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.

Connecticut

• DeAndre Daniels isn’t always UConn’s first option, but head coach Kevin Ollie is urging him to become a more vocal leader. “He [Daniels] didn’t say a complete sentence before he got here,” Ollie said. “You can’t shut him up now. He’s grown and he’s matured in that role. Now we’re trying to get him to get that role more on the court, where he’s more vocal and talking and being in a leadership role.”
• UConn freshman Terrence Samuels is responsible for the latest bench celebration craze: the Three-Sweep. It’s a silly dance move, but Samuels maintains that it keeps the team’s spirits high. “It helps keep the bench pumped and motivating the team,” he said.
• Although UConn coach Kevin Ollie is an outstanding motivator, Sean O’Leary from The UConn Blog argues that his in-game coaching is the reason the Huskies have made it so far.
• Everyone is making them, but UConn star Kemba Walker isn’t buying the comparisons between himself and former superstar Kemba Walker. He noted,  “At the end of the day, [Walker] took that team to a national championship and I want to do the same. But I’m going to do it a different pathway. And I’m going to be myself.”
• Though Napier denies the comparisons, he and Walker do have one thing in common: They both have incredibly supportive mothers. “Of course, she’s [Walker’s mother Andrea] here to support me,” Napier’s mother Carmen Velasquez said. “She just said, ‘We’re going to Texas, baby.’ I said, ‘Yes, we are.'”
• Could Shabazz Napier deserve National Player of the Year honors over Creighton’s Doug McDermott after leading UConn all the way to the Final Four? Some college basketball analysts seem to think he does.

Kentucky

• If Kentucky is going to win it all, the Harrison Twins are going to play a big part of it. Though they started slow and seemed immature at times, the freshman duo have figured it out and are playing their best basketball right now. “The biggest thing we had to help them with was body language,” [coach John] Calipari said. “As that changed, they became different players. The second thing was, we had to define the roles better, and I did a poor job of that until late in the year, by the end of the year. I can’t believe it. I was angry when I realized what I had done.”
• Kentucky freshman center Marcus Lee was the one of the heroes of the Wildcats’ Elite Eight victory over Michigan, and he was thrilled to receive a standing ovation during class upon his return to Lexington.
• Though he wasn’t 100 percent truthful, Kentucky coach John Calipari’s idea of entering the locker room in a casket still hit home with his team as it reached the Final Four. “He [Calipari] said he couldn’t get a casket, but I think that was fun, and it really showed us that he had faith in us,” said freshman shooting guard Aaron Harrison.
• Many had qualms with the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee’s seeding, and Kentucky’s #8 seed might be proving to be the most egregious mistake of all.
• Kentucky is all business heading into the most important weekend of the season. The Wildcats are excited to be there, but they are far from satisfied. “When you realize you’re going to the Final Four of course you’re going to celebrate, but, look,” standout freshman Julius Randle said, nodding his head toward Aaron Harrison and James Young firing jumpers on the Joe Craft Center practice floor, “guys are in the gym working right now. So we’re not done yet.”
• John Calipari and Bo Ryan are polar opposites in the way they run their teams, but at the end of the day, they both get the job done.

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1. Mike DeCourcy of Sporting News writes that Russ Smith cemented his legacy as “a competitor and gentleman” with the gracious post-game remarks he delivered after Louisville’s disappointing 74-69 loss to Kentucky in the Sweet Sixteen. The senior guard’s wide-ranging comments, a transcript of which WDRB (Louisville) columnist Eric Crawford posted on Twitter, expressed gratitude to everyone from his teammates, coaches, managers, trainers, to UK’s program and current team, whom he described as “a great group of guys” and praised individually by name. He also credited Rick Pitino for shaping him into a man and apologized to Louisville fans, saying, “I wish I could have given them the win. I’m so sorry.” DeCourcy declares that Smith “leaves the game better than he found it because of how he performed and how he carried himself.”
2. With Connecticut playing for its first Final Four of the post-Jim Calhoun era, Tim Layden writes for Sports Illustrated that Kevin Ollie’s Huskies have clawed their way back from the “brink of irrelevance.” After “disappear[ing] into a grave partly of its own making and partly from the odd and capricious forces of modern college athletic,” writes Layden, “the Huskies are back because senior Shabazz Napier is a truly transcendent college guard, a tough and spectral offensive player descended directly from his former teammate, Kemba Walker.” Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel credits Napier’s coach with his team’s display of scrappy physicality and mental stamina against a much bigger Michigan State team on Sunday, describing the Kevin Ollie coaching experience as “an endless, relentless confidence-building exercise via motivational vignettes that couldn’t have found a more perfect home than a program that was under siege.”
3. A day after Louisville’s NCAA Tournament elimination, it was widely reported that junior guard Kevin Ware would transfer. Ware told ESPN that he’d like to be closer to his family home in Atlanta, and observers have pegged Auburn as a likely destination after the Tigers hired Bruce Pearl, who originally signed Ware at Tennessee. Still, the timing seems bizarre: Ware had tweeted last week that he was “never leaving this place,” and his stepfather told The Courier-Journal that while he had been aware of Kevin’s plan to leave, “We just didn’t know he was going to tell someone today, the day after the team was eliminated.” While Ware was sidelined early in the season with injury, his experience and awareness of Rick Pitino’s defenses figured to give Ware the edge for a job in the Cardinals’ core rotation, if not their starting lineup.
4. In other AAC transfer news, Temple redshirt junior Anthony Lee has committed to play at Ohio State next season. Lee, a two-year starter for Fran Dunphy who averaged 13.6 points and 8.6 rebounds per game this season, is set to graduate this spring, and wanted an opportunity to play in front of his relatives in the Midwest before the end of his college career. He will spend his last year of eligibility as a Buckeye while enrolled in a graduate program. As expected, USF freshman Josh Heath has also elected to transfer after his father’s firing earlier in the month.
5. With or without Lee, Temple is already eager to rebound after failing to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2007. “It’s motivation, that you were on the team that kind of let everybody down, didn’t live up to the expectations everybody’s used to seeing,” said junior guard Will Cummings, who described the grueling 9-22 campaign as the season of “almost.” Coach Fran Dunphy agreed with that assessment, adding, “We were almost there. We didn’t have a lot of margin for error. It’s that kind of thing where a season can change on a game, a game can change on a play.” Daily News writer Mike Kern offers the example of Villanova’s swift turnaround as a blueprint for the Owls’ rebuilding effort, pointing out that over a span of three years, Jay Wright’s teams went from a program-record 19 losses to a program-record 28 regular-season wins.

Brian Otskey (@botskey) is RTC’s NCAA East Regional correspondent.

Three key takeaways.

1. Vintage Connecticut. Kevin Ollie only took over the Connecticut job last season but he has wasted no time in carrying on Jim Calhoun’s legacy of hard-nosed defense. The Huskies limited Michigan State to 39.1 percent shooting and, more importantly, kept them out of the paint and off the free throw line. It was a game of runs with Connecticut jumping out to an early lead, Michigan State firing back and the Huskies eventually closing the door. The Huskies did a great job limiting any dribble penetration by the Spartans and swarmed Adreian Payne any time he touched the ball deep in the post. In the end, it was consistent defense and a great game plan by Kevin Ollie and his players that carried them to the win.
2. Michigan State couldn’t get anything inside.  For the game, Michigan State was limited to six points in the paint. With Gary Harris (who had a great game) content to shoot jumpers and Keith Appling still bothered by a nagging injury, the Spartans got very little, if any, dribble penetration. When they looked for Payne in the post, he was double or even tripled teamed at times. After a great game against Virginia on Friday night, Branden Dawson (five points) was a non-factor against the physical Huskies. With Michigan State content on shooting jumpers (29 of its 46 shots were three pointers), it also had great difficulty getting to the free throw line. The inability to score inside and get to the line was Michigan State’s downfall in this game.
3. The free throw line made the difference. Coming into the game, more focus was on the great perimeter shooting both teams featured. That proved not to be the deciding factor in any way as Michigan State was 15 percentage points better than Connecticut from deep. However, it was the free throw line that won this one for the Huskies. Connecticut made 21-of-22 free throws (95.5 percent) while Michigan State only made eight trips to the charity stripe. The Spartans, who entered today’s action ranked an abysmal No. 316 in free throw rate, simply shot too many jumpers and never adjusted to what the Huskies were doing defensively in the paint. With Appling’s injury still being a factor, Michigan State just could not get any dribble penetration and their half court offense looked rather stagnant. Give the Huskies credit for not fouling, too. They recorded only 12 fouls for the game.

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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

• Dayton’s Cinderella run ended on last night, as the Flyers fell to the top-seeded Florida Gators.
• With Dayton hanging around well into the first half, Florida senior Scottie Wilbekin led the Gators to victory yet again.
• Florida center Patric Young bounced back from a rough outing against UCLA to give the Gators a huge boost in its win over Dayton. Young added 12 points and 6 rebounds, but his presence was felt mostly on the defensive end, where he had 4 blocks.
• Florida has been a mainstay in the Elite Eight for the past four years, but the Gators finally got over the hump and into the Final Four last night.
• Florida coach Billy Donovan has built a great team from top to bottom. Though the Gators don’t have anyone who is a surefire first round draft pick, they remain favorites to win it all.
• Florida and its players insist that this team is different than the other the Gator teams of the past three season that fell short of the Final Four. As we found out last night, they were right.

West Region

• Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan’s first Final Four berth was bittersweet, as it happened on his late father’s birthday. Last night, Ryan honored his father in with a victory in dramatic fashion.
• Wisconsin advanced to the Final Four last night after Arizona’s Nick Johnson was unable to get a last-second shot off in overtime.
• With last night’s win, Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan was able to shed the label of (arguably) the best coach in college basketball without a Final Four.
• Arizona’s hopes were almost completely dashed after Nick Johnson was called for a charge, giving Wisconsin the ball back. According to Sean Miller, it was just a “really, really tough call.”
• Yet again, Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky pushed the Badgers to victory. Kaminsky finished the night with 28 points and 11 rebounds, and was the only Wisconsin player who Arizona could not find a way to stop.
• Arizona had been anchored by its defense all season, but it was that same defense that let the Wildcats down last night.

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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

• Due to success on the hardwood and struggles on the gridiron, Florida is becoming more and more of a basketball school. The Gators advanced to the third round yesterday with a win over Albany.
• Colorado could have used their leading scorer Spencer Dinwiddie yesterday, as the Buffs were run out of the gym by Pittsburgh.
• Pittsburgh forward Talib Zanna dominated yesterday en route to a 77-48 rout of Colorado.
• It looks like Dayton now “owns Ohio college basketball” after a nail-biting win over its in-state rival Ohio State.
• Syracuse guard Trevor Cooney was able to find his stroke as the Orange rolled into the third round.
• VCU begins tournament play against Stephen F. Austin today. However, no matter how the Rams do, they’ll always have to live up to 2011 Final Four team.
• UCLA big men David and Travis Wear resemble a former UCLA forward who had great success in the NCAA Tournament: Ryan Hollins.
• Tulsa was only 4-9 going into January, but the Golden Hurricane battled back and now looks to pull off an upset over UCLA.
• New Mexico will have a chance for redemption after last year’s loss to Harvard, and don’t think the Lobos have forgotten about it.
• Without Joel Embiid, Kansas is coming into the tournament with an underdog mentality.

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1. Louisville has become a trendy pick to repeat as national champions, including by renowned political prognosticator, Nate Silver. Silver’s revamped FiveThirtyEight.com launched Monday with a bracket projection model giving the Cardinals a 15 percent chance to cut down the nets again — the highest percentage of any team — and a 38 percent chance of reaching the Final Four, good for third. Silver’s model gives no other AAC team even a one percent chance of winning a title; it likes UConn the most, giving the Huskies a six percent chance of reaching the final weekend. Cincinnati gets a three percent chance and Memphis a two percent chance to play into April.
2. Fran Dunphy struggled through his worst year ever at Temple, but he expects to see better results next year. The Owls’ season ended with a double-overtime loss to UCF that featured sophomore Quenton DeCosey and junior Will Cummings combining for 53 points. They’ll both be back on campus next season and will be joined by three transfers who sat out this season — Jaylen Bond from Texas, Jesse Morgan from UMass, and Devin Coleman from Clemson – along with sophomore Daniel Dingle, due back from knee surgery, and four-star recruit Obi Enechionyia. Dunphy has had a great deal of coaching success, both at Temple and across town at Penn before that, and it seems much more likely that the Owls’ bad season was a one-year aberration rather than an indication of things to come.
3. Whatever Temple does next year, it will have to do it without Anthony Lee. The redshirt junior big man, who averaged 13.6 points and 8.6 rebounds per game this year, graduates in May and will be able to transfer with one year of eligibility under the NCAA’s fifth-year transfer rule. ESPN’s Jeff Goodman tweeted that a dozen schools are interested in acquiring Lee’s services, including fellow AAC member Louisville, which of course is leaving the conference for the ACC next season.
4. Kevin Ollie has done a pretty good job since becoming the head coach at UConn, but he first made his name on the court, not the sidelines. He played on three NCAA Tournament teams at UConn before a journeyman career in the NBA that included stints with 11 teams. His longevity helped him lead the AAC coaches in CBS Sports‘ ranking of the playing careers of NCAA Tournament coaches, landing at #3 in the list. The next AAC coach was Rick Pitino at #23 for his three years and and 329 assists as point guard at UMass in the early 1970s. Josh Pastner, a four-year walk-on who got a ring with the 1997 Arizona national champions, checked in at #44, and the diminutive Mick Cronin was #62 for his high school career (cut short by bum knees) under coach (and father) Hep.
5. USF is looking for a new coach, and although some pretty big names are rumored to have interest, there’s still a certain amount of despair in Tampa. Ben Howland and Buzz Williams, among others, have already had their names attached to the job, Howland most prominently because he worked with new athletic director Mark Harlan when they were both at UCLA. Also apparently in the running is Florida assistant John Pelphrey, the former head coach at both South Alabama and Arkansas, but there remain doubts whether any coach who would take the job can get get the program where it want to be. Of course, recently fired head coach Stan Heath gave them their only two NCAA Tournament wins in school history, but he followed that up with a 6-30 conference mark over the past two years. That’s a lot closer to what USF has been historically than the little bit of fleeting March success.

With the championship of the AAC Tournament in the books, we take a look at a few of the big takeaways from Louisville’s domination over the weekend.

What went down Saturday:

• This game was not nearly as close as the final score made it seem to be. The Cardinals played defense like their hair was on fire in the first half, overwhelming Connecticut’s guard duo of Shabazz Napier and Ryan Boatright. The result was a 14-point halftime lead that Louisville stretched to more than 20 in the second half before letting the Huskies rally somewhat down the stretch. The Huskies did a great job of putting themselves in a position to win the conference tournament, but they did not have the firepower or the depth to hang with the Cardinals, a team which is clearly firing on all cylinders.
  

  Louisville dominated UConn on Saturday. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

• Montrezl Harrell continues to be the primary reason why the Cardinals have looked so much better in the last month. UConn’s frontcourt issues are well-documented, so it shouldn’t be particularly surprising that Harrell had a big day against them. But with 22 points on 9-of-14 shooting, 11 rebounds, and three blocks, Harrell was the best player on the floor and Louisville fans should be thrilled that he has finally emerged. Harrell has always had the skill set to be this good but his recent explosion has coincided with a sudden influx of confidence. You can just tell that Harrell now goes after rebounds as if he knows he will get it, and he attacks the rim like no one is going to stop him — which has been mostly true. If he keeps playing like this in the NCAA Tournament, Louisville will not be a fun team for anybody to play.
• The other big takeaway from the game on Saturday night is that Louisville’s defense is ready for the NCAA Tournament. The Cards dominated UConn in the first half, and if it wasn’t for big games from DeAndre Daniels and Amida Brimah, the Huskies’ shooting percentages would be very ugly. Napier and Boatright combined to shoot 7-of-22 from the field, and Russ Smith collected five steals for the Cardinals that helped Rick Pitino’s team put the game out of reach early.

With the semifinals of the AAC Tournament in the books, we take a look at a few of the big takeaways from Friday, as well as storylines to keep in mind on Saturday.

Sean Kilpatrick came tantalizingly close to hitting this shot, but it fell off the rim and UConn advanced to the AAC title game. (AP/M. Humphrey)

What went down on Friday

• Russ Smith came out on fire and never really let up, dropping a career-high 42 points (on 14-22 shooting, including 5-7 from three) on Houston in another impressive Louisville victory, 94-65. While the scoring outburst was impressive, it’s on the defensive end that Rick Pitino’s team is separating itself; in its four-game winning streak, they have forced more than 20 turnovers and held their foes under 40 percent shooting three times each. The Cardinals have now won their past three games by an average of 41 points and have people talking about the potential of the Cards grabbing a #1 seed. While that remains unlikely, with the way they are playing right now, no one wants to see them in their bracket on Sunday.
• For about 10 minutes of game time in the second half, UConn exposed Cincinnati’s Achilles heel: The Bearcats can’t shoot. They rank outside the top 200 in both two-point field goal percentage and three-point field goal percentage this season. From 14:00 to 4:00 on the game clock, the Bearcats shot 1-of-14 from the field with two turnovers, scoring two points and turning a four-point lead into an eight-point deficit. They then almost crawled out of the hole they had dug, scoring 13 points in the last 3:30 on three three-pointers, a dunk, and two free throws. Down two with 11 seconds left, they got the ball where they wanted, into the hands of star guard Sean Kilpatrick. He got to the basket and had a great look, putting up a layup that touched every part of the rim before rolling off. And so UConn was able to hold on to a valuable win, while Cincinnati goes in search of a jump shot before the big tournament starts next week.

What’s on tap for Saturday

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With the first round of the AAC Tournament in the books, we take a look at a few of the big takeaways from Wednesday night, as well as story lines to keep in mind on Thursday.

What went down on Wednesday

• Rutgers completed a three-win sweep of South Florida, making the Bulls the only AAC team who failed to beat the Scarlet Knights this season. It was a frustrating loss for USF fans, whose team missed six consecutive free throws in the second half and couldn’t quite get over the hump. Victor Rudd had 22 points and seven rebounds but ended his USF career on a low note, losing an offensive rebound on a missed Rutgers free throw that all but sealed the deal for Eddie Jordan’s club.
• UCF won, in spite of Donnie Jones. From the moment when Isaiah Sykes nailed a long three while getting hit in the face late in regulation, Temple seemed destined to let another close game slip away. But Jones kept the Owls in the game, inexplicably benching his best player and hot hand for the first three minutes of the first overtime and two minutes of the second overtime. Sykes had amassed 32 of his career-high 36 points in regulation, including six crucial points in the closing minutes, but it was senior forward Tristan Spurlock who saved the day with his defense in overtime, highlighted by two blocks in 20 seconds. For Temple, it was a merciful end to a season full of near misses.

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As we head into the postseason, RTC AAC Microwriters Mike Lemaire, Will Tucker and Ross Schulz preview the very first American conference tournament through the prism of three key questions.

Louisville has the look of a team peaking at the right time. In the past week, they became the first team to beat SMU at home and then smashed UConn. Is there any reason to think the Cardinals won’t cut down the nets in Memphis?

• Mike: The Cardinals deserve to be the odds-on favorite for the AAC Tournament because of the way they have played down the stretch but they certainly aren’t bullet-proof. They proved that at the beginning of the month when they lost to Memphis and scraped past Cincinnati by one point. Montrezl Harrell and Russ Smith are two of the best players at their positions in the country and the Cardinals are more balanced than the Bearcats or anyone else for that matter. But if Chris Jones and Luke Hancock struggle and the opposition lock down Smith and Harrell, the Cardinals could lose to a team with more to gain.

Will the defending champs add the first ever AAC crown to their impressive resume?

• Will: The Cardinals continue to be a very poor free throw shooting team, and players they’ve traditionally considered automatic from the stripe are trending in the wrong direction. Russ Smith, whose free throw accuracy has decreased from 80 to 70 percent this season, hit 6 of 11 in the past three games, while Luke Hancock – an 82 percent shooter – has completed only 10 of 17 over the same time frame.

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