March Madness is finally upon us, and we here at RTC are here to make everything a little bit easier for you. From the First Four until One Shining Moment, we’ll be dropping daily tidbits of knowledge regarding the teams in each region.

South Region

• Naturally, the experienced Florida Gators were led by their seniors to a Sweet Sixteen berth.
• After a tough loss to Florida, Pittsburgh now must say goodbye to senior leaders Talib Zanna and Lamar Patterson.
  
• Dayton coach Archie Miller knows his team deserved to win, but even he knows that the Flyers were fortunate to catch Syracuse on an off night.
• In its third round loss to Dayton, Syracuse had a historically awful three-point shooting night.
• Stephen F. Austin’s Desmond Haymon is from a small town in Massachusetts, but made national headlines this week with “the play of the NCAA Tournament.”
• UCLA won a tight game in its second round match-up, and their road isn’t getting any easier with a tough Stephen F. Austin team on the horizon.
• Kansas will once again be without freshman big man Joel Embiid in their game today against Stanford.
• For a team that struggled to get into the NCAA Tournament, Stanford has a chance to make program history if it can score a win over #2 seed Kansas.

West Region

• Today, Gonzaga and #1 seed Arizona will relive a 2003 instant classic.
• Though they’re usually the cream of the mid-major crop, Gonzaga has little pressure on it going into its game against Arizona.
• North Dakota State coach Saul Phillips went as far as crying during his postgame press conference as the Bison’s NCAA journey ended yesterday.
• San Diego State’s Xavier Thames led the Aztecs with 30 points as they took down cinderella North Dakote State.
• Baylor point guard Kenny Chery hopes to lead the Bears past Doug McDermott and Creighton.
• Creighton will have to successfully deal with Baylor’s zone if it wants to advance to the Sweet Sixteen.
• Two-seed Wisconsin needed a furious second half rally to come out on top of Oregon yesterday.
• After blowing a big second half lead, Wisconsin arguably taught Oregon “an NCAA lesson.”

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Three days of the NCAA Tournament are in the books and we’re already down to 24 teams remaining with eight more coming off the Circle of March today. Let’s get to it…

Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.22.14)

• Pittsburgh
• Saint Louis
• Texas
• North Dakota State
• Syracuse
• Villanova
• Oregon 
• Harvard

Rush the Court will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of each of the NCAA Tournament from each of the 13 sites this year. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCeastregion, @RTCMWregion,@RTCsouthregion and @RTCwestregion. Kenny Ocker is an RTC columnist and correspondent. He is covering the Spokane pods of the East and West regionals this week. 

Three Key Takeaways.

Dayton is headed to the Sweet Sixteen. (Photo : reuters).

1. Dayton meant business. Dayton guard Vee Sanford (the hero on Thursday) said during Friday’s press conference that he saw Syracuse as “just another game” and repeatedly mentioned the team’s business-like approach entering Saturday. If the Flyers’ performance tonight was any indication, that sentiment was genuine. Archie Miller’s guys – showing no signs of an upset-hangover – were sharp defensively and made a concerted effort to penetrate the teeth of the Orange 2-3 zone on offense. In the second half, they looked for more outside shots, crisply rotating the ball and nailing six big threes in the final 20 minutes. The game plan was deliberate, the players were focused, and the positive results followed – a berth in the Sweet Sixteen.
2. More resilience from the Flyers. Syracuse took a three-point lead with about eight minutes remaining – its largest of the night – and looked to be on the cusp of a big run. It could have been the moment where Dayton fell apart and the Orange, with its roaring crowd, ran away with victory. Instead, the Flyers responded with a four-point possession to retake the lead, knocked down big free throws down the stretch, and never surrendered their advantage. Just like it did against the Buckeyes, Miller’s group showed its ability to counterpunch after taking a few in the chin.
3. Shooting woes crippled Syracuse. Syracuse guard Trevor Cooney shot 6-of-33 in his team’s five losses entering Saturday night. Against Dayton, he finished 0-of-5 from behind the arc. But it wasn’t just the sophomore: As a team, the Orange shot a dismal 0-of-10 from distance and could never find much of a groove offensively. Forward Jerami Grant played a big role in the win over Western Michigan but was virtually non-existent tonight. Syracuse looked more like the team everyone questioned in the season’s final month than the one that started off 25-0.

Star of the Game. Dyshawn Pierre (14 points, six rebounds). For the second straight game, Pierre knocked down some huge free throws to keep the Flyers in control in the game’s final moments. The shots were especially crucial following a key miss at the line by teammate Devin Oliver.

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Rush the Court will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of each of the NCAA Tournament from each of the 13 sites this year. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCeastregion, @RTCMWregion,@RTCsouthregion and @RTCwestregion.

Three Key Takeaways.

Luke Hancock Seems to Always Save the Day

1. Ugly Wins Are Still Wins. Wins are wins, and NCAA Tournament wins are NCAA Tournament wins, but for the second consecutive game, Louisville got into a rockfight with a team that wanted to play uglyball. And uglyball they played, which is yet another reason why these Cardinals are so dangerous in the NCAA Tournament. Rick Pitino’s team would prefer to get up and down the floor and score in transition, but when called upon, they can also get into these defensive slugfests and still come through victorious. How does 12-of-33 shooting from a starting backcourt sound? How about 16-of-24 from the line? What about 19 turnovers? It wasn’t a pretty weekend for Rick Pitino’s team here in Orlando, but they’ve survived and advanced, and that’s all that matters.
2. At Some Point Luke Hancock Won’t Come Through, Right? On Thursday night it was Hancock’s steal, bucket and back-to-back treys that finally gave his team the breathing room it needed to put away a scrappy Albany team. Today it was his back-to-back threes to break Saint Louis’ momentum coming out of the half that allowed the Cards to regain their footing with a workable margin (8-10 points in this game was like 15-18 points in most). His 21 points on 6-0f-15 shooting wasn’t highly efficient, but it more than picked up for this teammates Russ Smith and Chris Jones, who combined for 6-of-18 shooting and spent much of the game mired in a funk. But as already mentioned, Hancock’s greatest value over the weekend was more the timeliness of his shooting and play-making than his overall numbers.
3. Saint Louis Got the Game It Wanted. It just couldn’t take complete advantage. An 0h-fer from the three-point line (0-of-16) did not help, especially considering that the Billikens came in shooting a solid 36.6 percent from distance and gathering 31.1 percent of its total points from there. But defensively Saint Louis did what it wanted, and it showed in the Louisville players’ frustration for much of the game. The problem was on the offensive end — stop us if you’re heard this before. Saint Louis experienced too many long scoring droughts for the Billikens to make a sustained run — seven minutes in the first half; five minutes in the second — and Louisville, despite its awful foul shooting rate — wasn’t about to fall into the late-game trap that NC State blindly wandered into two days ago.

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Rush the Court will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of each of the NCAA Tournament from each of the 13 sites this year. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCeastregion, @RTCMWregion,@RTCsouthregion and @RTCwestregion.

Three Key Takeaways.

Scottie Wilbekin Was Today’s Star for the Gators

1. A Defensive Clinic. Thirty minutes into today’s game, the score was 38-27 and Pitt had put up a grand total of three points in the second half. The margin may have only been 11 at the time, but considering how sparse the open looks were for the Panthers, most everyone in the building strongly felt that the game was already over. And it was. Even though Pitt finally found a few openings to knock down 18 more points before the game was finished, the Panthers never really threatened and Florida more or less rode some timely buckets by Scottie Wilbekin to the convincing win. Other than Arizona and maybe Louisville, there isn’t a better half-court defense left in this NCAA Tournament, which makes the Gators an extremely tough out.
2. A Team of No Stars. Wilbekin made some excellent offensive plays tonight, and the Gators are outstanding at running their offense and finding proper spacing in it, but I still have moderate concerns about their lack of a true offensive star in this lineup. Maybe it ultimately won’t matter — greater than the sum of their parts, and all that — but it doesn’t feel like grinding away games in the 60s is going to lead to a championship. Somewhere along the way the Florida offense is going to have to prove it can score to keep up with a hot group of playmakers, and they’ll have to prove that they’re up to the task.
3. Pitt Had a Nice Overachieving Season. Coming into this year, probably not many expected that Jamie Dixon’s squad would end up in the round of 32, but there they were. There was a lot of griping about their lack of quality wins this season and the rest of it, but 26 wins and a fifth-place finish in the new-look ACC with a nice conference tourney victory over North Carolina is nothing to sneeze at. This is especially so given the limited offensive options that Dixon had at his disposal this year — Lamar Patterson was a revelation as a senior, but there were no other reliable scorers on this roster. With Patterson and second-leading scorer Talib Zanna graduating, it’ll be interesting to see which of a host of young players including James Robinson, Michael Young and Josh Newkirk can develop for his program.

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Down to 32, let’s keep it rolling.

Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.21.14)

• Duke
• Nebraska
• New Mexico
• Weber State
• Louisiana-Lafayette
• Massachusetts
• Eastern Kentucky
• Cal Poly
• Oklahoma State
• George Washington
• Providence
• VCU
• Coastal Carolina
• North Carolina Central
• Tulsa
• Kansas State

March Madness is finally upon us, and we here at RTC are here to make everything a little bit easier for you. From the First Four until One Shining Moment, we’ll be dropping daily tidbits of knowledge regarding the teams in each region.

South Region

• Florida coach Billy Donovan has built an outstanding program, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t interested in the NBA.
• Florida is the number one overall seed, but one thing Pittsburgh will not be today is intimidated.
• Coach Shaka Smart was pleased with the effort, but ultimately VCU fell to Stephen F. Austin in the bizarre final moments.
• With a reputation for not getting it done in the NCAA Tournament, UCLA coach Steve Alford has gained some relief after pulling away from the near upset by Tulsa.
• VCU seemingly pulled away, but a four point play from Dezmond Haymon resurrected underdog Stephen F. Austin and brought them to victory.
• Syracuse’s defense is suffocating in the half court, so Dayton will be looking to make today’s game a track meet.
• Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim isn’t convinced that Dayton will be able to get up and down against the Orange. “The pace of the game,” Boeheim said, “is dictated by whoever has the basketball.”
• After scoring a huge win yesterday over New Mexico, Stanford is ready to pull off the upset against a most likely Embiid-less Kansas.
• For the second straight season, New Mexico’s season has ended in disappointing fashion. The Lobos were down 20-4 early, but couldn’t quite come all the way back.
• Kansas did not look good in their opening matchup, but eventually pulled away from Eastern Kentucky behind 19 from freshman sensation Andrew Wiggins.

West Region

• Weber State was with them for a while, but Arizona came to its senses and took down the other Wildcats.
• Potentially bound for the NBA, Oklahoma State sophomore Marcus Smart had his NCAA Tournament hopes crushed by Gonzaga yesterday. In particular, Smart was seemingly “frustrated” by the officials.
• Despite going up against a trendy “upset” pick, Gonzaga never trailed in its victory over Oklahoma State.
• Baylor nearly gave it up late, but the Bears ultimately held tough and took down Nebraska.
• Nebraska was frustrated by Baylor all day, and their struggles carried over to coach Tim Miles as he was ejected midway through the second half.
• Late three point shooting helped Doug McDermott and Creighton survive a scare against UL-Lafayette.
• As an underdog that pulled a huge upset, is North Dakota State “America’s team?”
• Even though San Diego State beat New Mexico State, coach Steve Fisher was angry at the NCAA for its policy of making the losing team fly home after a late-night loss.
• Oregon has reaped major benefits from transfers, but is this model sustainable?
• Wisconsin certainly comes into today’s game as the favorite, but Oregon’s athleticism could give the Badgers problems.

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Rush the Court will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of each of the NCAA Tournament from each of the 13 sites this year. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCeastregion, @RTCMWregion,@RTCsouthregion and @RTCwestregion.

Three Key Takeaways.

1. UCLA Defense. Let’s face it, the star of the show in most UCLA games is going to be the Bruins’ highly efficient offense, currently ranked 13th in the nation. Future pros abound and even those without professional futures are above-average offensive players. But for this team to make a run in this Tournament, they need to be able to improve upon what was a defensive slide late in the regular season. Last week in the Pac-12 Tournament, they took the first steps down that path, and they continued that today. They focused in on Tulsa’s leading scorer and rebounder James Woodard,  making sure that he wouldn’t beat them, and in the deciding second half, they limited him to a single point. Down the stretch, after the Golden Hurricane had pulled to within five points, the Bruins held them to just two points over the next seven possessions and forced three turnovers along the way. The Bruins’ offense is a given; but when they turn up the defense is when they can become special.
   

   Norman Powell’s Defensive Intensity And Transition Explosiveness Are A Key To UCLA’s Success (Associated Press)

2. Norman Powell. Of all the talented UCLA guards this season, it seems Powell – the team’s third starting guard – has flown under the radar somehow. Kyle Anderson and Jordan Adams are all-conference types, Zach LaVine earned plenty of buzz with his phenomenal start to the season; and of course, Bryce Alford has been the subject of plenty of talk. But Powell has been rock solid all year. Maybe the team’s best perimeter defender, he’s a whirlwind in transition and a more-than-capable performer in the half-court offense. And tonight, down the stretch, he was Adams’ running mate, regularly making big-time plays on the way to transition hoops. Most spectacularly, with just over four minutes left and UCLA starting to run away, Powell ran under a long Tulsa pass in the backcourt, like a free safety tracking an errant bomb, corralled the ball, tip-toed along the baseline to remain in bounds, then turned, attacked the rim and finished with the hoop and the harm to put a nail in Tulsa’s coffin. All told, UCLA outscored Tulsa 21-5 on points off of turnovers, a big part of which came off of plays by Powell and Adams. Read the rest of this entry »

Rush the Court will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of each of the NCAA Tournament from each of the 13 sites this year. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCeastregion, @RTCMWregion,@RTCsouthregion and @RTCwestregion.

Three Key Takeaways.

Joe Harris and Virginia Avoided History by Rallying to Beat Coastal Carolina(USA Today).

1. History was almost made and almost repeated. Coastal Carolina came very close to being the first #16 seed to knock off a #1 tonight. The Chanticleers, champions of the Big South Conference, took it to the ACC champions in the first half. Virginia trailed by as many as 10 points and went into the break staring at a 35-30 score in favor of the overwhelming underdogs. For old-time ACC fans, today brought back memories of a similar situation that is known as “Black Saturday.” In the 1979 NCAA East Regionals held in this same city of Raleigh, Duke and North Carolina both fell in huge upsets in back-to-back games.
2. For the first time in a long time Virginia did not look like Virginia. On the way to winning the ACC regular season and tournament titles, the Cavaliers went 19-2 with the only losses coming on a last possession lucky-bounce three at Duke, and an overtime loss at Maryland. Throughout that long stretch of games, Virginia has been a model of consistency, mostly winning with defense and rebounding. But in the first half tonight, a different Cavaliers team showed up. Against a Virginia defense that allows only 38.5 percent shooting for the season, Coastal Carolina made 52 percent of their first half attempts. Things were even more surprising on the boards. The Cavaliers did not grab a single offensive rebound in the game and finished tied in total rebounds (28 each). Virginia actually won with its offense in the second half tonight, shooting 65 percent and making 6-of-10 from three point range. Read the rest of this entry »

Rush the Court will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of each of the NCAA Tournament from each of the 13 sites this year. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCeastregion, @RTCMWregion,@RTCsouthregion and @RTCwestregion. Three Key Takeaways.

SFA Celebrates an Historic Win For Its Program

1. Madness. With four minutes left, Stephen F. Austin was down 10 points, was having little success navigating VCU’s press, and looked to be wrapping up a nice but otherwise unmemorable season. And then a hard-earned late-clock layup from Thomas Walkup, followed by a forced turnover and a Jacob Parker three started a run. They still remained down four with 10 seconds left, sending VCU to the line for a pair of free throws, and all but left for dead. Two missed free throws later, a Desmond Haymon three dropped and he helped sucker an official into calling a foul on the shot. Following a timeout, he came back out and knocked in one of the most cold-blooded free throws you’ll ever see to force overtime. At that point, the Lumberjacks had the crowd fully on its side, dodged a last-second three from JeQuan Lewis that seemed to be dying to go through the rim, and improbably advanced to the round of 32. Oh, and like 10 other things that my disheveled brain can’t begin to process yet happened in the middle there too. Phenomenal.
2. Who’s Stephen F. Austin? If you’ve looked for it, you’ve heard analysts from all over the college basketball world tell you since Sunday about the chances that Stephen F. Austin would have against VCU today. And you know what? Most of it was nonsense. How many people saw them play more than once or twice all season long? A handful? Well, we got to know this team quickly as a scrappy, undersized, hard-working bunch that features plenty of solid ball-handlers and good decision-makers — the type of team that could withstand VCU’s havoc and keep things close. In the first half, they quickly won over the Viejas Arena crowd and earned themselves a lot of fans, those same people who turned into assets late in regulation and in overtime. As we saw late in the game, this is also a team that has a little bit of magic on its side.
3. Havoc. In the first half, Stephen F. Austin handled the VCU press about as well as could be hoped, turning it over just five times in 31 possessions. But things changed drastically in the second half as the Lumberjacks wilted under the Rams’ havoc.  They turned it over nine times on their first 17 possessions and a 10-point lead early in the second half turned into an 11-point deficit after a 24-3 VCU run between the 18:42 and 8:23 marks of the second half. SFA’s nine turnovers turned into seven layups, two dunks and a three for VCU, but in the final 8:23 of regulation plus the five-minute overtime, the ‘Jacks only turned it over three more times.

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