcat fans should look back on the second half of this season fondly. After the team could have (and probably should have) imploded following their brawl against Xavier, the team struggled while it was getting players back from suspension, but then rebound to finish the season impressively going from close to the bubble to becoming a #6 seed with an impressive run that saw them knock off a #1 seed (Syracuse), a #2 seed (Marquette), and a #3 seed (Georgetown) before losing to a Louisville team that will be playing in the Elite Eight on Saturday. Mick Cronin and his players took a lot of heat in the aftermath of the event, but now they deserve some praise.
3. Where was William Buford? Several key players came up big for the Buckeyes, but their senior guard was not one of them. He finished with just four points on 1-8 shooting. In fact, you could point to him picking up his fourth foul with 9:16 left as the turning point in the game. After that point the Buckeyes took over and never looked back. Everybody is allowed to have a bad game, but when you get this far into the NCAA Tournament you need to be able to rely on your seniors for somewhat consistent play. The Buckeyes will need more out of him if they are going to beat the Orange on Saturday.

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.

Three Key Takeaways.

1. Syracuse weathers the storm. People have said a lot of things about this Syracuse program over the past five months, but they are definitely resilient. From the Bernie Fine scandal to the Fab Melo suspension (both of them), the Orange have persevered and now find themselves on the verge of taking Jim Boeheim to just his fourth Final Four in his storied career. Tonight the Orange were able to fend off some ridiculously hot shooting from the Badgers who went 14-27 from the 3-point range including six straight three-pointers in less than four minutes midway through the second half. The Orange managed to withstand the barrage and are on the verge of heading to New Orleans.
2. Berggren in foul trouble. When someone looks at the box score from this game in the future they will probably barely notice Jared Berggren‘s 3 fouls, but those who watched the game will know that the second foul he picked up with 12:03 left in the first half had a huge impact in the game. Berggren had just scored 10 straight Wisconsin points in 3:17 stretch that turned a 7-5 Syracuse lead into a 15-9 Wisconsin lead. From that point forward, Berggren did not play a single second in the first half. The Orange then went on a 24-8 run to give themselves a 10-point lead before a late four-point spurt by the Badgers cut the halftime deficit to six.
3. Contrasting styles made for a great game. Early in the game nearly every media member was tracking how much of the shot clock Wisconsin was using before they took a shot. On the other end, we could barely keep up with how quickly Syracuse was getting its shots off. The contrast was also notable in the team’s shot selection. Wisconsin scored 42 of its 63 points from beyond the arc while only 15 of Syracuse’s 64 points came from three-point range. In the end, Wisconsin had exactly what it wanted–the ball in the hands of its senior All-American point guard. Wisconsin could have called a timeout to set up a play, but you can hardly fault Bo Ryan for letting Jordan Taylor work against a Syracuse defense that the Badgers had picked apart in the second half with its three-point shooting. This time though, Syracuse stepped up and forced Taylor into an ugly desperation three that the Badgers didn’t need and their last gasp came up short.

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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RTC Region correspondents Brian Otskey (East) and Andrew Murawa (West) contributed to this preview.

#1 Syracuse vs. #4 Wisconsin – East Region Semifinals (at Boston, MA) – 7:15 PM ET on CBS

Bo Ryan Is Looking For His Second Trip to the Elite Eight at Wisconsin

Perhaps the most fascinating matchup to date in the entire NCAA Tournament will take place in tonight’s first game from Boston. Wisconsin, the most patient and deliberate team in the country, takes on a Syracuse team that has won 33 games due in large part to a lethal transition attack. While Syracuse ranks #202 in tempo, the Orange thrive on the fast break. You hear a lot about Jim Boeheim’s team struggling on the defensive glass and some of that is due to the fact that his guards already start out on the break when a shot goes up, taking them completely out of position to rebound. Without Fab Melo around to man the middle, Syracuse’s rebounding issues could be a major problem against the physical and deliberate Badgers. It’s always easier to slow a game down than to speed it up and that’s what Wisconsin is going to do. Syracuse will be forced to score in the half court against one of the strongest defenses in the entire nation. The big question will be whether Syracuse, already not one of the better half court teams, can get the ball inside and avoid settling for jump shots. At times this season the Orange have been frustrated and forced into shooting contested jumpers. Syracuse needs to utilize strong ball screening action in order to free up shooters. Wisconsin’s players will fight through screens and stick with you so using the pick-and-roll also wouldn’t be a bad idea. As for Wisconsin, the Badgers match up very well on the defensive end. The question for them will be whether they can score enough to win. Syracuse obviously has more offensive weapons but Bo Ryan has Jordan Taylor to take control of the game for his team. Taylor is the only player on Wisconsin capable of creating his own shot and that will be critical against Syracuse’s 2-3 zone. Wisconsin shoots a bunch of three-pointers and it will have to make quite a few in order to knock off the top-seeded Orange. Syracuse’s zone encourages opposing teams to shoot over it but Wisconsin can actually make them, a major difference from Kansas State last week. If Boeheim chooses to extend his zone out on Wisconsin’s shooters, that will free up the Melo-less middle for Jared Berggren to go to work off screen and rolls in addition to opening up driving lanes for Taylor. Expect Jim Boeheim to adjust how his defense attacks Wisconsin as the game goes along, something he certainly has experience with. This will be a clean game between two teams with great defenses and terrific ball protection. Should it come down to free throws, Wisconsin has the edge. Syracuse is the better team and has many more offensive threats but the Tournament is all about matchups. We think the Badgers will make just enough shots to pull off the upset.

The RTC Certified Pick: Wisconsin

#1 Michigan State vs. #4 Louisville – West Regional Semifinal (at Phoenix, AZ) – 7:47 PM ET on TBS

One of the things we college basketball fans tend to really like about this time of year are the surprises. Not just the obvious ones like Butler running to the national title game or Villanova playing the perfect game against Georgetown, but more subtle ones like teams unveiling a new wrinkle to their offense or players making plays that you hadn’t known they were able to make. As for this game, however, don’t expect many surprises; we all more or less know how this is going to go down. We’ve seen Tom Izzo and Rick Pitino enough over the years to know what they want to do, and we’ve seen the 2012 vintages of both of these clubs to know what they are capable of. Michigan State is going to defend like crazy in the halfcourt, pound the glass on both ends of the court and try to knock Louisville around enough so that the Cards will be forced into submission late in the game. The Cardinals, meanwhile, are going to turn up the pressure defensively, try to force turnovers, rely on Gorgui Dieng to block shots in the middle and watch Peyton Siva get penetration and create offense off the bounce. It is likely going to be a low-scoring game that is still in doubt late into the second half and it will come down to which of these teams is capable of making the most plays down the stretch. While Siva’s numbers on the season are not great, he has been a different player since the Big East Tournament started, getting into the lane seemingly at will, creating opportunities for himself and for others and pitching in everywhere on the floor on his way to 13 points, 5.7 assists, 4.7 rebounds and 2.5 steals per game over the six-game stretch. He does a lot of damage in the pick-and-roll game, so not only will Spartan guard Keith Appling have to be on his game defensively, but whichever big man gets involved in the screen needs to do a good job of keeping Siva out of the lane. Draymond Green is clearly the big factor for Michigan State, and he too has been on fire of late, averaging 20 points, 12.5 rebounds, 8.0 assists and shooting it at a 64.3% eFG in the NCAA Tournament. Freshman Chane Benahan appears to be the most obvious individual matchup for Green, but it is going to have to be a full team effort for the Cards to slow the All-American down. Louisville will need to pressure the Spartan guards, keeping them from getting into their halfcourt offense easily and, perhaps more importantly, dedicate themselves to keeping Spartans like Green, Adreian Payne and Derrick Nix off the offensive glass. However, given their relative lack of size (only Dieng is taller than 6’8”) and struggles with defensive rebounding, this could be the eventual downfall of the Cards. While they’ll certainly get their share of stops and turnovers, allowing Green and company second opportunities is a recipe for disaster.

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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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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.

West Region

• Marquette’s offseason conditioning regimen tends to resemble football practices, with sleds, rope climbs and even some boxing. The result is a team of physical yet fast players like Junior Cadougan and Todd Mayo.
• Freshman Florida guard Bradley Beal has come through in a huge way for the Gators in the postseason, leading the team in points, rebounds, assists, steals and free throws in his last five games. Fair or not, “The Real Deal” may still have doubters after the Gators beat down 15-seed Norfolk State in the round of 32.
• Kyle Kuric and Russ Smith had to swallow some pride to go off scholarship this season so that Louisville head coach Rick Pitino could haul in a touted recruiting class. The situation hasn’t fazed the Cardinal captains, though.
• The Sweet Sixteen is old hat for Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo. With a 7-2 record in the round, the bright lights don’t seem to bother him.
• Spartan forward Draymond Green continues to reel in the individual honors, the latest being an NABC First Team All-America selection. As Green goes, so do the Spartans, so there’s no questioning his value.