Happy Sweet Sixteen, everyone. The RTC Podcast crew is back with several of our NCAA Tournament Region correspondents this week to break down what we saw over the weekend and what to expect in the coming one. As always, Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114) is our host, with Kevin Doyle (@KLDoyle11) and Bennet Hayes (@HoopsTraveler) joining us to discuss the South and Midwest Regions, respectively. We’ll have our podblasts for the other two regions up a bit later today, so be sure to watch for those as well. Enjoy the Sweet Sixteen!

South Region

• 0:00-6:47 – DUNK CITY!
• 6:47-11:41 – FGCU Chances Against In-State “Rival” Florida
• 11:41-16:18 – Kansas Under the Radar Struggles
• 16:18-20:04 – Michigan Looking Good Again (With Kevin’s Florida Love Mixed In)
• 20:04-25:11 – Previewing a Hypothetical Florida-Michigan Game
• 25:11-33:35 – Minnesota-UCLA Battle of the Walking Dead Coaches

Midwest Region

• 0:00-3:30 – Oregon’s Proving the Committee Wrong
• 3:30-7:22 – Louisville Proving the Committee Right
• 7:22-11:13 – Clash of the Coaching Titans in Duke-Michigan State
• 11:13-13:53 – Final Four Picks
• 13:53-17:20 – Favorite Game of the Region
• 17:20-20:15 – Surprises of the Opening Weekend
• 20:15-24:40 – Opening Weekend MVPs and More Oregon TAlke
• 24:40-27:00 – Opening Weekend LVPs
• 27:00-31:22 – Coaches That Deserve Ben Howland-Tubby Smith Treatment
• 31:22- 34:50 – Hedge Your Bets Predictions

1. Duke is still in the NCAA Tournament, but that has not stopped longtime assistant coach Chris Collins from taking time to interview for the now vacant Northwestern coaching job and is considered the frontrunner for the job. As far as first head coaching jobs go it could be a nearly ideal, low-stress job (outside of some high-powered alumni) for a school with no expectations (never made the NCAA Tournament) in a major conference. As an added bonus Collins would be returning to his home state where he was Illinois Mr. Basketball. Or it could be seen as a nearly impossible situation at a school with no tradition and relatively little financial support for its athletic program while competing in the premier college basketball conference in the country. We are guessing that the former argument will win out and Collins will probably take the job unless he harbors some aspiration of stepping directly into Mike Krzyzewski’s job as soon as he departs (without any prior head coaching experience that seems unlikely).
2. Collins might be on the verge of taking over in Evanston, but he is not the only former Blue Devil taking his first coaching job as Blue Devil legend Bobby Hurley was announced as the new coach at Buffalo yesterday. Hurley (at least this one) is best known for his time guiding Duke to back-to-back titles in 1991 and 1992 while setting the NCAA record for career assists, but his family (particularly his father Bob Sr. as well as brother Dan) is better known for their coaching success. Bobby’s time on the sideline has been limited to serving as an assistant to Dan for the past three seasons so it shouldn’t be surprising that all of Bobby’s references in the official article are either from Duke or his family members. We are not sure if Bobby’s name and game as a player will translate on the sideline, but he certainly has the genes for it and for a program at Buffalo’s level it seems like a reasonable risk to take.
3. One coaching position that does not appear to be opening up any time soon is Wake Forest who appears content on keeping Jeff Bzdelik as its coach despite his 34-60 record there and mounting disapproval from its fans. Fan displeasure with Bzdelik reached the point this season that he had to change his radio show to taking taped (pre-screened) calls instead of live calls and fans have taken ads out in local newspapers calling for his dismissal in addition to the standard website demanding that he be fired. Apparently Wake Forest’s defense of Bzdelik is that he has been cleaning up the mess left by Dino Gaudio and we hope that is what they believe because if it isn’t then what they are doing is a more subtle version of the two-finger salute that Marshall Henderson offered to fans on his way out of the NCAA Tournament.
4. Before he became a national story for his model predicting the 2012 Presidential Election (and becoming the subject of scorn of Fox News) Nate Silver was more well-known in some circles for his work in sports. Not forgetting his roots, Silver comes back to sports particularly for big events like the NCAA Tournament. Of course, his work is focused on predicting things and following up on his pre-NCAA Tournament predictions he is offering updated odds on the Sweet 16 teams winning the national title. We are assuming that this won’t spark the kind of outrage that his Presidential Election predictions did, but there were some pretty significant shifts that might get the attention of some fan bases.
5. Like the work of Nate Silver we have come to respect the work that The Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective puts out, but we are not afraid to call them out on their methodology when the occasion calls for it. And that appears to be the case with their analysis of how “crazy” this year’s NCAA Tournament has been. We are usually fans of people trying to quantify stuff instead of using useless, vague descriptions, but when people quantify the wrong stuff or use the wrong methods to get results you run into issues like HSAC appears to have done when they tried to analyze craziness by looking at average seeding of teams in the Sweet 16 rather than something like variation relative to performance against seed expectation. The latter is probably a better measure because a very low seeded team making a deep run is very different than a couple of middle-tier seeds making a deep run

Jesse Baumgartner is an RTC columnist. His Love/Hate column will publish each week throughout the season. In this piece he’ll review the five things he loved and hated about the previous seven days of college basketball.

Five Things I Loved This Week

I LOVED…. the swag of the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles. Absurd (and questionably timed) alley-oops, the wing walk, tongues wagging, unknown jigs while running downcourt – it’s hard not to like the amount of fun that these kids have on the court, and they have the talent to back it up.

Florida Gulf Coast: the Story of the NCAA Tournament This Year

I LOVED…. Duke’s defense on Creighton. The Blue Devils didn’t play well in this one, but man did they defend. I thought Creighton got the exact pace they wanted and the ideal defensive effort to slow down Duke’s perimeter play, and it still didn’t matter. Duke just continued to bang with a relentless Doug McDermott and got the stops that allowed them to finally pull away when a few threes began to drop. That’s the kind of game you have to grind out in March, and they did it comfortably.

I LOVED…. that I don’t have to watch Marshall Henderson for another weekend (and believe me, I was worried there for a while). In case you were wondering, Henderson’s stats in the tourney were about as prolific as the regular season – 14-of-42 from the field (33%), and 7-of-27 on three-pointers (26%). I’d love to see the Ole Miss coach explain to his players why they would build their team next year around a guard that shoots too much, and not particularly well.

I LOVED…. the statement game. For me this was an easy one to pick – Michigan seemed to be fading a bit, but they put on an absolute clinic against a very talented VCU team and showed just how versatile they can be when freshman Mitch McGary can stay on the floor for an extended period of time. It opens up everything else for the Wolverines, and with Trey Burke dancing around the lane and Tim Hardaway, Jr., able to spot up, this looked like a squad ready to make a legit run.

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1. After a run of three straight trips to the Final Four UCLA has floundered despite its rich tradition and fertile recruiting base, which led to the eventual firing of Ben Howland. Many writers have tried to pinpoint the reason that Howland was unable to reach the same level of success he had early in his run at UCLA, but perhaps the most interesting theory we have heard comes from George Dohrmann (you may remember him for being rather unpopular around UCLA) who traces Howland’s downfall to an incident in 2009 where Howland turned his back on a recruit who Howland had offered a scholarship too then waited just long enough where the recruit was unable to secure another equally coveted scholarship offer. We are not quite sure that we put as much weight on that incident as Dohrmann appears to, but it certainly didn’t help. The question is whether UCLA can get a coach who is able to lift them back into contention for national titles. There are some pundits who question whether UCLA can become a national power again (we think it can although obviously never at the level of the Wooden dynasty), but Bill Plaschke is not among them and feels that the firing of Howland was a step in the right direction. If the Bruins are to become a national power again, Plaschke is probably right, but we will need to see who the UCLA administration can bring in to take back the local recruiting scene and make UCLA a premier destination for recruits again.
2. Apparently beating a coach who was about to be fired (Howland) was not enough for Tubby Smith as he was fired by Minnesota yesterday. In the end, the NCAA Tournament and the season overall was a fairly accurate reflection of Smith’s time at Minnesota–full of ups and downs, which led the team to seemingly surprise and disappoint its fans at the same time. After leaving Kentucky following the decline of the program from a title in his first year (aka Pitino’s leftovers) to one that led it to the hands of Billy Clyde, Smith came to Minnesota with the expectation that he could help turn around a program that had shown great potential at times, but always remained a middle-tier Big Ten program at best. In the end Smith left the program roughly where he found it–the middle to bottom of the conference–after making the NCAA Tournament three times in six years (advancing past their first game only once, which was this year) and never finishing better than sixth in the conference as he finished with a 124-81 record overall and 46-62 in the Big Ten. Those clearly are not stellar numbers, but the question is whether Minnesota can land a bigger name than Smith (certainly nobody with a more impressive mustache than the one Smith sported this season). We have heard Shaka Smart‘s name thrown around online, but we can’t imagine that he would even bother talking to Minnesota when more enticing jobs are available (see above). The one name that would be interesting is former NBA coach Flip Saunders, who coached the Timberwolves and was offered up by his colleague Andy Katz (clearly trying to kill off the competition at ESPN).
3. If you are looking for your buzzkill story line of the Sweet 16, Tim Layden has you covered as he digs into the resume of Florida Gulf Coast coach Andy Enfield. Coming into the NCAA Tournament, Enfield was primarily known for various blogs talking about his wife’s modeling career, but with each win there has been increasing scrutiny on his past including his involvement in a software company TractManager that Layden claims Enfield’s involvement is not as deep as Enfield has previously claimed. Honestly, we think this is basically a non-story and are surprised that SI decided to run with it, but we would not be surprised to see somebody try to make this into a media question on the days leading up to the Sweet 16.
4. The season just ended, but teams have already started raiding other school’s coaching staffs and Brad Stevens’ Butler program is not immune to it as South Alabama hired Matthew Graves, Butler’s associate head coach. The hiring is not particularly surprising as the Jaguars were looking to replace Ronnie Arrow, who left after just 10 games this past season, but it is somewhat surprising that they would hire somebody who admitted that he “didn’t know a lot about South Alabama except for that moment before I looked into it” (last paragraph). Still the Stevens’ bloodline was probably good enough for a Sun Belt school, but it will be interesting to see if a Stevens disciple can carry on the tradition away from Butler (plenty of coaching trees have shown that results tend to be quite variable).
5. There have been plenty of sportswriters who say college basketball is dying and have pointed to a few atrocious games this season as evidence, but don’t tell that to the American public at least according to a press release from Turner, which claims that NCAA ratings were the highest they have been for the opening weekend in 23 years. We would like to believe the headline number, but we get the feeling that these are probably more reflective of good numbers relative to the past few years that have been largely aided for the period preceding that in which there was only one channel for the NCAA Tournament to gather its cumulative rating from rather than the four channels viewers currently have to choose from during the opening weekend.

Kevin Doyle (@KLDoyle11) is the NCAA Tournament’s South Region correspondent. 

The South Regional begins Friday night in Arlington, Texas, with Kansas vs. Michigan followed by Florida vs. Florida Gulf Coast. The East Region Reset, West Region Reset and Midwest Region Reset published earlier today. Also make sure to follow RTCSouthRegion for news and analysis from Texas throughout the week.

Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, Hosts the South Regional

New Favorite: #3 Florida. It hasn’t been an arduous road to the Sweet Sixteen as Florida dismantled #14 Northwestern State and #11 Minnesota to advance to Arlington. Although the Golden Gophers cut a 21-point halftime deficit down to eight midway through the second half, they never truly challenged Florida and the Gators coasted to an easy win. Did we learn anything that we already didn’t know about Florida in the process? Probably not. Billy Donovan’s team is as good as anyone at blowing out inferior competition, but it was impressive to see their resolve demonstrated against Minnesota. The common belief is that the Gators crumble down the stretch in close games — amazingly, they have not won a game by single digits this year — but there was no need for late-game drama this weekend. To reach the Elite Eight, Florida will have to next beat #15 Florida Gulf Coast. Not exactly murderer’s row to get to the South Region final by having to play against all double-digit seeds, but FGCU has already proven that it is far from a traditional #15 seed. After posting big wins over Georgetown and San Diego State, the Eagles have shown they can more than hang with any team in the NCAA Tournament. With that said, I projected Florida to win the region when the bracket was initially released and they’ve only confirmed that belief after the first weekend.

Horse of Darkness: #4 Michigan. So much for Shaka Smart’s vaunted havoc defense. Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr. had little problem dealing with Virginia Commonwealth’s pressing defense en route to a convincing 25-point victory. The Rams’ 71 point swing— a 46-point win against Akron and 25-point loss to Michigan — is by far the greatest two-game switcheroo in NCAA Tournament history, as the Wolverines demonstrated that all a team needs to foil Smart’s plan is a backcourt consisting of two NBA-level players. Michigan is grossly underseeded and is probably closer to a #2 seed than #4. This is a team that was ranked in the Top 10 for virtually the entire season, but limped into the NCAA Tournament after going 6-6 in its final 12 Big Ten games. It has been evident that Michigan’s style of play has kicked up a notch against non-Big Ten teams; South Dakota State and VCU’s urge to speed up the pace of the action seemed to play right into Michigan’s hands. With Trey Burke running the show, John Beilein has the best point guard in the South Region going up against a Kansas team that clearly lacks a steady one of its own. Kansas played one good half in the first two rounds — albeit an extremely good second half against North Carolina — but is ripe for the taking.

Burke Played Like a NPOY Candidate Last Game (AnnArbor.com)

Biggest Surprise (1st Weekend): #15 Florida Gulf Coast 78, #2 Georgetown 68. What, like you thought there could possibly be a surprise that trumps what Florida Gulf Coast did in Philadelphia on Friday and Sunday? Not only did the Eagles make history as the first #15 seed to advance to the Sweet Sixteen, they did so with flying colors — quite literally — in beating Georgetown and San Diego State by 10 points each. FGCU’s win over Georgetown was certainly a major surprise, as a 24-10 team that finished in second place in the Atlantic Sun and had been swept by Lipscomb soundly beat a 25-6 Big East team with a slew of wins over top teams. Yet after its resounding win over the Hoyas, was anyone that surprised with its victory over a San Diego State team that proved to be mostly average in a Mountain West Conference that went 2-5 in this year’s Dance? Neither win was a fluke for Andy Enfield’s squad; the Eagles flat out beat these two teams that spent much of the season ranked in the Top 25. From Andy Enfield’s story — a former NBA assistant with Rick Pitino, owning his own company called “Tract Manager,” and marrying a supermodel — to the fact that FGCU has been a Division I program for less than a decade, the endless stream of alley-oops and ridiculous dunks thrown down by high-flying no-name players, the swagger and jovial attitude of Sherwood Brown, and the heartwarming story of Brett Comer, among many other things… words simply cannot do justice to what Florida Gulf Coast accomplished over the weekend.

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Bennet Hayes (@hoopstraveler) is the NCAA Tournament’s Midwest Region correspondent.

The Midwest Regional begins Friday night in Indianapolis with Louisville vs. Oregon followed by Duke vs. Michigan State. The East Region Reset and West Region Reset published earlier today, and be sure to look out for the South Region Reset later this afternoon. Also make sure to follow RTCMWRegion for news and analysis from Indy throughout the week.

New Favorite: #1 Louisville. When you are the #1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, win your first two games by a total of 57 points, and now have to travel just 115 miles to the regional site, you aren’t going to lose your pole position. The Cardinals are still the team to beat in Indianapolis.

Lucas Oil Stadium Is Where The Midwest Will Be Won

Horse of Darkness: #12 Oregon. It’d be hard enough to make a case for a #1, #2, or #3 seed as a dark horse, and harder yet when the programs occupying those seed-lines are Louisville, Duke, and Michigan State. So while Oregon certainly fits the bill here, they also are winners by default. We knew the Ducks were underseeded and dangerous on that #12 line, and they went out and played like it last week. At this point, nobody would blink an eye if the seed next to the Ducks’ name was a #4 instead.  Louisville would be advised to view Dana Altman’s team through that lens, because Oregon is talented enough to knock off the Cardinals, even in their own backyard.

Biggest Surprise (1^st Weekend): #4 Saint Louis. Clearly, this wasn’t the good kind of surprise. Saint Louis entered this NCAA Tournament as a legitimate Final Four sleeper. They played along with the hype in the Second Round, where they clinically dispatched New Mexico State in winning by 20. At that point, a deep run still felt very possible and at least one more win a near-certainty, which made the resounding defeat they suffered at the hands of Oregon a bit of a shock. Let’s keep in mind that this was a Saint Louis team that had lost just once in regulation since November, and the 17-point margin of defeat to the Ducks was the Billikens’ largest of the season. 2012-13 was a proud, inspiring season for SLU, but few could have predicted the abruptness with which it would end.

Completely Expected (1^st Weekend): #3 Michigan State. Chalk prevailed almost across the board in this region (thank god for Oregon!), so take your pick here, but I’ll go with the Spartans. Armed with a virtual home court advantage in Auburn Hills, Tom Izzo’s crew made quick work of Valparaiso before dismantling Memphis in the Third Round. These wins were completely expected not only because it’s Sparty playing March basketball in its home state, but also because both their opponents loomed as favorable match-ups for this Michigan State team. As expected, Valpo was outmanned and Memphis not tough enough. The result, equally anticipated, is another Spartans visit to the Sweet Sixteen.

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After four straight days of wall-to-wall hoops, the Circle of March is now down to just 16 lucky schools. Note the one surprise school sorta drifting out to sea over on the left hand side. How much further can the ridiculously fun group from Florida Gulf Coast advance in this year’s NCAA Tournament? We’ll find out soon enough…

Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.23-24.13)

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Tyrone Garland, one of the best sixth men in the country, is from Southwest Philadelphia. If you didn’t already know that, then you most certainly made the connection following his postgame interview after Garland lifted La Salle past Ole Miss into the Sweet Sixteen. The basked, he called it, was his possibly patented #SouthwestPhillyFloater, which quickly became a usable hashtag and will certainly get some run leading up to the Explorers’ upcoming match-up against Wichita State. This is something I can get on board with, unlike #layupgang.

Florida Gulf Coast, A #15 Seed, Is In The Sweet 16

So far, this is the best story of the 2013 NCAA Tournament. And unless the national championship game ends in a buzzer-beater, it is unlikely it will be topped. Representing the Atlantic Sun Conference, Florida Gulf Coast is the first #15 seed to reach the Sweet Sixteen. To add a bit more weight to this story, it is a school that was founded in the 1990s and only been eligible to play in this grand tournament in 2009. You cannot make this stuff up, but you can get FGCU trending on Twitter through the weekend.

@jimrome “Come out the Florida Gulf Coast, we’ll get together, have a few dunks.”

— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) March 25, 2013

STOP RUNNING UP THE SCORE FLORIDA GULF COAST SHOW SOME MERCY

— Mike Prada (@MikePradaSBN) March 25, 2013

I need to borrow adjectives.Please send some.

— Dana O’Neil (@ESPNDanaOneil) March 25, 2013

#FGCU‘s website is slow or down due to people looking up school. You know someone is panicking- has to get on for homework due tomorrow.

— Kevin Nogle (@thephinsider) March 25, 2013

Heading in to the work week, it will be very interesting to track the media coverage the school gets. Will the jokes about this being an online university continue? Will we focus on the actual talent Andy Enfield has assembled? Will we just drool over his wife Amanda?

what athletics bring to higher ed: U. Of Phoenix spends $100 M on ads for nat’l exposure. FGCU did the same thing for prob less than $100k

— Jordan Bell (@jmichaelbell) March 23, 2013

jim delany isn’t going to miss out on the next florida gulf coast so expect a formal offer to devry university on tuesday

— Martin Rickman (@martinrickman) March 25, 2013

Verdict still out on Strayer and Everest RT @jmoney_1914: We now know that ICDC, Phoenix, Argosy, and FGCU are not in the same conference.

— Django 2Chained (@_TR3Y_) March 25, 2013

Following the win, the most competitive pissing match was to see who could come up with the most retweeted play on words. A collection of the ones I could bear to read…

@mattnorlander So they’ve officially signed the Dunklaration of Independence?

— Chase from GYERO (@Chase_TCP) March 25, 2013

H/T on “Florida GIF Coast” to about 17 people on twitter. That’s outstanding DANCING: is.gd/1O7u6A DUNKING: is.gd/xYH5Vz

— Jason McIntyre (@TheBigLead) March 25, 2013

The FGCU website server actually lobs the information to your computer.

— Mark Ennis (@Mengus22) March 25, 2013

It’s like FGCU is shooting the ball into the ocean. From its dorms.

— Mark Ennis (@Mengus22) March 25, 2013

FGCU crowd chanting “Dunk City.” So surreal. Now “Sweet 16”

— Pete Thamel(@SIPeteThamel) March 25, 2013

Oh… and… Tunechi. He got involved too.

How kome Florida Gulf Coast didn’t have any plays on Sportscenter top ten plays?!!1 of those lobs should’ve made it!

— Lil Wayne WEEZY F (@LilTunechi) March 23, 2013

Marquette Draws America’s Ire

Forget Duke. Somehow the Marquette Golden Eagles have become the team America loves to hate, after squeaking past two non-power conference teams America has grown to love over the past five years. Buzz Williams’ team advanced to its third straight Sweet Sixteen over the weekend, but it took a bit of luck and last second heroics to get past both Davidson and Butler, and nobody is forgetting that.

Seriously, stop Marquette. -America

— Shane Ryan (@ShaneRyanHere) March 24, 2013

DIE MARQUETTE DIE

— TheUConnBlog (@theuconnblog) March 24, 2013

Marquette is like a cat. Always seem to land on their feet. Nine lives.

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) March 24, 2013

A chick dumped Josh Smith to date Davante Gardner because he’s low maintenance. #Probably

— Run the Floor (@RunTheFloor) March 24, 2013

The Golden Eagles are the epitome of “survive and advance.” Two wins, a three-point total margin of victory, and one sloppy play after another in the game’s final minutes (save Vander Blue’s smooth left handed lay-in with seconds remaining to down the Wildcats).

This. RT @ericlilly7 No one in college can 1) Inbounds the ball and 2) get off a quality final shot

— Brian Otskey (@botskey) March 24, 2013

Why did they have to have Verbal Kent shoot the final shot?

— Ben Swain (@thedevilwolf) March 24, 2013

Do you like late-game execution? Too bad!

— SB Nation (@sbnation) March 24, 2013

Aaron Craft Goes Iso, Defeats ISU

After Aaron Craft went dagger on Iowa State, all of the following tweets were published within seven seconds of each other. I counted.

Aaron Craft can’t shoot. LOL.

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanCBS) March 24, 2013

Killa Craft.

— Evan Silva (@evansilva) March 24, 2013

lol

— Mark Ennis (@Mengus22) March 24, 2013

https://twitter.com/raphiellej/status/315893271698239490

Nevermind

— Mike Rutherford (@CardChronicle) March 24, 2013

Austin Rivers nods in approval.

— Nick Fasulo (@nickfasuloSBN) March 24, 2013

https://twitter.com/DaveKrupinski/status/315893308482256897

CRAFT. ONIONS.

— Adam Rowe (@DukeHoopBlog) March 24, 2013

https://twitter.com/Peter_R_Casey/status/315893413436338176

https://twitter.com/eamonnbrennan/status/315893423695597568

ALSDJFL;ADJFL;AJFL;ADSJFL;ADSFJ

— Shane Ryan (@ShaneRyanHere) March 24, 2013

AARON CRAFT!!!! #GoBucks

— LeBron James (@KingJames) March 24, 2013

https://twitter.com/JonRothstein/status/315893542419591168

Game: blouses.